A New Moral Consciousness for Man

By Receiving the Light of Christ’s Life

A Study by Arthur J Licursi

 

Moral Consciousness

All conscious moral activity of man is active only through his facing and choosing between two opposites, without which a choice may not be made. Moral choice requires conscious thought and free will. Our day is filled with conscious thought in the face of moral choices we must make. Where will we go; what will we say, or do? These are choices that we must make …as a Christian. All such choices are between evil and good, since we, as the regenerated children of God, are to walk now in accord with His indwelling and guiding life (Gal 5:16). We conduct our manner of living in this way. Something not seeming evil is evil if we choose to go a way other than that which we inwardly know the Lord desires of us (James 4:17).

 

Man, who is tri-part, having a body, soul and spirit, has a three-part soul consisting of his mind, emotion and will. Thereby man is a thinking, feeling, and choosing being; by these faculties man possesses the capacity to make choices when he is confronted with divergent options.

 

Our capacity to walk with, or contrary to, the Lord is in the light of our free-will to choose. Without such a free-will choice capacity man would be reduced to that of a robot or zombie. Our love for the Lord could not be genuine without having free will to give it genuine expression. If one were compelled to love it would then not be love. We love Him because He first loved us (1John 4:19), and once we have seen and tasted God’s love, our hearts are captured. The Apostle Paul says we Christians, who still are free to say no to God’s will in our day to day living, are now constrained by the bands of God’s love, in the giving of His Son, Christ, whom He has committed to us. 2 Cor. 5:14a For the love of Christ constraineth us….

 

Man’s First Willful Moral Choice

Man was originally created in innocence, even if for a few days only Genesis 2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Initially, Adam had enjoyed God’s presence, e.g., having walked with God in the cool of the day Gen 3:8. At that time man’s will had not yet been stimulated by facing a moral choice. Adam eventually was confronted with the first moral choice to be made by a man. Before that time Adam and Eve lived in pure innocence and in accord with God. Then though, the Serpent introduced the negative possibility in contrast to God’s words that had been spoken directly to them. Now being confronted with divergent voices, they had to make a conscious moral choice for the very first time. Consider the account here.

God said - Gen 2:16-17 the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

The Serpent said - Gen 3:4-5 the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Satan lied by calling God a liar. Adam and Eve believed the Serpents lie that they could become as gods through knowledge to be gained by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil.

 

By Adam’s choice to receive (believe) the words of the Serpent, all Adam’s progeny have become morally conscious. This occurred when Adam & Eve were confronted by the two trees - The Tree of Life and The Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil, and the Serpent’s lies. Adam and Eve were told not to eat the fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. Yet, ignoring The Tree of Life, they believed the Serpent words; they ate and took into themselves the Serpent’s words as they partook of the Tree of Knowledge. Here we see the result Gen 3:7 the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. By eating of the wrong tree, man now had gained an illicit knowledge and a moral consciousness. Since then, all mankind has a conscious knowledge by which their choices are framed, as evidenced by all mankind possessing an active conscience (Rom 2:15).

 

Man in the Image of God

Man, as the image of God, is an empty representation of God. Man was created as a perfect empty vessel with the capacity to receive and express God’s life and nature. Man’s human life is but a vessel into which God could one day deposit His “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” Being humanly made alive, but yet empty of a nature, Adam, the first man and federal head of humanity was confronted by the first choice. That wrong choice propelled all mankind into gaining an active moral consciousness, but he also gained a fallen nature that prevented his living in accord with the knowledge. Ephes. 2:3we … were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

 

The Fire of Desire Is In God & Man

Man is fundamentally made in God’s image, in that they both have a sort of fire that burns within them. Hebrews 12:29 For our God is a consuming fire. God burns as fire with desire to give – to outflow. “Desire” is as a fire burning in man and God. Mans desire is to have his vessel filled, to quench his thirst for satisfaction, for completion. Only God can and does fulfill that desire of man. Psa. 145:16 Thou (God) openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. Man, who was made to be as God in His capacities to receive and express God’s life and nature, had these capacities along with that inward burning, a fire of desire in his soul a burning desire to become complete. Paul tells us that our completion comes by literally receiving Christ into our being. Col. 2:10 And ye are complete in him (Christ), which is the head of all principality and power: Col. 1:27b Christ in you, the hope of glory: Rom 8:9b …Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

 

How is it that Christ Can Indwell Man? It is as the Spirit of Life!

Christ is received as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2a), into man’s human spirit where they become one spirit. 1 Cor. 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit; Zech. 12:1 …the Lord…which … formeth the spirit of man within him; Job 32:8 But there is a spirit in man

 

The Voice of Conscience

From the time of the Adam’s fall, mankind possesses a restraining voice within; this by a co-perception that is of God – speaking into man’s soul mind via man’s human spirit. That co-perception is what the New Testament calls the conscience. This voice of conscience is likely to be contrary to the voice of the Evil One in man’s flesh and who speaks into man’s soul/mind. Though the Evil One had implanted his nature in man’s body and usurped man’s soul, man also had the voice of conscience by which God speaks to every man – saved or not. Romans 2:15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.  The conscience, a faculty of man’s human spirit, may be likened to an antenna, by which man may hear the Lord. The conscience of the human spirit of all men is as a Trojan horse in man. By it God speaks within man to convict man of His impoverished and helpless condition, and therefore his need of a righteous life and nature to replace the fallen nature that has usurped and corrupted mankind.

