The Power of Man’s Conscience

The conscience of a normal person does not tell him to kill his brother. Even the so called nonbelievers defend their brothers when there is nothing to gain from it. If you don’t believe this, find people you consider wicked and start beating their close friends. You can be sure of what you will meet next. But why yet this ‘evil’ person has no knowledge or conviction of heaven and hell? He does not defend his brother so that he can inherit the kingdom of God. In fact men can help one another even when there is absolutely nothing to gain from it. I even wonder how a doctrine like evolution can explain this since in the theory, the characteristics of the organism which remains are those which benefit that organism. I leave you to think about how comes there are characteristics which favour another organism which is also a competitor for few food in your own vicinity like your own brother. But there is something in the innermost being which compels a person to defend those around their vicinity. It is the power of conscience.

Some Christians tend to think that a non believer has absolutely no good in them. However, it is easy to see that if it was so, no one could repent since it already takes a good heart to repent. Also, if the converse was true, that is there is absolutely nothing bad inherent in a Christian, it would be logically impossible for a Christian to re-become a non believer simply because it already takes an evil heart to doubt. Upon close observation conclusions imply that you only have freewill during the infinitesimal time of repentance. When you are evil, you have no choice but to be evil and when you are good, you have no choice but to be good, perfect automations for all the time apart from the microseconds during the periods of repentance. Of course that which causes a person to abruptly acquire a free will would remain as mysterious as that which causes God to exist.

It is save to hold that even a non believer who is not yet convinced that Jesus is Christ not only can know what is right but can choose to do the right and reject evil. This is contrary to the common doctrine that a non believer cannot do any of the above two. Let us examine if the bible teaches this;

“For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) Romans 2:14.

If conscience can guide a person not only to know good and evil but also to reject evil and choose good, what is the use of believing that Jesus died on the cross for our sins? To answer this question, we must first of all understand the manner in which a man’s conscience guides him to know what is good, to know what is evil, choose what is good and reject what is evil. We know that we have done wrong when we fill guilty in our innermost beings. Now guilt is something experienced but it is hard to explain it definitively. Christians should know that if whatever thing affects our conscience such that we no longer feel guilty even when we do something which others feel guilty when they do, then we are no longer normal human beings and of course we cannot blame an abnormal person for whatever he does. Examples on the extremes are the mad men. Their consciences are affected. However, there are things which can in fact vary from one person to another without one necessarily having to be mad in that we will lack a precise definition of madness. Some Christians hold that there is a rigid, absolute way to determine how we ought to fill guilty. As usual, as a Christian, it is not enough for a doctrine to sound right in our itchy ears we must see if the bible teaches such a doctrine. Consider the following verse;

“So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God, blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves, but the man who has doubts is condemned. If he eats, but because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not co me from faith is sin.” Romans 14:22

Within a normal range of actions to be guilty of or not such as ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ so that a person differing in guilt conscience concerning them cannot be regarded as mad and hence fully responsible for those range of actions, a more precise and insightful definition of sin goes like this; Sin is any action that does not come from faith in God. The other common definition of sin as transgression of the law is a special case of the former definition when we hold the factor of guilt conscience constant. For instance the actions of a mad man cannot be meaningfully called sinful even though he transgresses the law of God. Since within the range of actions which when done you cannot be regarded as mad, we are told in the above verse that how we judge determines how we fill guilty, it follows that we can be condemned merely because of how we judge not because it is inherently sinful to fill guilty but because guilt conscience is a sure sign that something is wrong with your faith in God.

We have seen that the guilt conscience tells us that we have sinned. This guilt remains within us until we become convinced that we are forgiven in what is termed as cleansing of conscience. In Old Testament, when the Jews did the yearly atonement, their consciences were usually cleansed and they could no longer feel guilty for their sins. Now this cleansing of conscience helps to remove the doubt whether you are right with God or not and hence you do not sin in your innermost. You sin when you do nothing even when you feel guilty since your state (doing nothing) will not come from faith. Read again Romans 14:22.

