When All Unrighteousness is Truly Cleansed
Some may be reticent to concur that the
church has a problem as serious as this. They are impressed by 1 John 1:9,
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." "Lord,
forgive us all our sins", they pray, assuming that each oft-repeated
routine prayer "scrubs the tape". The idea that there is still
something on the tape that we haven’t heard yet is too shocking to
believe.
If we think of the forgiveness of sins as
only a preparation for death and the resurrection, we need not be
concerned about unconscious sin still lurking beneath the surface. But we
live in the time of the cleansing of the sanctuary. Since 1844 a new and
different work has been in progress - a cleansing work, a restoration, a
purification, a vindication. We are not concerned merely about getting
ready to die. We are concerned about getting ready for translation.
Deeper, more thorough work must be done than has been accomplished for any
previous generation. The Latter Rain ripens the grain for the harvest, and
"the harvest is the end of the world’. Therefore, receiving the
Latter Rain must lead on to a preparation for translation. In order to
understand the Laodicean message correctly, therefore, we must search in
our Bibles to see that unconscious sin has been a constant problem to Gods
people in past ages.
1. Many Bible statements are meaningless
apart from understanding that they refer to this unknown sin. Jeremiah
says, "Deep is a man’s mind, deeper than all else, on evil bent;
who can fathom it?" (Jer. 17:9, Moffatt). It would seem that Paul had
this statement in mind when he said, "The carnal mind is enmity
against God". And this "enmity" is the depth which cannot
be "fathomed’. The mind conceals its true motivations from our
awareness. The KJV adds, "I the Lord search the heart I try the
reins" (verse 10). "Reins" is a Hebrew figure of speech
that is difficult to understand apart from recognizing the unconscious
motivations of the heart.*
"The righteous God trieth the hearts
and reins" (Ps. 7:9). "Thou hast possessed my reins. . .
Search me, 0 God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and
see if there be any wicked way in me (Ps. 139: 13,23,24). "Examine
me, 0 Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart" (Ps. 26:2).
Jeremiah appeals to the Lord to vindicate
his true motives: "0 Lord of hosts, that judges righteously, that
triest the reins and the heart … unto thee have I revealed my
cause" (Jer. 11:20).
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* The "reins" is an idiom of
both Hebrew and New Testament Greek de-noting the kidneys. As the ancients
were relatively unacquainted with the functions of physiology. the kidneys
symbolized for them the unknown depths of one’s feelings and emotions.
Note the following from The Expository Greek New Testament:
"I
know the abysses." and "discerner of hearts and searcher of the
reins" were old Egyptian titles for divine beings. This intimate
knowledge of man pierces below superficial appearances. The divine
acquaintance with man’s real secret life forms the basis of unerring and
impartial judgment. (Vol. 5. pp. 361. 362).
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This thought of disclosing the hidden
motivations of the heart is carried over into the New Testament. Because
the Lord alone "searcheth the reins and hearts", He will
"give unto every one of you according to your works" (Rev.
2:23). Thus when the Lord later says to Laodicea, "I know thy
works", it is clear that the Laodicean message is also a
"searching of the reins and hearts", a disclosing of the
"things before buried in darkness", to borrow Ellen G. White’s
phrase quoted previously.
We have already considered how Christ did
not have the same problem of an unconscious mind as we do. Isaiah says of
Him:
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon
Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and
might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall make
Him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and He shall not judge
after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His
ears. … And righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and
faithfulness the girdle of His reins. (Isa. 11:2-5).
Christ knew no repression of guilt at
all. He stood before God by "faithfulness" and was thus
"righteous." His motivations were pure and transparent.
"This is but a foreshadowing of the
kind of people that the third angel’s message will gather out for they
too are to have "the faith of Jesus"— not merely faith in
Jesus, but the very kind of faith which He had, the faith of Jesus. This
is the deep experience offered to the Laodicean church, faith, spiritual
discernment and the righteousness of Christ when the door shall have been
opened." (Donald K. Short. A Study of the Cleansing of the
Sanctuary in Relation to Current Denominational History, Potomac
University Masters Thesis. unpublished, 1958, p. 46).
2. David prays, "Who can understand
his errors? cleanse Thou me from secret faults" (Ps.
19: 12). Obviously David is not talking about faults known to
the sinner and kept secret from others.
If that were the case, he would pray, "We understand our
errors". He is talking about faults that the sinner himself has not
yet understood. This is unconscious sin.
3. Moses prays, "Thou hast set our
iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy
countenance" (Ps. 90:8) What
are these "secret sins’? Are they sins that we know about, things
we cover up from others’ gaze? Or are they unconscious sins? They cannot
be known sins that we have confessed, for such sins are not "set …
before Thee.. .in the light of Thy countenance". All such sins
"Thou hast cast … behind Thy back", "in the depths of the
sea" (Isa 38:17; Micah 7:19). These must be unconfessed sins; and, in
the context of Moses’ prayer, they are unconscious sins.
Moses vividly describes the unconscious
work of repression that operates in all sinners since the Fall: "We
are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath we are troubled . . . All
our days are passed away in Thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that
is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten" (Ps.
90:7-10). Our years are a constant conflict with unrealized guilt. The
Holy Spirit is constantly deepening our awareness of it. If we gladly
welcome each new and deeper disclosure of our unconscious sin and readily
confess it, the work of cleansing hastens on. But the work for the great
body of the church has been resisted and delayed for many decades.
"Thou knowest not" is still the message of the True Witness.
Our human problem
…
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