Man Now Another Species Than God Created # 13

The Attributes of the Human Spirit

As the soul is a trinity of reason, affection, and volition, so is the spirit a trinity. Its attributes are conscience, communion (worship) and intuition.

"The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord" (Proverbs 20:27).

"Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are the law unto themselves; in that they shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing." (Romans 2:14, 15).

When Adam sinned, he did so as the result of what seemed to him a sound and right argument and reason, and a judgment of what was good and desirable. But immediately when he had so acted he became aware of a faculty within, which rose up and condemned his judgment, reason and "good (?) motive.' Henceforth he lived under a sense of condemnation. The conscience which accused him and caused him to excuse, could not restore him to God's favor, but for ever kept God in his consciousness. Thus it is that to live in and to be governed entirely by our souls is not to have rest and real life. It is possible to put our wills so strongly behind our reason and thought and desire, or so to surrender our wills to our emotions and affections, as to muffle the voice of conscience so that we have little or no conflict within. But should God come into "the garden in the cool of the day," or, in other words, should we at any time seek a living knowledge of God, we are in for a very bad time with regard to this former mentality, these former reasonings, and this former affectional life. But we are not saying that the human conscience is infallible and always right. Most certainly it is not. We can have a sense of right and wrong which is altogether misinformed and false, and satan can play tricks with conscience. We are only pointing out what conscience is as an attribute of the spirit. For conscience to fulfill all of its Divinely intended purpose in relation to God - not merely to keep man aware of something beyond his own way - conscience must (as with the whole spirit) be renewed in God and united with the Holy Spirit. Christ is God's perfect standard for conscience, and union with Christ is the only ground of life in the spirit. "Christ ... was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30), and when Christ is received by faith, so that our standing before God rests upon what He is and not what we are, then we "find rest unto our souls" in this "yoke" (Matthew 11:29), for we have our "hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience" (Hebrews 10:22). With the whole human spirit, conscience must be quickened from above, raised, enlightened, adjusted and related.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 14)