Introduction
Conscience is not what it
was. What our forebears found abhorrent is now accepted as
legitimate behaviour, and not only do men practise the most flagrant
sins, but they also “have fellow
delight in those who
do [them]” (Rom. 1: 32, my emphasis). The Church, sadly, has
followed in the footsteps of the world. Thus what Scripture presents
as an utter disgrace is now excused with a shrug of the shoulders,
since ‘everyone is doing it’. Even Gospel preaching has changed.
Years ago the purpose was to bring about self–loathing in the
hearers as before a holy and sin–hating God; now the intention is to
make the audience feel more comfortable about themselves. Standards
have changed, and it is no surprise that conscience has adapted
itself to the new standards.
The Witness Within
Conscience, as defined by Scripture, is a
witness: “I say [the]
truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me …
for our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience …” (Rom.
9: 1; 2 Cor. 1: 12). This witness comes not from outside ourselves,
but
from within—for while
we are “washed as to our body with pure water”, we are “sprinkled
as to our hearts from
a wicked conscience” (Heb. 10: 22, my emphasis). Conscience is
certainly not the same as guilt, but it does bear witness to guilt.
In so doing, it may work in one of two directions. On the one hand,
conscience is an accuser: “who shew the work of the law written in
their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their
thoughts
accusing”. On the
other hand, it may act as an evader of responsibility such that the
guilty begin “excusing
themselves between themselves” (Rom. 2: 15, my emphasis). Conscience
may also bear witness to good, as in 2 Cor. 4: 2: “But we have
rejected the hidden things of shame, not walking in deceit, nor
falsifying the word of God, but
by manifestation of the truth
commending ourselves to every conscience of men before God” (my
emphasis). The meaning of conscience is very succinctly summed up by
the Greek word the Spirit of God uses for it in the NT.
Sunideesis comes from the
preposition sun, meaning
with, and the verb oida,
meaning to know,
describing an intuitive knowledge not immediately derived from what
is external. When all this is put together, we have a
conscious knowledge of
oneself.
Its Beginning
The first indication of
conscience is in Genesis 3 after Adam and Eve sinned: “And they
heard the voice of Jehovah Elohim, walking in the garden in the cool
of the day. And Man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of
Jehovah Elohim, in the midst of the trees of the garden. And Jehovah
Elohim called to Man, and said to him, Where are thou? And he said,
I heard thy voice in the garden, and I feared, because I am naked;
and I hid myself” (vs 8–10). Now nobody told Adam that he was
naked—he came to the realisation himself. It was his own conscience
that revealed to Adam his fallen state before a holy God. Of course
man was naked before he transgressed but he was not ashamed (see
Gen. 2: 25), for exposure in the presence of God is not a problem
for the innocent. Man was now an offender. Before his fall man had
only known good (see Gen. 1: 31 etc.), but now he had become
acquainted with evil—an evil, moreover,
in himself. On
account of that evil he no longer enjoyed the presence of God but
feared it.
Now it is important to be clear as to
what we mean by The Fall
(not a term, incidentally, that Scripture uses). Adam as innocent
was not morally insensible like an animal, for God created man
“upright” (Eccl. 7: 29). However, man lost his uprightness when he
sinned, for now “there is none upright among men” (Mic. 7: 2). Nor
did he blunder into sin, for “Adam was not deceived” (1 Tim. 2:
14)—he knew what he was doing, even if he did not appreciate the
gravity of the effects of his disobedience. Again, the serpent’s
promise regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was
made not just to Eve, but
also to Adam for he
said “in the day
ye” (plural) “eat of
it, your eyes will be opened, and ye will be as God, knowing good
and evil” (Gen. 3: 5). Now
only in that respect
did man and his wife become as God (see Gen. 3: 22)—although, it
should be noted, Scripture never says that man now knew good and
evil
in the same way that
God does. What we read of God is that “the eyes of Jehovah are in
every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Prov. 15: 3), but man
need not look outside of himself for he is now forever troubled by
conscience of sins
(Heb. 10: 2). He might attempt to quieten conscience, and to argue
with it, but he cannot escape it. Divine wisdom has ensured that
every man and woman has a conscience, for, if nothing else, it
serves as a brake on evil and a supporter of good.
No More Conscience of Sins
Judaism had very great
advantages over the Gentile world. To the Jews “were entrusted the
oracles of God”, and “the adoption, and the glory, and the
covenants, and the law–giving, and the service, and the promises”
were gifted to them (Rom. 3: 2; 9: 4). Yet despite all this, the
system was “unable to perfect
as to conscience him
that worshipped” (Heb. 9: 9, my emphasis). Blood of bulls and goats,
although covering sins was incapable of taking away sins. Therefore
the Israelite, knowing his sins were still there, was never entirely
free of the guilt upon his conscience.