The writer of the book of Hebrews teaches us that the Old Testament tradition was not enough to remove the guilt conscience. The sign that it was not enough was that it needed to be repeated yearly endlessly because by the end of the year, they felt again guilty and found the need to once again atone for their sins. He goes ahead and teaches that there is a heavenly priest who once came to earth to suffer for our sins. If we can but believe that the live of this person and his suffering and death is an atonement for our sins, then our consciences are completely cleansed and we can thus leave a life of faith in God and hence a sinless life. This is contrasted with the belief that we are supposed to leave according to certain set of rules. The belief in rules only serves to impart condemnation to our innermost beings without a stronger power to cleanse the resultant guilty conscience. We must believe that we are righteous before God because He loves us but not because of what we have done. The philosophy of the Old Testament is; whenever an unclean thing touches something clean, the clean thing becomes unclean while the philosophy of the New Testament is that whenever a clean person touches an unclean person then the unclean person becomes clean. This is what the clean Jesus does. About the omnipresent Holy God, I urge you to think about it. Remember that the heaven, that is God’s dwelling place, is a holy place.

A man who do not even have the bible and obey God will be declared righteous but he who do not have the bible and do not obey God will not. But how does a man who does not have the bible know the requirement of God and obey them? By the requirement of God being written in his heart-he was created to do the requirements of God. As a result, the law of God acts as a program which runs the man, just as a program (set of instructions) can run a machine so that it does what the programmer would like it to do. Similarly, God placed a program in our hearts which guides us to do things according to his will. When do men know when they are doing wrong? The above verses tell us that their thoughts accuse them and their conscience is their witness when they are doing right. It is evident your own thoughts accuse you before the Lord when disobey him and it is your conscience that will defend you before the Lord on judgment day. Take note that our own thoughts are part of God’s creation, the mind was created by God specifically to guide us to do his will.

“So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God, blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves, but the man who has doubts is condemned. If he eats, but because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not co me from faith is seen.” Romans 14:22

Here Paul is giving as a hint on other definition of sin. Paul is using ‘eating’ here not because it is a light issue. If you think so, look at this;

“…’those consecrate and purify themselves to go into the gardens following the one in the midst of those who eat the flesh of pigs and rats and other abominable things-they will meet their end together,’ declares the Lord.” Isaiah 66:17

This is a statement from the very mouth of the Lord through his prophet and scripture cannot be broken. Who is Isaiah? He is the prophet of God and;

“Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven .” Mathew 5:19.

Get to understand that the scripture properly, do not rush into drawing conclusions just because you have heard other people say so. According to Isaiah 66:17, sin caused by improper eating is not least abomination. What do you understand by ‘abomination’? Abomination is a sin punishable by death and death alone! If you doubt, look at this verse;

“….for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:8

By ‘mere’ eating we were all condemned to death. Do you think Saul did a ‘great’ sin that God rejected him as king over Israel? No, he did a ‘good’ thing when he was told by God to do a ‘bad’ thing. (Get to understand my point of thought appropriately.) The lord told him to do what we would call it today ‘genocide’ (remember Saddam Hussein) and Saul did what we call today ‘humanity.’ He saved life but the Lord rebuked him saying,

“To obey is better than sacrifices and to heal is better than the fat of rams.” 1 Samuel 15:22

Read the whole chapter of 15 to see what I ‘am talking about. Understand that the importance of God’s commands are not perceivable in the command themselves, the commands of God are written as ‘codes’ as used by Paul. Do not ask what am I commanded to do, ask who is giving out the command. If you get convicted that it is the Lord who is telling you to kill a housefly and you do the contrary then you commit a sin of rebellion against the Lord, a sin punishable by the destruction of the splendor of His coming.

“For he who said, ‘do not commit adultery’ also said, ‘do not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have a law breaker.” James 2:11

Visualize here that James is telling us that the importance of the commandment is not inherent in the commandment but in the commander. If we are fully convinced that the same commander gave certain set of rules then all those rules have equal weight.

Now if the weight of the commandment is on the commander, then a man will not sin if he is not convinced that certain commands come from God. The power of sin is not inherent in the sin but inherent in the conviction that it is sin, such a man do not wish to disobey God, the problem is that he is not convinced on the requirement of God. That is why;

“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” 1 Corinthians 15:56

What does the law do? It convince people that sin is sin, making it powerful so that when a person do certain things which earlier own was right in his conscience. It is no longer right since it no longer come from faith in God. Doing those things will show that he has no faith in God and thus he will have sinned. Read again Romans 14:22.

