Conscience: July 2019
Table of Contents
Conscience
Man has a conscience, and when merely knowing that he has done what is evil, he has a defiled conscience (Titus 1:15). When he judges himself to be guilty in the sight of God, he has an evil conscience (Heb. 10:22). When, however, through believing God’s testimony concerning the blood of His Son, he is assured by God’s Word that he has remission of sins, he has a purged conscience — “how much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience” (Heb. 9:14). After this, in walking in obedience to the Word of God, he has a good conscience; he has the intuitive perception that he is doing God’s will, and he has the testimony that he pleases God. Happy are those who exercise themselves in keeping a conscience void of offense both toward God and toward men (Acts 24:16).
C. H. Mackintosh
Conscience
Man alone, of the creatures upon this earth, has a conscience. Doubtless some beasts can be instructed in obedience by their masters, but the intelligence and memory of the creature is not conscience. But to him who is conscious of his sinful being, it is a terrible reality. Conscience spoils the pleasures of sin, renders the prosperous, wicked man miserable, scares the skeptic, and forces many, against their judgment and feelings, to confess their crimes and yield themselves to justice.
We do not deny that man may harden himself until, despite his conscience, he becomes like the beasts and shuns evil only because of its consequences. Worse still, his conscience may become seared as with a hot iron and be so dulled to every righteous influence that even his fellow-men consider him too brutish for their society. However, the conscience remains in spite of all this. We may well ask what conscience is and how man came by this mighty force within him.
The Moral Sense
of Right and Wrong
Conscience is the moral sense of right and wrong which is innate to man. It is as much a part of his present being as his reason or his will. We may describe conscience as the eye of man’s moral being, or liken it to a voice within him commanding him concerning right and wrong.
Conscience does not enable man to know abstractedly what is right and wrong; it is not in itself a standard of right. Rather, if man is given the law of right and wrong, conscience appeals to him according to the law he knows. Conscience needs instructing; it does not instruct, and according as the conscience is faithfully instructed, so will its utterances be more or less just. Just as the eye responds to natural light, so the conscience responds to moral light.
The conscience of a pagan does not address him as that of a man who knows God’s Word. The conscience of a Christian, instructed in the spirit of his Father’s will, speaks very differently from that of him who knows merely the letter of the Scriptures. Thus even among true Christians there is a vast difference in sensibility of conscience. Conscience is like a window, which may be clean or dirty. Some labor to keep the window clean; others are slovenly, and their whole body is not full of light.
Responsibility
Man’s responsibility is according to his knowledge of right or wrong. Having heard what is right, we are bound to obey, and conscience will speak upon the question. The heathen have the book of nature before their eyes. “The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:20). More than this, “when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another” (Rom. 2:14-15). Our moral instinct, our sense of right and wrong, bears witness to the unseen God.
How came man to have this voice within him? God made man upright and set him in a scene of good — the Garden of Eden, where there was no evil. Man lacked the knowledge of evil, his state was beautiful, and he was happy. But innocence is not perfection, and at present man has lost that simplicity; he is mature. He has a conscience, which is a good thing, but it was obtained in a bad way. Man now knows evil, but he is a fallen creature; he loves the evil and cannot do the good. When we say fallen, we mean fallen from that condition in which God set him. Man gained knowledge by his fall. “The Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil” (Gen. 3:22). The knowledge is unquestionable, but together with the knowledge there is a nature contrary to God, which loves iniquity.
Righteousness and Holiness
To the Christian it is said, “Put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:22-24). This is not innocence regained, but righteousness and true holiness. Man has acquired the knowledge of good and evil, never to lose it, but in Christ he is no longer under the power of evil. And in the future the believer will possess the knowledge of good and evil, yet without a desire after the evil and rejoicing in the good; that will be perfection.
Thus man acquired his conscience by disobedience. He stole his knowledge, and when his eyes were opened to the fatal knowledge of evil, he feared and fled from God. Man’s knowledge condemned him, and it condemns him still. The one step over the boundary line set him where the darkness reigns. Man now is used to evil; it comes naturally to him without education, for he is born in sin and shapen in iniquity. It is only as he is instructed in right and taught of God that he becomes sensitive to wrong.