 

God is a Self-For-Others

All mankind has desire burning in him – desiring to be quenched or satisfied. God’s innate desire is as a giver, a lover, a self-for-others; and man, being created “upright” (Eccl 7:29) also had that same innate desire, that is before the fall when his self-being became transmuted into a self-for self, a self-getter, and a manipulating taker. By the fall in the garden, mankind became a twisted self. The image of God, the one who flows outward, was within man’s capacity, but it had become distorted and turned inward, becoming self-love and self-serving.

 

Note that when I refer to man’s “capacity” I do not mean to say that a man has a self-nature to express. I only mean man was created with the soul organs capable of giving expression to a nature – man was created ready to receive a nature and manifest that nature. Man was created as a perfect, upright, clean vessel capable of giving expression to a nature; but he in his own self was nature-less. Man was created ready to receive a spiritual guiding nature. Man (Adam) was as a car without a driver. Man in his own self only has the capacity to be an expresser of another superior (spirit) life in him. The first superior spirit that entered man, and to whom man became subservient, was the Serpent (also called, the Evil One Lucifer, Devil, Satan, and the Dragon). Sin, as a nature, came into and abides in the flesh of all mankind. Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world … Romans 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Like it or not, all mankind since that time has the Sin infection – the fallen nature of the Evil one.

 

Man is Always a Servant (“Slave”, see “Living Unto Christ” by the author)

The truth is that every man is always a servant. Romans 6:19 (KJV) I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your (sinful) flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

 

All men are the servant of Sin before regeneration, but after regeneration, we have a freedom to make choices day by day and moment by moment, as to our walk. The question is “Will we choose to yield to the sinful impulses emanating from our flesh (Rom 7:17-24) and be Sin’s servant (slave), or will we yield to “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” who indwells and reigns in our spirit? Christians need to know that Christ’s righteous Spirit of life and nature is spontaneously working within their spirit, having the power to overrule the operation of Sin, if we will trust and yield to Christ in us. Being regenerated, we live under a new paradigm; we have the operation of Christ’s life within us. Romans 8:2, 13 For the law (normal operation) of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law (normal operation) of sin and death. 13For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

 

This remedy appears when man is again confronted with a choice; this time to receive God’s free salvation that is in Christ, or not. God sent His Only Begotten Son into the world so that twisted man might be made straight. This comes not through man’s self-effort, but only through simply receiving God’s reconciliation that is in Christ Jesus, and simultaneously receiving the resurrection life of the Son of God, who bears the Father’s life and nature, plus Jesus’ resurrected humanity (Rom 1:3-4) – to be man’s new straightened life and nature within man’s spirit. This life has the power to renew man’s soul and make man an expression of God’s life and nature. This then would be man as God intended.

 

The Fruit of Two Trees

As previously stated, Scripture places Adam before the two fruit trees in the garden. Fruit is something you eat to take in; it becomes part of your being. Every tree has its seed by which it may reproduce itself, after its own kind (Gen 1:11). The first tree, The Tree of Life, represents the possibility of man taking into his self God’s life and nature – this would make man dependent upon God’s life and nature to nourish him spiritually and to guide him from within. The second was the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil, which may better be termed as a Tree of Independence . This knowledge that is independent of God would make man think he does not need God to guide him. This is a wrong view because this knowledge of what is good and evil good and evil, without a life that could live it, only ends in failure and the frustration of Rom 7:17-23.

 

Hence, man faced a moral choice for the first time, he could eat of either tree; The Tree of Life and live in dependence upon God as his all, or The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which he thought would make man as a god, “apparently independent of God. – thinking he could then be wise in his own self. Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

 

Liberty Lost

By eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil, Adam and Eve had gained the knowledge of good and evil, yet, man could never live in accord with that correct knowledge (Rom 7:7) due to the inherent Sin infection that was transmitted to man by his believing and receiving the words of the Serpent. This is the basis of the dilemma Paul describes in Rom 7:17-24. Man, in himself, “knows” good and evil, but lacks the kind of life adequate to live in accord with that very knowledge (Rom 7:17-9). Man had thought he could make himself wise and thus independent of God, as a god (Gen 3:4-5, 3:22) by gaining this knowledge, but actually he had been trapped into receiving the fallen, spontaneous operation of the Sin-nature of the Evil One.

 

The infection of Sin in Adam has since past from Adam to all generations of mankind. Sin now rules every man that comes into the world, being located within man’s own Sin infected flesh Romans 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. This infection spontaneously brings the expressions of the Sin nature, ending in physical death (1Cor 15:56b).

 

Only the man who has been redeemed by the death and regenerated by the life of Christ can become as God intended, according to God’s “eternal purpose that He purposed in Christ Jesus (Eph 3:11)”. Jesus’ blood was shed for man’s sins. Jesus’ life was given on the cross also to be the death of man’s Sin infected Old Self (Rom 6:3). Christ’s resurrected Spirit of life is literally given to us at regeneration when we receive Him, equipping us with the identical life and nature of the resurrected Christ. This then is the deposit of fruit of The Tree of Life Himself – Jesus Christ.

