Help in Dealing with the Unreal god Known as Resident Policeman

19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

–1 John 3.19-4.3 (NIV)

We are currently looking at the classic old book from J.B. Phillips titled, Your God Is Too Small. In it, Phillips identifies various unreal gods that we construct and attempt to worship–all with quite unsatisfactory results. Over the next several weeks where there are relevant lessons from the Daily Office (as there is in today’s lesson), I will comment on these unreal gods. Today we look at the unreal god that Phillips called “Resident Policeman.”

Resident Policeman is a terribly oppressive god we construct and is essentially equivalent to our conscience, specifically a guilty conscience. People who labor under this unreal god are usually convinced that God is bound and determined that they not have any fun at all because if they do, well, that’s just wrong. Besides, everybody knows God is against having any fun in life–or so this kind of sad (and terribly mistaken) thinking goes–and he will prove it by pricking us with a guilty conscience every chance he gets.

Sound like a god you would like to worship? Me neither.

Of course, God can speak to us through our conscience, but to equate our conscience to God is a serious mistake because our conscience can be morbidly underdeveloped or overdeveloped, depending on multiple factors. Moreover, since our conscience is, in part, culturally conditioned, it is not always an accurate indication of God’s voice speaking to us. We therefore have to approach listening to it with the appropriate caution.

But as we see from today’s passage, John will have nothing to do with this unreal notion of Resident Policeman. He reminds us that if we have an oversensitive conscience, God can quiet it because he is greater than our hearts (which in biblical language refers to more than just our emotions; it also refers to our mind and will, our core being). How can God do that? By knowing our hearts better than we do and by reminding us what he expects from us. And what is that? John tells us this as well. We can tell if we have a saving faith (which could well stimulate an oversensitive conscience) if we do what pleases God. And what pleases God? Two things. First, to believe that Jesus is who he claims he is, that is, God’s Son, and second, to follow Jesus’ command for us to love one another (see the farewell discourse starting in John 14ff). The latter, of course, is consistent with what our Lord himself told us when he summarized the Law for us: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets (Matthew 22.34-40).

In other words, these two criteria should be the controlling criteria when assessing our moral behavior.

We must also remember that when Scripture talks about love it has in mind action rather than emotion. Love always manifests itself for the good of the beloved. It doesn’t necessarily manifest itself in affection for the person, although it might at times. That is why it is possible, for example, to love our enemies because our love is based on what we do (or don’t do) for a person rather than our feelings about the person.

Here, then, is the antidote to the unreal god called Resident Policeman. We believe God loves us so much that he became human and died for us so that we would not have to bear the just punishment of his wrath poured out on us. This should bring us great hope, comfort, and reassurance because we remember that we did not earn, nor do we deserve, this grace offered to us through Jesus’ death. God became human because he loves us and wants us to have the kind of relationship with him that he intended when he created us, and it all starts by having our alienation and exile ended by the cross of Jesus.

And when we are pricked by a guilty conscience we are to do what John advises. Test the spirits using the two criteria he gives us in today’s passage and which he will flesh out further in 1 John 4. This makes it fairly straightforward for us to decide if we are suffering from a legitimate guilty conscience or whether we are suffering from something false and of our own making. We simply must be honest enough with ourselves to ask if the guilt we feel stems from an unloving act we have done (or failed to do).

Of course, as with most things in life, this is never quite as easy as it sounds and we must do some other things to help us in evaluating the legitimacy of a guilty conscience. The best thing we can do is to develop a thorough knowledge of Scripture to help us draw on the many examples of love that are offered there. Toward this end, memorizing as much Scripture as possible is massively helpful. It also never hurts to have faithful Christian friends to help us with this task as well, but for that to happen we need to be real with each other and stop trying to put on a phony front. We must be willing enough and trusting enough to expose ourselves to our friends, warts and all, and then trust that they love us enough to speak the truth in love to us, and that God will use them to help guide us in assessing our moral behavior.

If you are laboring under the false and destructive god known as Resident Policeman, think deeply on these things. Remember the real criteria for assessing the legitimacy of a guilty conscience, something that you can only do with the help of a thorough knowledge of Scripture. Remember too the God who loves you wildly through Jesus Christ. God is indeed a God of justice, but the symbol of God’s justice is the cross. Always keep that at the foremost part of your mind. Finally, ask God to send you a Christian friend who will love you enough to be honest with you and who will help you discriminate between a legitimate guilty conscience and a false and destructive one. Then start enjoying life, abundant life, in Jesus.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!