Only with the death of Christ could his
conscience be purged from dead (that is, useless) works, “to worship
[the] living God” (Heb. 9: 14). Thus the writer of the Hebrew
epistle urges those Jews who had confessed Jesus as the Christ to
“approach with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, sprinkled”
as to their “hearts from a wicked conscience” (Heb. 10: 22). As true
believers they could be free of a wicked (or bad) conscience,
because they no longer had “any conscience of sins” (v2). Sadly the
mass of the nation missed this blessing and persisted in their
observation of ineffective dead works. God, however, does not forget
his promises (see Ps. 105: 8–10) and a day is coming when “all
Israel shall be saved”, for He “shall have
taken away their
sins” (Rom. 11: 26, 27, my emphasis).
The Believer’s Conscience
Now the one freed from the
guilt of sin, “should no longer serve sin” (Rom. 6: 6). Indeed,
baptism itself, is “[the] demand as before God of a good conscience”
(1 Pet. 3: 21). The believer is to reckon himself “dead to sin and
alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6: 11). Thus Paul was greatly
exercised “to have in everything a conscience
without offence
towards God and men” (Acts 24: 16, my emphasis). Again, Peter speaks
of “having
a good conscience, that [as to that] in which they speak
against you as evildoers, they may be ashamed who calumniate your
good conversation in Christ” (1 Pet. 3: 16, my emphasis).
Conversation here means
way of life, and the
lesson is simple: there is to be nothing in the believer’s life that
those who oppose the faith can point to as suspect or doubtful. The
conscience is to be clear, and he is to have a good testimony from
those without (see 1 Tim. 3: 7).
A critical section of the parting charge
that Paul gave to Timothy involved having a good conscience: “the
end of what is enjoined is love out of a pure heart and
a good conscience and
unfeigned faith” (1 Tim. 1: 5, my emphasis; see also v19).
Conscience, being a voice within, is necessarily a very individual
thing, and it must be maintained in a healthy state at all costs. It
is a
very great evil when
individuals who are uncertain or doubtful are told to ignore their
consciences and to blindly follow their leaders. The false notion of
an ‘assembly conscience’ (as taught by some) is really a fig–leaf to
cover and enforce despotism. The seriousness of the matter is
demonstrated by the fact that where conscience has been “put away”,
the end–result is “shipwreck as to faith” (1 Tim. 1: 19). The person
is not lost as regards heaven, but he is lost to all useful service
and testimony on earth. Such examples, sadly, are not rare.
Conscience—Imperfect
While it is essential to maintain a good
conscience, it is also important to understand that the guidance of
the conscience is not perfect. Hence while conscience may excuse sin
(see Rom. 2: 15), God views the sinner as without excuse (see Rom.
1: 20). Again, conscience can be both overly tender (see 1 Cor. 8:
7), and absolutely heartless (see 1 Tim. 4: 2), and extremes of
sensitivity are often exhibited in the same person at different
times. Thus when David cut off Saul’s skirt we read that afterwards
his “heart smote him” (1 Sam. 24: 5), and yet he lived seemingly
untroubled for many months after committing adultery and murder (see
2 Sam. 11, 12).
Conscience is imperfect because it is
only as good as the standard to which it operates. Paul could say
that he served God from his forefathers “with pure conscience” (2
Tim. 1: 3; see also Acts 23: 1)—that is without defiling his
conscience by doing what he knew to be wrong. He was true up to the
light he had, even though his light was so inadequate that he was
found zealously opposing Christ. Even when a Christian, he could say
“I am conscious of nothing in myself;
but I am not justified by
this” (1 Cor. 4: 4, my emphasis). Again, the Jew had the
advantage of a revelation in the Mosaic Law of what was right and
wrong, but the Gentile only had “the work of the law written in
their hearts” (Rom. 2: 15). Thus Peter, as a Jew, was troubled by
the abolition of the dietary laws (see Acts 10: 14), while “the
nations who know not God” were unperturbed by fornication and
“passionate desire” (1 Thess. 4: 5; see 1 Cor. 5: 1). In
Christianity, we not only have conscience and revelation, but we
have the Holy Spirit. Thus while we should always have “a good
conscience, in all things desirous to walk rightly” (Heb. 13: 18),
that, on its own, is insufficient. Conscience may be untroubled but
wrong. Thus, when writing to the Romans, Paul is careful to say that
not only was his conscience supportive of what he testified, but
that it was also a conscience informed by the Holy Spirit: “I say
[the] truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with
me
in [the] Holy Spirit
…” (Rom. 9: 1, my emphasis). It follows that a conscience informed
by the Holy Spirit will always be in accord with the Scriptures that
He has indited. Again, the ministers are to hold “the mystery of the
faith in a pure conscience” (1 Tim. 3: 9). The reason for much of
the low practice in the Church can be found in the fact that the
consciences of Christians are no longer as informed by the divine
revelation in the Scriptures as they once were. Sadly, believers
today are often more influenced by the moral relativism so prevalent
around them than the Bible. Indeed, consciences in the western world
in general are now mostly governed by what ‘feels right’ rather than
Judaeo–Christian moral standards, with the result that men today
feel guilty about very different things to what their parents and
grand–parents did (see Is. 5: 20). This sits very awkwardly with a
God who declares “I Jehovah change not” (Mal. 3: 6), and to whom we
shall all give account (see Rom. 14: 12).
