The existence of unconscious repressed guilt is taught all through the Bible.
1. As a clear example of self-deceived unconscious motivations mentioned above, look again at the crucifixion of Christ Himself. The Jewish leaders were pathetically sincere in believing that the very existence of the "whole nation" required that Jesus die. Caiphas said: "It is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself … " (John 11:50, 51).
These men knew full well they were crucifying an innocent man. What they "knew not" was that they were giving expression to the unconscious ‘’enmity against God" buried beneath the surface in all carnal human hearts. Their words and actions were being motivated by an unknown force within them. We all have the same problem:
That prayer of Christ for His enemies embraced the world. It took in every sinner that had lived or should live, from the beginning of the world to the end of time. Upon all rests the guilt of crucifying the Son of God. (DA 745. emphasis added).
Paul agrees that the sin of crucifying Christ was an unconscious one: "Had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor. 2:8).
As in the case of the Jewish leaders, humanity today is not conscious of that guilt. But their sin is also our sin, for the simple reason that we all partake of a common humanity. We are all "members of the body".
Let us all remember that we are still in a world where Jesus, the Son of God, was rejected and crucified, where the guilt of despising Christ and preferring a robber rather than the spotless Lamb of God still rests. … The whole world stands charged today with the deliberate rejection and murder of the Son of God. … All classes and sects who reveal the same spirit of envy, hatred, prejudice, and unbelief manifested by those who put to death the Son of God would act the same part, were the opportunity granted, as did the Jews and people of the time of Christ. They would be partakers of the same spirit that demanded the death of the Son of God. (TM 38).
If we refuse this clear-cut truth, we may well set the clock back for another generation. Spiritual pride evades this revelation. "Impossible! I could never do that," one may insist. Yet this was precisely the proud assumption of those who rejected the beginning of the Loud Cry (see R & H, April 11, 1893).
The final unfolding of history will be the disclosure of the world’s guilt so that all can see it at last. When the world unites to exterminate the people of God in the final decree, this unconscious mind of evil will be fully manifest. No longer will the Holy Spirit restrain it. And their hatred of God’s people will be in reality hatred of Christ — a fresh and complete display of the same unconscious hatred manifested at Calvary, "that all the world may become guilty [out in the open] before God" (Rom. 3:19).
The painful truth disclosed in the True Witness’s message to the "angel of the church of the Laodiceans" is that a related guilt is our real sin today. And it is holding up the Latter Rain. Beneath the surface there is a "carnal mind" which "is enmity against God". All through the decades this unconscious enmity against
God has frustrated our best conscious efforts to hasten the coming of the Lord.
Obviously, only the "blotting out of sins" accomplished in the Day of Atonement can avail to cleanse this deeper level of unknown sin. When this work is done, the mysterious phrase, "the final atonement", will be better appreciated. No magical process will do the work The now unknown sins will be brought fully to consciousness and forthwith repented of. But this will not be possible unless side by side with the abounding awareness of our sin there is a "more abounding" awareness of what grace really means. Hence the necessity for a clearer understanding of the gospel than we have ever known before — righteousness by faith. The "enmity" fully healed, the "atonement" becomes fully effective or "final". It is, in fact, a final reconciliation.
2. Long before Calvary Jesus pointed out the unconscious sin of His enemies:
Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias. which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive [oida, be conscious:] For this people’s heart is waxed gross. and their ears are dull of hearing and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. (Matt. 13: 13-15).
Mark adds in place of the last phrase, "lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them" (Mark 4:12). Thus the thing not "known" (oida) is shown to be their sins. The divine Agency whose work it is to bring unrealized sin to
consciousness is the Holy Spirit: "And when He is come, He will reprove [convict] the world of sin" (John 16:8). It is impossible for such sin to be forgiven until the Holy Spirit imparts a consciousness of it. This is why there can be no automatic scrubbing of the tape by pressing the magic button — "Lord, forgive me of all my sins’‘ — without those sins coming to consciousness.
A.T. Jones, one of the agents used by the Lord to communicate to His people the "beginning" of the Latter Rain in 1888, emphasized that the sins buried in the human heart must come to our consciousness before they can be blotted out. The "good news" is that the Lord will do the work if we let Him:
Now some of the brethren here have done that very thing. They came here free; but the Spirit of God brought up something they never saw before. The Spirit of God went deeper than it ever went before, and revealed things they never saw before; and then, instead of thanking the Lord that that was so, and letting the whole wicked business go … they began to get discouraged...