However, even the sensitive and refined conscience is not strength. It is a light to feet which are paralyzed: “How to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom. 7:18). Conscience makes man miserable. When the Spirit of God works within a man, He begins with the conscience, and the deeper the conscience work, the firmer will the building stand. Man’s first hiding from God was because of his conscience, and God begins with man where man left Him. That kind of gospel preaching which lets the conscience alone or only deals softly with it will produce either unreal or weakly converts. The conscience must be right with Him, and until the Spirit of God applies the living Word to the conscience, a man is no nearer to God than Adam was when he was hiding from God. So with the Christian; unless his conscience is right before God, he cannot have communion with God.
Christian Consciousness
Christian consciousness is the sensibility to right and wrong, and as the sense of the thing itself increases within us, so does our sensibility to it grow. As the believer grows in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord, he becomes more acute in his consciousness. He mourns over the sins of the soul. It is not punishment that he fears, but he grieves that he has done wrong against his God. It was this acute consciousness which made Paul exercise himself day and night in keeping a clear conscience before God and man. There is a danger of there being very little exercise in keeping the conscience clear. The blood of Christ has purged our consciences. We know good and evil, but do not fear God, for we know that the blood of His Son has satisfied the righteousness of God. We do not fear God, since He is entirely for us. He gave His Son, who shed His blood for us. Our consciences, instructed by the Spirit of God concerning the death of Christ, know that God has not one thing whatever against us. Such clearness of conscience in the presence of our holy and gracious God surely leads to increased consciousness of every kind of evil thing. The window of the Christian’s soul is unshuttered; he wishes the light to shine in, and his earnest desire is to keep every speck and spot from off the glass of that window.
H. F. Witherby (adapted)
The Role of the Conscience
A man’s conscience tells him that he does wrong and is an inward voice speaking to him of right and wrong. Even the heathen have this candle within them, the glimmering light of which shines with varied clearness in every human breast. But conscience is not the standard of what is right and wrong. Now while conscience within discriminates between good and evil and detects our works, conscience never discovers to man what his nature is. Only the light of the Word of God reveals this. We learn what we are, what our nature is, in the invariable light of God’s own truth.
If a man could possibly know what he is, in himself, in God’s sight, without the knowledge of God’s grace, his end would be utter despair, for “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5), while man by nature is “of the night [and] of darkness” (1 Thess. 5:5). God cannot change; “I am the Lord: I change not” (Mal. 3:6). Man cannot change his nature; “can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?” (Jer. 13:23).
The gospel of God does not propose to develop man’s nature, to reform it, or to cultivate it; on the contrary, God regards it as a worthless thing. The gardener does not cultivate the crab tree, but grafts a sweet apple upon it, and with his knife cuts down the stem of the old tree. God does not allow the old nature any place in His presence, but brings in Christ, the life, instead.
H. F. Witherby
Conscience and Moral Absolutes
In an earlier issue of The Christian (June 2014), we considered that which is absolute and that which is relative, and particularly in the moral and spiritual realm. Among other considerations, we saw that man is by nature a relative being, but also responsible to God who, in His nature, is absolute. For this reason, man must deal with both the absolute and the relative in his life down here on earth. However, when we look at conscience, we find that it cannot work properly unless firmly connected to moral absolutes.
As we have seen in another article in this issue, man acquired a conscience at the time of his fall in Genesis 3; he then possessed the knowledge of good and evil. Conscience was not necessary before this, for man in his innocence did not need to know right from wrong. Since he was not, in his innocent state, capable of doing wrong, he did not need an inner check on his actions. But now, having disobeyed God and become “sinful flesh” instead of being innocent flesh, God gave him that which would remind him of his sin, act as a deterrent to it, and, above all, remind him of his accountability to God. Since that time, it has been the constant object of sinful men to try and escape that responsibility to God.
Moral Light
Just as our eyes need natural light to function properly, so our consciences need moral light to function in a right way, and this God has readily provided us. Before the written Word of God, God revealed Himself directly to man, making it clear what was required of him. Since the written Word appeared, man has had abundant witness of his responsibility to God. More than this, God is able to speak clearly to man “in a dream, in a vision of the night” (Job 33:15), and sometimes, where His Word is not readily available, He continues to do so today. Finally, every man has the witness of creation, “for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Rom. 1:20). While creation and entities like dreams and visions may not give direct moral light, they remind man of his accountability to God and should cause him to seek God.
