Genesis 2:7 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
And so of the four parts of our inner man, in this series we want to discuss the conscience of man. So what is our conscience? In order to answer that question we need to see exactly where man’s conscience originates, which means that we need to go back to the beginning when God created man, to see how the conscience of man came to be. As quoted in the above passage of scripture we see that God formed the body of man i.e. the outward man, from the dust of the ground. We also see that God, who is Spirit (John 4:24) and the Father of spirits (Hebrews 12:9), breathed man’s spirit into existence through His breath of life. And so as man’s spirit entered his body, the body of man came alive. This is the moment that man’s heart began to beat for the first time, his blood began to flow through his veins, and his lungs began to breathe air for the first time. And for the first time man’s mind began to reason and experience emotions, for God was able to converse with Adam from the moment He created him (Genesis 2:15-16). We also know that the will of man also came into being at that time, for God had given Adam the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17), and initially Adam obeyed the command of God as an act of his free will. And so we see that when man became a living being, that there were four parts functioning, i.e. his body, his spirit, his mind, and his will.
Genesis 1:31 “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So, the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”
And so when we look at the account of God’s creation of man we see no mention of man’s conscience and we also see no evidence of its existence. So why is that? The reason there is no reference to the conscience of man when he was created is because, as we will see in the next section, God created the conscience for man to be able to discern between good and evil. However, the above quoted passage of scripture reveals to us that when God created Adam and Eve that everything was good and that there was no evil present. And so because there was no evil present at man’s creation he had no need of a conscience. It was God’s perfect will for man that he would never need to know the difference between good and evil. God’s perfect will for man was that he should only ever know that which is good, for God is good, and all that He ever creates is good.
Genesis 2:17 “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
There came a day however, when Satan came into the garden and deceived Eve into desiring to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve in turn persuaded Adam to eat of the fruit that he knew God had explicitly said that they must not eat. They both ate of the fruit, and so man sinned for the first time by disobeying God’s only command (Genesis 3:1-6). Two things happened when Adam and Eve sinned. Firstly they both died spiritually, for as quoted in the above passage of scripture God had warned Adam that he would die in the day that he ate of the fruit. And so from that moment mankind became separated from the life of God, which is why we must be born-again.
Michael E.B. Maher
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