Conscience – An Answering Conscience, Part 9
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Conscience – An Answering Conscience, Part 9
[Study Aired December 9, 2023]
The only place an ‘answering conscience’ is mentioned is in parentheses in 1 Peter 3:21, indicating the translator’s attempt to clarify the scripture ~ and it does, to the spiritual eye.
1Pe 3:21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh [thinking that our works save us], but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
1Pe 3:22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers [the Elect with that knowledge] being made subject unto him.
So, of the possible seventeen exhaustive nuances of one’s “conscience” for study, I planned on skipping the prospective ‘answering conscience’ study since the spirit and intent of the heart before God without uttering a word is inherently an “answer” of all versions of the underlying conscience. However, on closer inspection, Proverbs 16:1-2 changed my mind, particularly since all scripture, including the translator’s inclusions, is of the Lord:
Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.
Pro 16:2 All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits.
The mind of man is unconsciously flooded with a million vain thoughts a day, most of which are, thankfully, spontaneously washed out in a millisecond.
Pro 30:12 There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their own filth.
Since Christ on the cross, we are that generation in Babylon, pure in our own eyes. Our Lord has chosen his minimal Elect since before the foundation of the world and has placed each of them in a particular age and generation in contemporary Babylon to be dragged to himself and washed of their spiritual uncleanliness.
Amo 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
Amo 3:7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
The entire Bible is effectively a “secret”, and the Lord surely is revealing the secrets of His word through the collective Body of Christ and its teachers. The many called in this world can hear His trumpet blast, but it is only the ‘Sauls’ (who became Paul), the budding Elect of God, who are struck down blind before they are given eyes that see (Act 9:3-18). It takes an earthquake to shake us to our core to get our attention, and it is a profound preparation of our hearts to cause us to fearfully whimper, “Who art thou, Lord?”
Yet, those million vain and often evil thoughts a day flit through our minds, with some being more lustfully titillating than others held constant and likely repeated that guarantee an answer from the Lord via our tongue.
Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.
Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
A rash utterance is extracted from a multitude of probably worse thoughts from which the ‘rash’ best of a bad bunch is carelessly declared. It all sounds pretty hopeless, and to our former Babylonian selves, it was when we relied on being saved by our illusory self-will for being accountable for our sins. We are not accountable; our Lord is accountable for the workmanship He has engaged to bring us eventually, through much trial and suffering, into the fullness of the Father as experienced by Job and narrated by Elihu, the Lord’s spokesman. ‘Righteous Job’, representing you and me, is incited by Elihu with the most profound thud back to earth with the inescapable truth and concurrence of an “answering conscience” recorded for our mutual fiery benefit. Elihu, upon listening to both Job and Job’s other three ‘miserable comforter’ friends, is the foil, the inescapable answer of Job’s conscience:
Job 33:12 [God through Elihu says…] Behold, in this you [Job] are not right; I will answer you, for God is greater than man.
Job 33:13 Why do you fight against Him? For He does not give account for any of His matters.
Job 33:14 For God speaks once, yea, twice, but not one takes notice. (Joh 8:43 Why do you not know My speech? Because you cannot hear My Word. [… why, because God has blinded everybody in their time, and their conscience is not convicted to answer with the truth])
Job 33:15 In a dream, a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men; while they slumber on the bed;
Job 33:16 then He opens the ear of men and seals their teaching,
Job 33:17 so that He may turn man from his act, that He might hide pride from man.
Hidden pride is a thoroughly humiliated pride that even stops the mouths of the powerful lions we depict as we slink into the bushes, savaged and naked. Elihu narrates the devastation of our withering shame for our unaccountable blindness for our predestined and guaranteed account for our God-given nakedness. Job, with an inescapable truthful answering conscience, gives that account upon contemplating Elihu’s lengthy speech and God’s still small voice, both of which left Job inwardly stoned, ground to powder in Job 40:4. But first, we will continue with Job 33 and Elihu’s reproach forecasting our Lord’s severe trials before the cross.
Job 33:18 He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
Job 33:19 He is also chastened with pain on his bed, and enduring strife in his bones;
Job 33:20 so that his life is sick of bread, and his soul desirable food.
Job 33:21 His flesh wastes away, not seen; and his bones laid bare; they were not seen.
Job 33:22 Yea, his soul draws near to the Pit, and his life to the dealers of death.
Job 33:23 If there is a messenger for him, a mediator, one among a thousand, to declare for man his uprightness,
Job 33:24 then He [the Father] is gracious to him and says, Deliver him from going down to the Pit; for I have found a ransom [Christ!].