After the Reformation, which took place largely in the sixteenth century, the Word of God was widely circulated in Europe and eventually North America. Because it addressed itself to men’s consciences, it bore the stamp of moral authority from God. Consciences were exercised by it, men were made to feel their need of a Savior, and many accepted Christ. But even in the world at large, there were many who, while not being truly born again, accepted the moral standards of Scripture. (This was true even before the Reformation, although the Bible was not generally in the hands of the common man.) As a result, the laws and government were based on the absolute moral standards of the Bible. Herein lies the difference between the Word of God and false religions, for Scripture brings God directly to the conscience through the Word, whereas that which is false stands between God and the conscience. That which is false forms a god of its own making and may even formulate some good principles, but it also allows men’s basest lusts to express themselves under the guise of religion. (Sad to say, in too many cases that which is true is sometimes corrupted by man, with the same result; it happened under Judaism, and it is happening under Christianity.)
The Word of God
When the Word of God is given up, the conscience has no absolutes to guide it, and everything becomes relative. Our Lord warned about this, telling the people, “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23). When man has the Word of God, there is, in that sense, light in him. If he gives it up, the darkness is greater than if he had never had the light. This happened to the Jews, for as another has remarked, it was not that they did not have the light; rather, it was the condition of the mind. By teaching some right principles, a false religion may even put the soul in some degree of light, but it leaves man in the darkness of his own malicious or covetous motives. This was the case with the Jews, for Judaism, as taken up by the corrupt motives of men, could make them ready to kill the Savior. (Not that Judaism was a false religion; rather, it was superseded by Christianity after Christ came.) The full result of this in our day was seen in Germany before and during World War II, when the land that was one of the cradles of the Reformation became the scene of some of the worst atrocities in modern history.
A Seared Conscience
Connected with all this is what Scripture calls a “seared conscience” (1 Tim. 4:2). This is not the same as a defiled conscience, although perhaps having some of the same characteristics. A seared conscience is one that is beyond feeling, having lost its sensitivity to evil. With constant exposure to evil and without the influence of God’s Word, the conscience becomes so callused and hardened that it can carry out the most awful acts with no remorse. We see this manifested to an extreme in those whom this world describes as “psychopaths.”
These individuals have both severely abnormal personality traits and marked deviant behavior, yet often appear very normal and totally in control of the situation. They are usually clever and charming, while underneath they remain totally self-centered, ruthless, and seemingly lacking in feelings or remorse. They are also characterized by impulsiveness, a need for excitement, a lack of responsibility, and frequent deceit and lying.
Moral Declension
In the past, the effects of stable family life, firm discipline, and Christian principles in society tended to control such behavior, at least to a large extent, but the past few decades have witnessed such a moral declension in Western countries that there has been a marked increase in serious crime. More than this, such crimes are being committed by children at an ever younger age, and we are seeing children under the age of ten who seem capable of the sort of mindless violence that once was seen only in hardened adult criminals. We are saddened by all this but should not be surprised, for when man gives up God, God may give up man to experience the full effect of what he has chosen.
Doubtless the psychopath is genetically predisposed to his bad personality structure, but then his will takes that tendency and allows it to act in open sin. Some would say that these individuals have been born without a conscience, but this is not true. The real root of the problem is found in Psalm 53:1: “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” Man’s conscience needs light to function properly, and if God and His claims are rejected, then man behaves as if there were no God. Another has remarked most aptly concerning this verse:
“The secret of this course is old too...all the path of the wicked comes from this. For him God is not. Faith does not exist, and God is not seen. This is the secret of all error in practice and in human reasoning. The more we examine the whole course of human action, the faults of us Christians, the various wanderings of philosophy, the more we shall find that ‘no God’ is at the root of all. Here it is the case that the conscience takes no notice of God. The heart has no desire after Him, and the will works as if there were none. Man says so (that there is no God) in his heart. Why should he say it? Because his conscience tells him there is one. His will would not have one, and, as God is not seen in His workings, will sees only what it will. God is set aside, and the whole conduct is under the will’s influence, as if no God existed.”
