Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

Question 79:

You say, “Suppose there had been no blood-shedding, might there not have been the blood (qy. water), for condemnation?”

Answer 79:

This I pass, because it is based on a supposition.

Question 80:

We often see the conscience aroused without any results following. Would it then be correct to say, that “the moment the water of the word has reached the conscience of a sinner he is clean? Is it not when the sinner looks to the blood that he is clean, although he may not know full redemption?

Answer 80:

Natural conscience is often aroused without any results, most surely. But I do not term this what you have quoted here. If the Spirit of God in working by the Word has reached the conscience, and has implanted the Word there, a quickening or new birth has taken place, and in God’s sight that soul is clean; but the very fact of his being quickened is to make him cry out “unclean”! Subsequently the soul is led to look at Christ, and His work and blood-shedding, for peace, and then he knows he is clean. The sins that troubled him were all borne away long before, and he was clean in God’s sight from them, but his eyes opened upon the fact when he believed in Christ for peace.

I would not term the arousing of a natural conscience through fear, or the like, “the water of the word (reaching) the conscience.” Far from it. I believe in much of the Revival preaching that goes on, such cases are frequently taken for conversions, and mistakenly so.