SIN CONSCIOUSNESS SIN consciousness is Satan's chief hindrance to faith. It is his oldest device.

Today it springs from an ignorance of the Substitutionary work of Christ. The ministers, in attempting to separate the congregation from the worldly influences and build them up in a "Holy Life," have industriously preached sin rather than Righteousness, Redemption and Sonship. There are almost no sermons preached on Righteousness as defined in the Pauline Revelation, or on Fellowship. The fact is, that only a few recognize the distinction between Fellowship and Relationship. Our relationship is born of God. He is the Author of it. Man cannot sever his relationship with the Father, but he may do that which will cause the Father to sever it. Our relationship is like a legal marriage. The law married the couple, they cannot unmarry themselves. They may do that which will compel the law to separate them. Let it be fully understood that God is the author of our union with Himself. Jesus said, "I am the vine and ye are the branches ." The branch possesses no ability to separate itself from the vine . That ability is in the hands of the Husbandman . It is easy for us to break fellowship with the Father. The epistle of John was written to show us the secret of maintaining fellowship with the Father and with one another. The word "back-slide" does not occur in the New Testament. Why? It describes Israel. The first Covenant people who were the servants of Jehovah would "back-slide" or leave Jehovah for another "god." They did not have Eternal Life. They were not sons, only servants. They had never been recreated. They were servants of the Abrahamic Covenant, and of the Law of that Covenant. We should never use the word "back-slide" in referring to a Christian who has broken fellowship. We should teach him clearly what fellowship means . 1 John 13:4 "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ: and these things we write, that your joy may be made full." You see, joy is one of the riches of the New Creation. Very few of us have ever made a study of it . There is a vital contrast between joy and happiness. Happiness comes from our surroundings, environment, health and money. Joy is something that only children of God possess . It is the fruitage of a rich fellowship with the Father, the Word, and with one another. 1 John 1:5 "And this is the message which we have heard from him and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." Notice the next verse, "If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth ." Remember Col.1:13-14 "Who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love." Darkness is Satan's dominion. The Law of the New Covenant is given to us in John 13:34-35. "A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another even as I have loved you." The word love there is "Agapa," the new kind of Love. That commandment is to govern the walk of the believer . If we step out of love by criticizing

one of the brethren or saving something we ought not to say, or doing something we ought not to do, we mar our fellowship and go into darkness. It is amazing how many people are attending Church regularly every Sunday, who know they have been Born Again, but who have had no fellowship with the Father for years. They are living in spiritual darkness as far as the Word is concerned. They have no feeling for lost souls. They give as a duty, and attend church as a habit . The joy they once knew in their spiritual life is gone. They are living in spiritual darkness. Notice I John 1 :7, "But if We walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin ." God is Light. When I am walking in fellowship. I am walking in the light of the Word, the light of the Spirit. I am in fellowship with my own spirit . I am in fellowship with the brethren. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, keeps me clean from sins of ignorance which I may have committed (I have not yet grown up to know that they are sins.) The next verse says "If we say we have not sinned we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." We have lost our fellowship and are walking in darkness . The next verse clears it up, "If we confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This is not for the unsaved man, but for the believer. That means He will restore our fellowship. Righteousness means the ability to stand in the Father's presence without the sense of guilt, inferiority or condemnation. You remember Romans 8 :1. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus ." There is no sense of guilt for we are enjoying the fulness of His fellowship . Note this: if we confess our sins, He at once forgives us and restores to us our standing and privileges in Christ . It is wrong for you to condemn Yourself after He has forgiven you . You are never to think of it again . I John 2:1 "My little children these things write I unto you that ye may not sin . And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ." He is the family Lawyer . He is the Attorney General of the Family of God. When we break fellowship and ask the Father's forgiveness, our Advocate immediately takes up our case and restores our lost fellowship . It is vital that we know this. There is only one basic sin that the believer commits. When that sin is committed, it may throw the door open for a thousand others. That sin is breaking the love law. We are to walk in love. I John 4:16 gives us a remarkable exposition of love ."And we know and have believed the love which God bath in our case. God is love; he that lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him. I like this translation, it has that intimate touch, it brims us into such vital consciousness of our union with Him. The word "perfect" occurs several times in this Epistle. In 1 John 4 :12, "No man hath beheld God at any time : if we love one another, God abideth in us (we can see God in each other.) and His love is perfected in us." 1 John 2:5 "But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily hath the love of God been perfected."

1 John 4:17 "Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the clay of judgment." 1 John 4:18 "He that feareth is not made perfect in love." You may never he perfect in faith or wisdom, but you may be perfect in love. Why? Because His nature has made us what we are. We are New Creations by nature, and that nature is love. Now we can understand that sin consciousness comes from stepping out of the Love Realm into the realm of darkness, or selfishness . . . out of the Light of Love, into the darkness of Sense Knowledge. The reason Sin Consciousness has dominion over the believer is because there has been no clear teaching in regard to the New Creation. "Wherefore if any man is in Christ there is a New Creation, the old things are passed away; behold they have become new. But all things are of God who reconciled us unto himself through Christ." One of our graphic translators gives it like this, "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, there is a new self ." Man is a spirit, he has a soul or reasoning faculties, and he lives in a body. Ezek. 36:26 tells us this, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh." If He puts a new spirit within you, He puts a new self within you. There is going to be a new kind of love and a new self dominated by this new kind of love. He is going to take the stony heart out . The stony heart is that natural human spirit that is full of hatred, born of selfishness . Not only that, but He says, "I will put my spirit within you ." He is not only going to make a new self out of me, but He is going to come and make His home in my body. My body will be His temple, His sanctuary. Col . 3:10 "And have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him." Our spirits are called "the hidden man of the heart." In 2 Cor. 4:16 we are called " the inward man." In Romans 7:22 we are called the "inward man." This "new man" has been created in Christ Jesus. He is created in Righteousness, holiness and truth. This New Man is a New Creation; he is born of God. The Hidden Man.