A Weak Conscience
Now if conscience is only as
good as it is enlightened by the Word of God, then this has serious
ramifications for practical Christian fellowship. Him “that is weak
in the faith” (Rom. 14: 1) we are to receive—not
into fellowship—the
passage is not dealing with new converts—but in the sense of being
whole–hearted towards “thy brother” rather than “making little” of
him (v10). He may indeed be overly sensitive about many things that
he ought not to be, such as eating or not eating certain foods even
though “meat does not commend us to God” (1 Cor. 8: 8). In such a
case, the conscience is inadequately informed by the Word of God for
“knowledge [is] not in all: but some, with conscience of the idol,
until now eat as of a thing sacrificed to idols; and their
conscience, being weak, is defiled” (v7). The way of Christ is “Let
not him that eats make little of him that eats not; and let not him
that eats not judge him that eats” (Rom. 14: 3). All things may be
lawful, but not all edify. Therefore, “Let no one seek his own
[advantage], but that of the other” (1 Cor. 10: 24; see v 23). The
onus is
particularly on those
who have knowledge (see 1 Cor. 8: 10) to not despise those who lack
freedom in their conscience for in “wounding their weak conscience,
ye sin against Christ”
(v12, my emphasis). Those with an enlightened conscience can boast
about what they know, and smile at how ignorant others are, but this
is doing things to the glory of
self and not God (see
1 Cor. 10: 31). We are to give
no occasion of
stumbling
to anyone, “whether
to Jews, or Greeks, or the assembly of God” (v32, my emphasis).
A
Dead Conscience
Very different from the
conscience that is weak (that is, unhealthily active) is a
conscience that is partly or fully dead. Thus: “But the Spirit
speaks expressly, that in latter times some shall apostatise from
the faith, giving their mind to deceiving spirits and teachings of
demons speaking lies in hypocrisy,
cauterised as to their own
conscience, forbidding to marry, [bidding] to abstain from
meats, which God has created for receiving with thanksgiving for
them who are faithful and know the truth” (1 Tim. 4: 1–3, my
emphasis). The word used here for
cauterised is
kauteriazo and its
meaning is very solemn. It denotes what has been burned with a
branding iron—that which will never recover its original function.
The consciences of such may well be untroubled by the ruinous
effects of their teachings, but this is because their consciences
are no longer working.
This state of having a cauterised
conscience is made all the more solemn when we consider that
Scripture expressly connects it with those who were once enlightened
as to the truth. A somewhat similar situation is described
elsewhere: “They
profess to know God, but in works deny [him], being
abominable, and disobedient, and found worthless as to every good
work” (Titus 1: 16, my emphasis). The writer precedes this by saying
“All things [are] pure to the pure; but to the defiled and
unbelieving nothing [is] pure; but both their mind and conscience
are defiled” (v15). These are not pagan unbelievers, but individuals
who profess faith in Christ. Despite claiming to walk in the light,
these have lost their moral compass, and see evil in things that are
morally neutral. We are not told the exact nature of the issue among
the Cretans that Titus was addressing, though the reference to
“those of [the] circumcision” (v10) suggests it may have been legal
in nature. The Jewish dietary laws, for example, are not applicable
to the Christian (see 1 Tim. 4: 4–5), but they would appeal to those
whose minds were defiled and seemed to see evil everywhere. Such
gave themselves an air of super–spirituality when in fact they were
in bondage, their consciences in constant exercise to no profit. It
does not take great imagination to realise that this is not entirely
a first–century problem!
At the opposite extreme, the phrase “all
things [are] pure to the pure” has itself has been perverted into a
licence for excusing the most blatant immorality. The statement
should be seen in the context of “disorderly vain speakers” (Tit. 1:
10) who were insisting on “commandments of men” (v14) that purported
to distinguish between what was pure and not pure. “All things” does
not include that which is intrinsically sinful. As the Lord said to
His disciples, “all things are clean to you” (Luke 11: 41).
Conclusion
Much more of course could be
said. That the conscience is an
imperfect guide is
abundantly evident, but the counterweight truth is that conscience
must
never be ignored. The
Devil is tireless in working in that direction, not only in the
world (as all readily admit), but also among Christians. None of us
are exempt from his attention, and if we neglect conscience, neglect
of the Word of God is sure to follow, and we are then on the highway
to making shipwreck of our faith. Let us, therefore, seek to
maintain a good conscience, informed by the Spirit of God through
the Scriptures.