Read through the whole chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 and notice that Paul is describe a blessed hope spoken of through prophet Hosea when he said (sense also the solemness of Hosea’s word);

“I will ransom them from the power of the grave

I will redeem them from death

Where o death are your plagues

Where o grave is your sting (destruction)”

Has this been fulfilled in anyone? If so, then he no longer has any hope and thus no faith because;

“Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1 and,

“Not only so but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies for in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all who hopes for what he already has but if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” Romans 8:23

If you have been already adopted as son of God, you have been ransomed from the power of grave; you have been redeemed from death. In your body the sting of death has been removed, (you have been redeemed from your own body). Then what are you still hoping for? What are your what are you still sure of which you have not seen? Where is your faith?

Our greatest hope is to do the will of God yet the sting of death is still there but he did not find it that is why he asked, “Where o death is your sting?”

Hence, the bible gives us hope that we will one day do God’s will according to the dictates of our conscience at that day we will fully see the Power of Man’s Conscience. Sin will be permanently destroyed by mere removing its power, the law!

Final Judgement and ‘Eternal Torment’

It is believed that at the end of the present age there will be a Judgement. This judgement will determine the overall fate of our afterlife. In general, the righteous people will be greatly rewarded and the wicked people will be greatly punished. Some believe that the great punishment of the wicked will be the eternal death whereby there is completely no hope for further resurrection. Some believe that the punishment will be an eternal torment. Here we will find out what the Bible teaches about the final Judgement, rewards and punishment. We will find particularly whether the doctrine of eternal torment is a sound one or not. The notion of eternal torment is found more directly only in the book of Revelation and slightly hinted in the Gospel books. We will examine closely for the meaning of several verses containing the notion which is normally interpreted to mean Eternal Torment.

“And the Devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” Revelation 20:10

This is not easy to decipher as the beast, false prophet and the dragon are heavy symbols of dominions, empires, human establishments and angelic establishments ‘in abstract’. We should not read the book of Revelation without considering that almost every theme is expressed heavily symbolically. We should not fixate too much on visualizing the visual images painted. This will for sure drift us away. Rather, we should look behind the image for interpretation; the rest of the bible certainly will help us. Unlike other books which we get direct massage, Revelation has, and must be interpreted to get its true meanings. If for example you say the burning sulfur described above is literal fire, then for it to be a torment, it must torment leaving creatures. This will mean that you are actually saying the beast and the dragon described are literal creatures; a tragic flaw in interpretation. Ask yourself, how can a kingdom in abstract be tormented in a literal fire? It is clear that John is painting abstract thing (things that have mental reality like joy, sadness etc, but not physical reality like volume, mass etc) in picture as though they are physical manifestations. However, use your good judgement to know when to opt to interpret even when reading the rest of the Bible; it is quite easy to notice parables and direct massages. For example, look at the this verses;

“..…Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.” Revelation 14:8

Do you visualize here literal adultery, literal wine and literal madness? If you do, then you must be visualizing Babylon to be a literal woman, another tragic flaw of interpretation! Look at this help;

“You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup large and deep. It will bring scorn and derision for it holds so much. You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, the cup of ruin and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria.” Ezekiel 23:32-33

Drinking, sorrow and sisters are known to be phenomenon association to persons but what does it mean to say Israel in abstract is drinking, suffering and has a sister? But we are told that the cup she is drinking is not a cup of wine .it is “the cup of desolation” desolation is not a physical manifestation it is an abstract term. It is however described as though it was a physical cup. Revelation is not the only book to use symbols. Ancient prophecies also used symbols. This style seem strange in New Testament .when you read the book of revelation carefully, you will find out that it does not speak of the eternal torment as the final punishment to any person but rather, it speak of a symbolically for final fate of wicked abstract systems. Bear in mind also that the book of revelation is revelation and not a book of seals so we should be able to understand its message as clearly as crystal.

Apart from carefully determining whether a message is literal or symbolic, we should also be careful to get exactly the message from the verse. We should also be careful in determining what we cannot conclude with certainty from a verse or a chapter. Consider the following verse;

“He too will drink of the wine of God’s furry which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath .he will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holly angles and the smock of their torment rises forever and ever.”Revelation 14:10

When we are careful, we can’t conclude from the above verse that the torment is to last forever. Indeed there is a torment but we cannot conclude with certainty that it will go on forever. We can however conclude with certainty that the smock of the torment will rise forever. We ask the question, does the statement ‘the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever’ symbolizes that the ones described to be tormented will be tormented forever or does it symbolizes something else? When trying to unlock the symbolic message as we have seen, we should seek help from the rest of the bible and here we seek help from ancient prophecy which also used symbols and particularly the symbol of smoke and sulfur. The following verses will help us to understand what ‘smoke’ may symbolize;

“Edom streams will be turned into pitch her dust into burning sulfur; her land will become blazing pitch! It will not be quenched night and day; its smoke will rise forever and ever.” Isaiah 34:9-10

Notice this verse also;

“The desert and screech owl will possess it, the great owl and raven will nest there.” Isaiah 35:11.