Job 33:25 His flesh shall be fresher than in vigor [bloom of youthfulness]; he shall return to the days of his youth;
Job 33:26 he shall pray to God, and He will be gracious to him; and he shall see His face with joy, for He will restore to man his righteousness (Col 1:27 “…Christ in you, the hope of glory”).
Job 33:27 He will observe to men, and say, I have sinned and perverted righteousness; and it was not equally repaid to me, [Not equally paid since Christ didn’t deserve death for not sinning; thus there is a seeming disparity of justice between Him and man.]
Job 33:28 He has redeemed my soul from passing over into the Pit, and my life shall see the light.
Job 33:29 Lo, all these things God does two or three times with a man,
Job 33:30 to bring back his soul from the Pit, to be lighted with the light of the living.
Job 33:31 Hear this, Job, listen to me; be silent and I will speak.
Job 33:32 If you have anything to say, answer me; speak, for I [Christ] desire to justify you. [… incredible hope amid devastation to be retrieved from death]
Job 33:33 If not, listen to me; be silent, [stop ‘answering with an “accusing and excusing conscience”!] and I will teach you wisdom.Job 35:16, [Elihu says ~] Therefore doth Job [you and Grant Squelch] open his mouth in vain; he multiplieth words without knowledge.
Job’s deeply wounded pride endures four more chapters of Elihu’s devastating speech, and while raw from Elihu’s address, the Lord performs a series of natural phenomenons to tremble Job by God’s sovereign power. Job’s pride, in 40:4, is backed into a corner, and he finally submits in (temporarily dichotic) joyful humiliation to a righteously ‘answering conscience’ when he says:
Job 40:4 Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.
Job 40:5 Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further”.
The Lord continues to thoroughly grind Job’s stony pride to powder with 52 additional verses until he is like water spilled on the ground that cannot be recollected. Job is compelled to answer with his conscience by saying:
Job 42:1 And Job answered Jehovah and said,
Job 42:2 I know that You can do all, and not any purpose is withheld from You.
Job 42:3 Who is he who hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have spoken what I did not understand; things too wonderful for me; yea, I did not know.
How can we be accountable for something we didn’t know? We, rather, give an account of what the Lord has done and is doing and will complete in every man’s life.
Job 42:4 Hear, I beseech You, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You will cause me to know.
Job 42:5 I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye has seen You.
Job 42:6 Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
Job’s vivid story is every man’s inescapable experience in his own time and order to be ground to powder and compelled to answer with a good conscience, knowing who God is, either man (the Beast on His throne) or God.
2Th 2:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ [today, if you hear his voice!], and by our gathering together unto him,
2Th 2:2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Like Job, we most assuredly “Is Was and Will Be” shaken to our core but are now joyful for the subtle meaning in parentheses of 1 Peter 3:21 as we shall continue to see.
2Th 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
2Th 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
… in continuing to interpret 1 Peter 3:15, and,
1Pe 3:14 But if you also suffer [while in the “filth of the flesh”] for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. And do not fear their fear, nor be troubled, [since we know the glorious truth!]
1Pe 3:15 but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason of the hope [an answering conscience of deep belief] in you, with meekness and fear;
1Pe 3:16 having a good conscience, that while they speak against you as evildoers they may be shamed, those falsely accusing your good behavior in Christ.
1Pe 3:17 For it is better, if the will of God wills it, to suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing.
1Pe 3:18 For Christ also once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, indeed being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
1Pe 3:19 in which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, [symbolically, and particularly us while being dragged to Christ. How can He preach to dead people under the Flood since the dead know nothing?](Ecc 9:4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living [faithful spiritual Caleb realising his sins…] dog is better than a dead [our former pompous Babylonian Christian] lion.
Ecc 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
Ecc 9:6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.)
Continuing…
1Pe 3:20 to disobeying ones, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared (in which a few, that is, eight souls were saved through water);
1Pe 3:21 which figure now also saves us, baptism; (not a putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ; [a live Lion!]
1Pe 3:22 who is at the right hand of God, having gone into Heaven, where the angels and authorities and powers are being subjected to Him.
KJV translators used parentheses in the case of 1 Peter 3:21 to enclose additional or supplemental information that supposedly clarifies the verse. This is always the KJV’s rationale. The NKJV removed them.