If the Lord has brought up sins to us that we never thought of before, that only shows that He is going down to the depths, and He will reach the bottom at last; and when He finds the last thing that is unclean or impure, that is out of harmony with His will, and brings that up, and shows that to us, and we say, "I would rather have the Lord than that" — then the work is complete, and the seal of the living God can be fixed upon that character. [Congregation: "Amen".]
This is the blessed work of sanctification. And we know that that work of sanctification is going on in us. If the Lord should take away our sins without our knowing it what good would it do us? That would be simply making machines of us. He does not propose to do that; consequently, He wants you and me to know when our sins go, that we may know when His righteousness comes. It is when we yield ourselves that we have Him. (General Conference Bulletin, 1893, p. 404).
In this connection we may look at the following from Ellen G. White:
God’s law reaches the feelings and motives, as well as the outward acts. It reveals the secrets of the heart flashing light upon things buried in darkness. God knows every thought, every purpose, every plan, every motive. The books of heaven record the sins that would have been committed had there been opportunity … God has a perfect photograph of every man’s character and this photograph He compares with His law. He reveals to man the defects that mar this life, and calls upon him to repent and turn from sin. (5 BC 1085).
"The things buried in darkness" are clearly not "known sins" consciously concealed from others. They are said to be "sins that would have been committed had there been opportunity". Therefore they are not sins that have been committed. These are "purposes" and "motives" buried deep within the heart. How can the final blotting out of sins possibly take place if these things never come to consciousness? It is with these things that the Laodicean message is concerned, and this is why it will "end in the loud cry of the third angel" once it is understood and gladly received as the Lord intends.
3. Thus two important factors condition the "blotting out of sins": the sins coming fully to consciousness; and a new appreciation of the cross that provides the dynamic that makes the experience possible. Take away the atonement provided at the cross and no sin whatever can be forgiven, much less "blotted out", Zechariah’s great prophecy is clearly concerned with the "blotting out of sins", for he speaks of cleansing from "sin and uncleanness". This prophecy has never yet been fulfilled:
And I will pour upon the house of David [the church leadership] and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem [the church], the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him. as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. … In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. (Zech. 12: 10; 13:1).
This prophecy will be partially fulfilled in the experience of those specially resurrected who actually murdered Christ at His first advent (DA 580). However, the "cleansing" brought to view as contingent on this contrite vision of Christ crucified cannot apply to them. Therefore we can expect the Holy Spirit to be "poured" upon the church leadership and upon the church, giving a new vision of Christ crucified, revealing our own participation in the crime.
"The spirit of grace and of supplications" can be none other than the Holy Spirit who "maketh intercession for the saints according to the will ofGod" (Rom. 8:26). In His office work of glorifying Christ (John 16:14), the Spirit will arouse in the hearts of God’s people a new sense of oneness with Christ. It will be a sympathy with Him closer than one’s love of an only child. This will make possible a completely new motivation for finishing the work: not a concern for our getting to Heaven, but a concern for His vindication, that He receive His reward.
Is this guilt of "piercing" Christ something that the "house of David" and the "inhabitants of Jerusalem" have been conscious of! Obviously not. The consciousness is only brought to light by the "pouring" out of the Spirit. When the Lord says "they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced", it is clear that the knowledge of this sin or of their participation in it had not previously been clearly realized.
If one will read Testimonies to Ministers, pages 91-96, he will see that the uplifting of Christ in the 1888 message would have fulfilled Zechariah’s prophecy had the message been received by the "house of David". Certain it is that in our day this truth is not yet clearly seen by our ministry or our people. Zechariah’s prophecy is yet future, and so is the ultimate "cleansing" associated with the "pouring" out of the Spirit. When it comes it will not only take care of "sin" but also "uncleanness".
Before we consider just how Laodicea’s root problem is an unconscious one, how enmity against God has been and still is today the underlying barrier to receiving the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, let us turn again to our Bibles to consider more thoroughly the reality of this problem of unconscious sin.