 

In this way, the Sin nature in man has been negated, “made of none effect” (Rom 6:6-7). This is effective in the lives of believers so long as they continue to believe in (trust in, cling to, and rely upon) the Christ who indwells their human spirit as their new person and nature.

 

The Usurping Nature

All men since the time of Adam enter the world with the life and nature of the Evil One in them, as a “sort of father”. Satan is not a real father, but he is as the usurping one, one who stands in the place of a father. Confirming this, Jesus plainly told the religious leaders of Israel their father was the devil. John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts (desire) of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

 

Paul confirms this tyrannical rule by Sin over mankind by writing in Ephes. 2:2-3 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3Among whom also we all had our conversation (manner of living) in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

 

A New Nature for Man – Light

Ephes. 5:8 For ye were sometimes (aforetime) darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: As stated, God burns as fire with desire to give – to outflow. This is best seen by His eternal begetting of His Son in His likeness; God’s “fire-self” was eternally transmitted as being God’s “Light-self”, the Self-for-others, in the person of His Only Begotten Son, with whom He is one. God’s burning desire to flow out to others as love and life was expressed in His giving his only begotten Son for the Sins and Sin of the world – if men will simply receive Him, His death and His life as their death and new life. It has been said, Where fire burns, light blesses” – Jesus is the light expression of God’s fire, being called the light of life”.  John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. This then is the Eternal God, the Lover of others, the God who burns with desire to give. He is light, as John writes, 1 John 1:5God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. We also are now light by the deposit of Christ (the light of Life) in us.

 

Lucifer Is Used of God

Lucifer was originally created to express the out-flow of God’s love-for-others, but with his choice-capacity as an angelic being, Lucifer chose to burn as a self-for-self, thus he was cast out of heaven, “having great wrath (Rev 12:12)”. Lucifer, like man, was created, not birthed of God; he did not possess the kind of life that could never emulate God. But this is not the end of Lucifer – with God nothing is wasted and “all is working for the good (Rom 8:28)”. Lucifer became used of God as God’s negative agent in the world. He is used today to confront the God’s created humankind with becoming morally conscious persons, originally by the choice between the trees in the garden shortly after man had been created. Lucifer then was also used to release “the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus” to the world by crucifying the Lord Jesus Christ. It is by the death of the cross that Jesus “became the life-giving spirit” (1Cor 15:45)

 

Galatians 5:16 (NIV) So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Galatians 5:25 (NIV) Since we live (have life in) by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Even today, Sin in our flesh remains resident in order to propel us to choose Christ who is our life as our new and overcoming life. to live by and according to the overcoming Spirit of life. Each time we choose to yield to Christ in us we make the cross seen as being effective – thus making and open shame of the Devil. Lucifer presents every Christian with daily choice, to walk according to the Sin infected flesh or, to walk in accord with to the Spirit.

 

Mankind Deluded

That first deluded choice was made by Adam and Eve, although it was not totally deliberate on their part, as was Lucifer’s choice. Lucifer’s choice established him as false deity with his self-for-self nature. Adam’s choice placed mankind within Lucifer’s grasp. By this, Lucifer could and did infect Adam and Eve with his false-self, joined to their soul-selves. Lucifer is “that (evil) spirit who works in us the children of disobedience.” Eph. 2:1-3. Man was the one 2 Cor. 4:4 In whom the god of this world (the Devil) hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

 

By now I hope you can see that all humans are born under a delusion, thinking of our selves as being self-acting persons, when in actual fact we are expressing another life and nature. We are “driven” to express the nature of an indwelling spirit who is “working” within us. This delusion is the huge lie that prevents Christians from enjoying the life and power of the indwelling Christ as their life with rest in their souls. When we were sinners we thought it was “just us.” There never was a “just us.” It was formerly “Sin” as us, and now, now being regenerated, it is “Christ” as us.

 

The Sin-spirit himself – the Devil, was the first to occupy man’s being, and he is at work in all “the children of disobedience”. Therefore, the plain and simple outcome is that, through the fall, mankind became spontaneous expressers of Lucifer’s self-for-self nature (“in sin did my mother conceive me” Psalm 51:5), yet at the same time we are deluded into thinking it is just we who are failing and having a hard time trying to be like Jesus of Nazareth. The truth is that we are not to be “like” Jesus; we Christians have Christ alive in us, desiring to live His life through us as the new us.

 

No Longer I

Paul ultimately saw through this delusion saying Romans 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Paul saw that an indwelling nature, Sin, had usurped mankind and him. Yet, Paul also came to see the remedy that is the Christian’s via the cross. The remedy is ours when we see Christ’s death as our death to our “old man” (Rom 6:6-7), and receive His indwelling life and nature as our new life and nature in place of that old, fallen nature of Sin. Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.  This is man made alive by Christ, just as God purposed in Christ Jesus.

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A New Moral Consciousness