J. N. Darby
New Life in Christ
In view of all this moral decline, this world, and even believers, may raise the same question as did Israel in the days of Ezekiel: “If our transgressions and our sins be upon us ... how should we then live?” (Ezek. 33:10).
For the world, the only solution is Christ, for unless we have new life in Christ, we have no power to swim against the tide of evil that is engulfing this world. The answer to the problem is not for man to try to pull himself up by his own power, but to accept Christ as his Savior.
For the believer, the answer is to be more and more familiar with God’s Word. Its light is as strong as it ever was, and it will make wise the simple, rejoice the heart, and enlighten the eyes (Psa. 19:7-8). God’s Word will endure forever, long after the need for a conscience in the believer has passed away. And it will keep us in a path pleasing to the Lord now.
W. J. Prost
Conscience and the Cross
The work of Christ on the cross brings the Christian believer into the real possession of that heritage of blessing to which Old Testament saints could only look forward. Of the many blessings Christ’s death brings to believers, not the least is the relief that it brings to their consciences. The conscience, being man’s faculty of moral judgment, is a very important part of his spiritual nature, and it exercises great influence in his experience. Its approval or disapproval of himself is that which contributes more than anything else to the happiness or misery of his inward life. Conscience has been called by some the voice of God in man, and by others, God’s umpire in the soul. It can make the face of man turn deadly white, and also blush crimson. A bad or a good conscience will make a coward of the sinner or a hero of the saint.
The general tendency of the Jewish religion was to bring into activity the conscience of man, resulting in what is called a “conscience of sins” —a conscience enlightened as to the claims of God, and therefore, owing to man’s fallen state, burdened with a sense of sin. Not only the moral, but the ceremonial law, and even the very sacrifices which were offered, contributed to “the remembrance of sins.” This of itself created a state of bondage, from which even a heathen man would be comparatively free. Without the law, man is in a certain sense alive, but under law his sinful nature revives, and conscience, true to its function, acts only to condemn.
Deliverance
It is deliverance from this condemnation that the cross of Christ brings. The blood of Jesus purges this guilty conscience so perfectly that there remains “no more conscience of sins” (Heb. 10:2). The blood of Christ is efficacious not only for the complete removal of the conscience of sins, but also to purge the conscience from dead works.
When the claims of God and man are pressed home upon the human conscience, man resorts to various expedients to pacify it. Indeed the activities of men, in their attempts to relieve their own consciences in this unsatisfactory way, contribute a large part of the whole of church history. From motives of fear and with a view to merit, they have built churches, gone forth as missionaries, and been engaged in all kinds of religious enterprises. But in the light of the cross such efforts are fruitless. Our bad deeds are not to be atoned for by a corresponding number of good ones. Such efforts at self-justification before God are evil in themselves, and the extreme heinousness of such acts can only be purged from the conscience by the atoning blood of the Son of God. It is only after this cleansing that the conscience is fit to serve the living God. Before being cleansed, the motives are legal rather than Christian.
Imperfect Conscience
The conscience of Jewish worshippers was imperfect, because imperfection was stamped upon all the sacrifices that they offered, but it is nothing less than perfection that the blood of Christ brings to the conscience of the Christian. What the atoning work of Christ does for the conscience of the believer could not be improved upon, for nothing can be added to the perfection of Christ’s work. When He said, “It is finished,” He included in this wonderful expression the divinely perfect relief which His propitiation brings to the sinner’s conscience.
We know that all the holy and heavenly graces, in all their variety, will ultimately be perfectly produced in us, for we are predestinated to be conformed, morally and bodily, to the image of God’s Son. The mistake is that men often aim after these things before they have settled peace. God does not begin with the character; He begins with the conscience, and in the enjoyment of the peace which Christ has made by the blood of His cross, the babe in Christ grows to Christian manhood and perfection. Nothing but this peace can enable the believer to bear calmly the great responsibilities of Christian life and duty. But the believer in Christ, the instant he believes, is immediately made whiter than the snow, for God’s presence and worship, because of the divine efficacy of the blood of Christ.
