Throughout the church’s two millennia of history, many people have weighed in on the definition and meaning of biblical conviction. Unfortunately, all of this talk has done little to provide insight into an accurate understanding. The word convict only takes place one time in scripture—in the past tense (John 8:9). Yet, the concept appears quite frequently. Again in John chapter 8, one finds another key Bible word closely related to conviction. That word is convinceth. In fact, some have wisely defined conviction as the mental state of being convinced. In other words, one is never convicted or under conviction until he has first been convinced of sin or guilt. This should offer the Christian much comfort and understanding as to why the people could not convince the Saviour of sin. He was simply not guilty.
Throughout history, man has battled the idea that he is the only one who has had to endure temptation with a desire to do right (1 Kings 19:13-14). This lie was conceived by the father of lies (John 8:44) with the intent of convincing the believer into thinking that no one understands his difficulty. Though it is true that one man’s specific temptations may differ from that of another man, the basic premise is true: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man” (1 Corinthians 10:13). In Elijah’s day, there were 7,000 others (probably referring to only those in Israel) who experienced temptations similar to those experienced by Elijah (1 Kings 19:18).