So the burning sulfur described in Isaiah 35:9-10 are not literal as the desert creatures in Isaiah 34:11 will not leave in burning sulfur, nor is the smoke raising forever a literal smock.

Look at how another prophet say about the punishment of Edom;

“I swear by myself, declares the lord that the Bozrah will become a ruin and an object of horror, of reproach and of cursing and all its towns will be in ruins forever.” Jeremiah 49:13

“Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame; you will be destroyed forever. Obadiah 10

Read the whole book of Obadiah and compare with Jeremiah 49:&-22 to see how they are similar, remember that Edom is the land of Esau. Obadiah tells us that Edom will have an everlasting ruin and thus everlasting shame, it is this shame which Isaiah; speaking about Edom is describing as the smock rising forever. (Isaiah 35:9-10)

Apply the same interpretation to Revelation to Revelation 14:10

“Multitude of those who sleep on the dust of the earth will awake; some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt” Daniel 12:2

Others will not have everlasting life but will have an everlasting shame figuratively their smock will rise forever, shame and contempt symbolized by the smock.

You may attempt to argue logically that since Jesus will say,

“….depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Mathew 25:4-5

And the place where the Devil will go is as described in Revelation 19:10

When you do so, bear in mind that they will go to where the Devil and his angles will go but it is not written that they will leave there as long as the Devil.

When you also read verses like these;

“They will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Mathew 25:46

And;

“….they serves as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.” Jude 7.

Remember that a death which one will not raise again can also be termed as eternal punishment. Eternal punishment is not synonymous to eternal torment, or Eternal fire synonymous to it. It is the fire that lives for ever since somewhere we are told God is a consuming fire and he will be a wall of fire protecting Zion, God is the internal fire.

Jude 7 is from a passage which is very similar to this passage which says;

“If he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes and made them example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.” 2 Peter 2:6

Jude says Sodom and Gomorrah are example to those who will suffer the punishment of eternal fire and peter says burning to ashes, as done to Sodom and Gomorrah is example to what will happen to the ungodly. Hence, eternal fire is the fire that destroys completely while itself cannot be quenched or be put off even for eternity. The character of God as consuming fire is His everlasting character towards anyone who rebels against him.

Reading Luke 16:19—31 tell us about the suffering of rich man after his death. Bear in mind that it was a parable, that its significance is more on the thought it is forcing you to think than the account. But we can know that there can be torment after death as part of punishment but we are for sure not told these are endless torments.

Some people say the soul of a man is immortal hence it will be tormented forever and ever in hell, but Jesus said;

“….rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Hell.” Mathew 10:28

Hell is not a place for eternal torment but a place where souls and bodies are destroyed. Simply it is a place where ending of existence takes place if one is thrown there.

“…the lake of fire is the second death.” Revelation 20: 14 (it symbolizes the second death.)

Some say this death is a ‘spiritual death’ and not ending of consciousness. If so then eternal life which is its opposite is ‘spiritual life’ and not consciousness. This is actually saying the evil will leave forever (because they will suffer only ‘spiritual death’)! What a fallacy in interpretation

Apostle Paul said;

“To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.” Romans 2:7

Immortality is not what is inherent in man but what is sought. These words will not make sense if man has an immortal soul.

Revelation 20:11-14 tells us that there will be a book and books at the time of judgement. The contents in the book were written at the beginning before any man did good or bad (Revelation 17:8). The appearance in this book is pure grace and this will determine whether you suffer second death or not, in consistence with doctrines of New Testament passed especially by Paul. Reading carefully, we see that the death were Judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books, not the book hence the contents in the books are determined by actions, a term contrasted with grace by several letters of Paul. The sentence coming from judgement as per the books is not written so no one knows but that from the book is clearly shown, the second death. However for persons to suffer this penalty is hypothetical as the word ‘if’ is used but as for the ‘death’ and ‘hades’ it is what will actually happen as it is written clearly. The ‘death’ and ‘Hades’ were not written in the book of life before the world begun.

-This is an extract from the book ‘Destiny’ by Lawrence Kirui, coming soon.