Clean Every Whit
This perfection abides. The conscience does not need purging by the blood of Christ a second time, for while on the one hand, what Christ has done in dying for the sinner He has done forever, on the other, the new relationship into which the believer is brought can never be broken. As a matter of fact, the Christian in his walk, though true-hearted, is not perfect. He needs the washing of water by the Word. But through the blood of Christ, he remains “clean every whit” and “needeth not save to wash his feet” (John 13:10). It is when one forgets that he has been purged from his old sins (not when he remembers this and adores God for it) that he is said to be “blind, and cannot see afar off” (2 Peter 1:9); consequently, there is lack of fruitfulness in his life.
It is not meant here that no godly Jew enjoyed a good conscience. There were ever individual souls among the people who did what was right in the sight of the Lord, as suited to the condition of things in which they then lived. What, however, was fitting for the conscience of the Jew will not answer for the Christian. The conscience of the Old Testament saint was good because of his moral condition and by looking forward to Christ, not from being perfected forever by the offering of the body of Jesus. The Christian now enjoys the answer of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; none of the patriarchs or prophets had this.
Enlightened Conscience
The cross of Christ is divinely adapted to the conscience of the believing man. The enlightened conscience, in view of the death of Christ, enters on a new realm of judgment and is supremely satisfied with the perfect adaptability of the death of Christ to the deepest need of man. In view of that death, it is now as ready to justify the believer as it was before to condemn him. The conscience of man will never be satisfied with anything else, for the cross of Christ is the outcome of God’s wisdom, to supply that need. Conversely, the eternal reproach of the rejecter’s conscience will be, not only that he sinned, but also that he rejected the remedy which God provided for his sin. It is this purged conscience which makes the difference in view of death, the difference which exists between the Old Testament saints and those of New Testament times.
Christ died, that by death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Godly men like David and Hezekiah were all their lifetime subject to bondage through fear of death; this was not so with the Apostle Paul. It ought not to be so with any Christian. The apostle was “willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” With the “conscience of sins” gone, even in view of eternity and the immediate presence of God, there is nothing left to fear. Christ has died for our sins, and we are cleansed by His precious blood “once for all.”
Gospel Gleanings, Vol. 1 (adapted)
Conscience Before God
The Holy Spirit often puts Paul forward because in him are manifested the ways of the heart under grace. We can see the ways of God and of the human heart in the history that the Holy Spirit has given us of Paul. He displayed a patience truly admirable in caring for the church. He had an immense activity and great force of character. Acts 22 contains circumstances which show what a good conscience before God is.
If the conscience is not good, the Holy Spirit is grieved, and some, having put away a good conscience, have even made shipwreck concerning faith. If a child has offended his father, he is no more at ease before him, and cannot open his heart.
In the history of Paul we have the record of his conversion in Acts 22:3-16. Then he is in a trance or ecstasy (Acts 22:17-21), in which the Lord commands him to depart from Jerusalem. It is for Him to regulate these things. Paul in his answer says to the Lord that he is precisely the man suited to bear witness for Him in Jerusalem. I have persecuted Thee, and they know it; will they not see in me the efficacy of Thy grace? Such was the reasoning of Paul, but the Lord takes no account of it.
Purged
That which impresses us most is that Paul recalls to the Lord all his iniquity, and this, because his conscience was perfectly purged before God. It is necessary that it should be thus if one would dare to speak to God in detail of all our offences, of all our sins. There is a false repose in the child of God when the conscience is not perfectly good and opened out before God. Paul places before the eyes of the Lord all the detail of his sin. He does not confine himself to saying, Thou knowest all; rather he freely confesses everything before God, knowing that nothing can be imputed to him. He talks about his sins as of an affair irrevocably settled. He can even present these sins as a motive for being an apostle, for bearing testimony to Jesus in Jerusalem. Paul reasons with the Lord as a person with his intimate friend. This is what Ananias also does (Acts 9:13-16).
When God has purified the conscience for us by His perfect grace; the interests of Jesus are ours. Jesus is no longer our judge; He has taken our sins, He has united us to Himself, having taken our cause in hand. Instead of seeing in Jesus our judge, we see in Him a friend. Instead of being afraid of Christ, we are full of confidence in Him, because we are assured of His love. There is in the heart a complete change.
