INTELLIGENCE WITHOUT CONSCIENCE
[p. 146] INTELLIGENCE WITHOUT CONSCIENCE
With the amount of intelligence around we do not see corresponding practice; hence there must be some imperfection in the acceptance of truth.
The effort and unceasing aim of Satan in the present day is to exalt man and set aside Christ; and as he is the prince of the power of the air, everything is charged with this evil influence, though in different ways, in the world and in the church. In every age the truth that God is pressing on His people, and calling on them to maintain, is always the one that Satan resists the most. To oppose and hinder the acceptance of Christ is the attempt of the adversary in this day; the opposition in its character is simply antichrist. God has set Christ — the Man of God — at His own right hand, and as the risen One He is superior to all the power of Satan, under which the first Adam still is; and hence, as the last Adam is owned and maintained, all Satan’s power is vanquished and ignored. Hence Satan must violently oppose the maintenance of a truth which entirely strips him of power and influence; and where he cannot succeed in fully denying it, he will qualify it.
Both the body and mind of man are used by Satan to hinder the truth and work of God, and in different ways. At one time the sword is the instrument of violence; at another it is the mind and its subtleties. The latter is the more dangerous, because I may suffer from it unconsciously; and it is fatal, simply because the natural mind understands not the things of the Spirit of God; for if any subject or point be within the grasp of the natural mind, it must be below the divine idea, it must be limited to my own measure. The saint has the mind of Christ, he understands the things of God by the Spirit of God; but then his natural intellect must not speculate on them, it is used to [p. 147] explain what has been unfolded and taught to one in the word. It must not suggest, it may only repeat, and the more truly the natural intellect is under the control of God’s Spirit, the more perfectly will it be a good servant in repeating what the Spirit of God has taught in the word of God.
Now it is easy to detect the working of the natural mind in a christian, for it must always make man its object and not God. It could not rise to God, it may speciously appear to accept from God, but it will always limit to man. One need hardly dwell on this; it must be so self-evident, for the mind of man cannot go beyond itself; the mind of Christ is of the measure of God, and hence God, He being the greater, is of necessity made prominent. Man’s mind cannot rise higher than man; and if anything greater than his mind be contributed, he must either receive a mind equal to the truth communicated, or in order to admit it, he must reduce it to the limit of his natural mind, and this is the cause of apparent intelligence without conscience.
The more the human mind is exercised, the more it likes to be supplied with material to work on. Its appetite increases by exercise, and as the evil influence is in the very air, saints ought to be on their guard, lest they should be ensnared by feeding their natural minds with the truths of God. In a way, there is no truth that the natural mind may not attempt to accept, and the imperfection of the acceptance will be betrayed by a defective practice; the conscience will not be affected by it. The truth, as I have already stated, is accepted with relation to oneself, and with regard to the benefit it confers on oneself; but the relation to God is left out. The latter could not be comprehended but by the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things which are freely given us of God. When man’s mind thinks about a truth, it necessarily limits it to man; and hence, if I hear or read of God’s purposes [p. 148] to the saints, in which are set forth great and wondrous favours for them, I may appropriate the favours to myself, and exult in them; but if I do so in my natural mind, I do not connect myself with God in and through them, and therefore with the intelligence there is no conscience, that is, no increased sense of what is due to God from one so highly favoured by Him.
It is one’s own benefit, and not one’s relation to God, that the natural intellect dwells on; and in this intellectual acquirement there is little or no conscience, or sense of the relation in which God has placed me to Himself. In short, it is intellectual and not spiritual. I may value a privilege for what it confers on me, but not because of the place in which it sets me with God; and so when I accept privileges in the natural mind, I limit the benefit to myself, and they impose no greater claim on me to walk like Christ. There is no practice, though there is an acceptance of the place or ground of privilege. Lot is in Canaan as much as Abraham, but his natural mind works, and he thinks only of himself there, and not of the call of God, and the claim which that call imposed on him if he had held it in dependence on God; and hence, alas! a privileged man is in practice as bad, if not worse, than the worldling.
Jacob returns to Canaan (Genesis 33); and, after he has received the name of Israel at Peniel, he allows his own mind to work. He arranges for himself, and he seeks a resting-place for himself where he was called to be a pilgrim and a stranger; and the name of his altar, El-elohe-Israel, betrays the selfishness of his heart in his thoughts of God; and before the world, instead of being God’s witness, he is, like Peter in the high priest’s house, a reproach.
Being in the place of privilege, or accepting the truth which confers the privilege, is not a safeguard against the working of the natural mind; and if it works, only self is thought of and God is left out; and however great the intelligence and position, there can be no [p. 149] practice. Two persons like Orpah and Ruth can receive the truth in the most contrary ways; the one, in the natural mind, only thinks of herself in connection with it; but the other, because in the Spirit, thinks of God, and in Him embraces all. The spies who searched the land went to the same place, and saw the same things; and yet ten of them, seeing them in a natural way — that is, with reference to man — only discouraged the people; while Caleb and Joshua, who saw with the Spirit’s eye, judged of them with relation to God, and acted for God, and according to His word. Thus we see that the same truths may produce very opposite effects. Saul and Jonathan receive the same David and know his work, but each in a totally different way; and yet probably each would have given verbatim the same account of what he had done; but of himself, in relation to themselves, they think very differently. Saul will indeed have him to come home with him; but Jonathan thinks of him, and how much he is entitled to, and strips himself to make much of David. Just so the Pharisee of Luke 7 receives the Lord into his house; but the woman — the sinner in the same house — manifests to the Pharisee’s guest how far beyond all human perception she sees Him, and that He is to her an object entirely eclipsing herself; and this she owns in the most practical way.
In this day there is a great amount of avowed intelligence about truth, without any corresponding practice, or testimony to Christ and His worth. If privilege or position is all with reference to myself, then the acceptance of either subjects me to no sacrifice, and this suits the natural mind; but if, on the contrary, every privilege places me more in association with God, which it does when spiritually accepted, surely the sacrifice would be in keeping with the privilege; that is, there would be distinct and absolute renunciation of everything which did not honour God, and express Christ, in accordance with the place in which He has set us.
[p. 150] Every truth spiritually accepted places us nearer to God; and the nearer we are to God, the deeper is the sense of what is due to Him; and thus there is conscience in proportion to our intelligence. But if the intelligence be used to exalt myself, that is, if I am ensnared by the natural mind to think only of myself in connection with a truth, then, though there may be a great knowledge of the truth historically, there will be no power from it, no increased conformity to Christ, because it has not been received in relation to Christ, but only to myself. And this limiting it to myself reduces me, like Lot or Jacob, to the level of the world or worse; and though there be seeming intelligence, there is no practice. When the conscience is in proportion to the intelligence, we know God, and we see spiritually what suits Him; and He in His love ordains that what suits Him should be most for our benefit and blessing.
May souls be warned against the snare of the intellect in this day, and may they, with godly jealousy, watch and see how each truth connects them with Christ, that they may be more and more like Him.