What comes out of a man, him being made of evil flesh, defiles him; however, his spirit within formulates that answer that is from his heart. Thus, an “Answering Conscience” residing in his heart has already commended or condemned him before he opens his mouth. The Lord knew the machinations of the individual’s heart over six thousand years ago before his conception. And since all things, both good and evil, are for our sakes, our Lord sometimes answers our God-given good or evil conscience ahead of our thoughts, words or actions. So, the eight souls in the Ark to which 1 Peter 3:21 refers, emphatically believed their Lord that the new and confusing concept of an overwhelming flood was to come upon the world, unwittingly heralding the future Savior by a likewise all-consuming fire. John the baptist says,
Mat 3:11 I indeed baptise you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
Mat 3:12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. [A wind, the spirit of God, powerfully blows upon our wood, hay and stubble unstoppably]
The following verses in Isaiah 65:23-24 are the future result of Christ completing His workmanship within His Elect today since He has laid the axe to our self-righteous roots and made His righteousness an ultimate default in His very small group of people. The Elect’s conscience is made clean ahead of time, even though their sins decreasingly are/were scarlet (Isa 1:18); thereupon, they are in unity in Him and able to answer with a good conscience, having been given only a downpayment of the (predestinated) purchased possession (Rom 8:30).
Isa 65:23 They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring [all whom he gives his Elect to teach] with them.
Isa 65:24 And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.1Jn 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God [as did the 8 souls in the Ark answering in good conscience in obedience by discounting the filth of the flesh].
1Jn 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us [before we ask since he gives us our thoughts and words]:
1Jn 5:15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
The above scriptures substantiate our Lord’s predestination of us, that is, answered beforehand with His good “answering conscience” in which He perpetually exists without ever bringing to mind Him questioning His conscience. While we exist in evil flesh, as did our ancestors in the flood, we will always be subject to questioning our conscience to check that we are in unity with our Lord and Father. He answers us with the assurance of life “by the resurrection of Jesus Christ” following the flood of baptismal water and, finally, the baptismal fire that laps up the water, leaving only refined gold.
2Pe 3:3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days [in our individual timely age, when our Lord’s refining fire laps up the Old Man born of water upon having our Saul-like (Paul) eyes opened] scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
2Pe 3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation [Unwittingly remaining at Mt Sinai and Babylon and not moving on to perfection].
2Pe 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth [you and I, the Beast coming out of the sea] standing out of the water and in the water:
2Pe 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water [Noah’s flood and still the world remaining dead in the deep], perished:
2Pe 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men [ALL, evey man, small and great having received the mark of the Beast].
2Pe 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
2Pe 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
2Pe 3:11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
2Pe 3:12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the shall melt with fervent heat [1Ki 18:38].
Christ was created in the very image of the spirit of the Father. He became dust, that is, made of the elements of the earth as we are, and He, too, figuratively melted in the furnace of the cross and brought forth metaphorical pure spiritual gold of His former self.
2Pe 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
The Lord’s very Elect looks forward with “the answer of a good conscience” to that fiery event happening daily in their lives, bringing forth pure gold. They, like the eight souls on the Ark, are now the figurative same eight souls (new beginnings of the new man in and of Christ) resting paradoxically as lively fiery stones in the fiery ‘Ark’ (chariot) that is Christ, the “chariot of Israel” (2Ki 13:14).
The answer of a good conscience Christ guarantees will result in the structure of the New Jerusalem within composed symbolically of pure gold, representing the spiritual purity of God, even though the rest of the city is embedded with precious stones, the overall clarity of crystal and twelve gates, each made of a single pearl (Rev 21:9-27).
Rev 21:17 And he measured the wall [the heavenly Jerusalem within, the Lamb’s Wife] thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel [The Bride of Christ].
Rev 21:18 And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.
God’s spirit is represented as pure gold, and the precious stones, crystal and the like, symbolise the literal spiritual mass of former humanity who bow down in honor and glorify Christ and His Christs, all highlighting our Father.
Upon the end of the Eighth Day, the billions of stars, representing the spiritually changed humanity, will all, in trembling delight, gladly “answer” in the Resurrection to Judgment with an immutably “good conscience” just which of them is the God of gods.
Rev 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
Joh 10:34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
Joh 10:35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
Joh 10:36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
Anything other than answering with a pure conscience is defiled by a lie.
Rev 21:27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
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- Studies in Psalms - Psa 83:1-5 Keep Not Thou Silence, O God... (March 16, 2017)
- Let Him Remain Ignorant (April 8, 2010)
- Jehovah Witnesses (March 8, 2010)
- Is It All Right To Keep Quiet? (January 3, 2010)
- Does His Sovereignty Extend To Babies? (November 3, 2008)
- Does God Know Every Thought In A Crowd? (November 22, 2009)
- Conscience – An Answering Conscience, Part 9 (December 9, 2023)
- Being Ready To Give An Answer (October 20, 2006)
- Are The Preparations of The Heart Really From Man? (October 21, 2010)