How The "Thou Knowest Not" Problem
Began
(Chapter 3, Continued)
And yet Peter was a truly sincere
"born-again Christian". Thank God the final tests have not come
as yet! Who of us would truly be ready?
The original sin of Adam and Eve was to
the cross at Calvary what the acorn is to the oak. The seed or resentment
against God is evident in Adam’s statement blaming Him. But Adam would
have been horrified had he fully realized how this seed would grow into
the eventual murder of the Son of God. He would have been unable to endure
the full disclosure of the real dimensions of his guilt. The sacrificial
victim offered in the Garden outlined for Adam the dimmest shadow of the
cross, for he "saw Christ prefigured in the innocent beast suffering
the penalty of his transgression of Jehovah’s law" (6BC 1095). And
"he trembled at the thought that his sin must shed the blood of the
spotless lamb of God. This scene gave him a deeper and more vivid sense of
the greatness of his transgression, which nothing but the death of God’s
dear Son could expiate" (PP 68). But the full consciousness of their
sin and guilt was veiled from the guilty couple:
After Adam and Eve had partaken of the
forbidden fruit, they were filled with a sense of shame and terror. At
first their only thought was, how to excuse their sin before God, and
escape the dreaded sentence of death …The spirit of self-justification
originated in the father of lies, and has been exhibited by all the sons
and daughters of Adam. (5T 637, 638).
It is fortunate that ever since the Fall
man’s guilt has remained partly unconscious because if it were fully
conscious it would kill him. Hence the Creator’s kindly sentence,
"In the day that thou eatest thereof dying thou shalt die"
(Gen. 2:17, mg.). Had Adam and Eve been fully consious of their guilt in
the Garden, it would have killed them outright as it killed Christ on His
cross. Not until He came did anyone fully sense it. Only "He was made
to be sin for us who knew no sin" (2 Cor. 5:21).
The real reason why we do things is often
veiled from us. Because recognition of the true motive would horrify us,
we "stifle the truth" as Paul says. We can believe ever so
sincerely that we act out of a sense of justice when in reality we may be
motivated by cruelty. We can sincerely believe that we are motivated by
love and yet be driven instead by a self-centered craving for acceptance.
We can believe that duty is our guide when our main motivation is vanity.
We can believe that we stand secure in "righteousness by faith"
when in reality an egocentric concern is driving us to seekpersonal
security and we are in fact "under the law", ignorant of genuine
New Testament faith. We can fondly imagine that we are truly constrained
by the love of Christ when we don’t really comprehend "what is the
breadth, and length, and depth, and height" of that love and are
therefore most certainly living unto ourselves, the very thing the cross
was intended to make impossible "henceforth" (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14,
15).
These rationalizations can be very
self-deceiving. And the more ardently we want to protect ourselves from
coming face to face with our true motivations, the more desperately we
must make ourselves believe in our mistaken assumptions. And yet the
existence of this "thou knowest not" state is not something so
hidden from us that we cannot recognize the problem is there. It can
readily be glimpsed if we will look at ourselves candidly,
and accept the Word of God sincerely and intelligently.
The ultimate self-deception, of course,
is reached when God’s people, and especially their spiritual leadership,
believe they are are motivated by a wholesome desire to preserve "the
nation", but crucify the Christ from the real motivation of
"enmity against God". Thus "they know not what they
do" (Luke 23:34). And the sad day also comes centuries later when the
leaders of God’s people sincerely believe they are motivated by a desire
to "stand by the old landmarks" and preserve the old-time
"third angel’s message" when in reality they reject the
beginning of the Latter Rain and the Loud Cry. Thus, again, in 1888,
"they know not what they do".
Again, decades later, another form of
self-deception threatens us. We interpret mass baptisms in Third World
countries as evidence that we have accepted the once rejected Latter Rain,
and that our spiritual condition is therefore satisfactory. Thus, once
again we virtually boast of being "rich and increased with goods
[church growth], … [in] need of nothing." According to the
Laodicean message, then, the Saviour is still praying for us,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
We have seen that it was at the Fall that
this barrier of unconscious guilt began. Was there such a thing in Christ
when He became man? Sent "in the likeness of sinful flesh", did
he inherit this barrier that hides from us the reality of our true guilt?
No. For Him there was no such barrier.
"He knew all men and needed not that any should testify of man: for
He knew what was in man" (John 2:24, 25). No one else has ever known,
not the full depths. All through His ministry
this painful knowledge burdened Him:
And Jesus knowing their thoughts said,
Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?" (Matt 9:4).
"Jesus knew their thoughts…
(Matt 12:25) "He knew their thoughts…"(Luke 6:8).
On several occasions we find Him telling
His most faithful and trusted disciples that they did not know their own
hearts. "Ye know not what ye ask" (Matt. 20:22). When James and
John wished to call down fire from heaven as retribution on the hapless
Samaritans who had in prejudice turned Jesus away, they sincerely thought
they were motivated by a righteous zeal. In a declaration parallel to the
one He makes to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, Jesus said:
"Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of’ (Luke 9:55). Like
ourselves, these godly apostles, unquestionably the best men in the world,
were victims of their own unknowing. Using Ellen G. White’s frequent and
apt phase, they had "changed leaders" and did not know it.
Truly, the human "heart is deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jer.
17:9). Only Christ could fully know it; and what He knew finally killed
Him on Calvary’s cross. No merciful barrier blacked out His
consciousness of our sin. He was made "to be sin for us, who knew no
sin …"(2 Cor. 5:21).
Unconscious Guilt In
Scripture History |