The reasoning of Paul was true, as we see in 1 Timothy 1:15. God had prepared Paul in that he had been the greatest enemy of the Lord Jesus, and chief of sinners. If Paul had spoken of other things than God’s righteousness by faith and man’s perfect pardon, his mouth must have been closed.
Purified
Peter was prepared by denying Christ, which is even worse than being His enemy. That closed his mouth for every other thing than preaching grace. Both Paul and Peter had a profound conviction of sin. If we would be strong and bear testimony to grace, we need to have the sense of the evil from whence God has taken us up. If the occasion presents itself, we can speak before men of our sins, provided that all has been laid clearly before God. The Christian converts at Ephesus brought their books of magic, and confessed all their actions by the power of the Holy Spirit. If the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, we have more shame for our sins before God than before men. To have a good conscience we must keep the conscience pure. Paul exercised himself to have in everything a conscience without offence toward God and men. When we have grieved the Holy Spirit, we do not feel the love of God in the same way. A conscience defiled cannot be at its ease before God, and when God enters, there are dark corners that we hide from Him. Impossible then to have that perfect confidence in reasoning with God as with a friend. If we have beforehand the sense of our feebleness, we shall be forced to seek strength in God.
Can we with boldness and without pain recall before God all we have thought, said and done? To be unable to do so is not to be in the presence of God; to do so is to recall to God His immense grace in having pardoned us. Without Christ who would venture such things? Sin hidden corrupts the heart, hardens the conscience, and renders us blind and proud. It is of all importance for us that our conscience should be entirely emptied before God. We can afterwards forget those things; we shall not be judged because of it. Be faithful in this sense — to have a pure conscience before God and men.
Bible Treasury, Vol. 13 (adapted)
Conscience—John's Gospel
In John’s Gospel, we see the Lord coming forth to sinners. He is not so much the Healer of Israel; it is rather the soul He seeks, and therefore it is the conscience He deals with. This gives us to know what He is, and what His purpose and His business are in every scene. It may be a happy conscience, an awakened, uneasy conscience, a sleepy, unbroken conscience, or a bad conscience. He deals with all this variety, but in it all, we see conscience in some condition or another before Him.
In Andrew, we have a simple picture of a happy conscience, or a happy sinner. He had gone to Jesus as a sinner, as “the Lamb of God”; he had been therefore accepted and welcomed by Jesus, and he leaves Him happy. His heart is free, and he can therefore think of others; he tells the first fellow-sinner he meets — his brother Simon—that he has found “the Christ.” Then, in full, consistent benevolence, he invites Simon to come and share the Christ of God with him. Here we see a conscience at liberty, because the sinner has found Jesus.
An Awakened Conscience
In Nathanael, the conscience has been already awakened. Under the fig tree, he has been confessing himself a sinner, for it is the spirit of confession which makes us “guileless.” The Lord recognizes this character in Nathanael, for he was a broken-hearted man. The Lord, therefore, had been in spirit already in company with him, before Philip called him, for the yearnings of an awakened soul are ever dear to Him.
And on His gracious salutation and letting him know that He had thus known him, Nathanael’s soul is amazed. “Rabbi,” he says, “Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the king of Israel.” This was revival to his heart.
This case then shows us the Lord’s blessed dealings with an awakened conscience, reviving and gladdening it, or making it a relieved, delivered conscience. In the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar, the conscience was still asleep. It had to be roused — brought into God’s presence—and the Lord accordingly forces her to discover herself. All the guilty secrets of her soul were dragged forth to the light. Though overwhelmed in the light that had detected and exposed her, she stands in His presence, for the Lord quickly fills that place with the tokens of His grace and no longer allows it to be merely the witness of her guilt. The Savior reveals Himself; the Stranger proves to be the Messiah she had named, and she is both blest and satisfied.
Here we see what the Lord will do with a conscience that needs to be aroused, if the sinner, in spite of shame and exposure, will still abide His presence, for it is surely the way of blessedness to value Christ more than character. We may say, in a sense, that all depends on that. She no longer hid herself, but told her neighbors that she had been thoroughly exposed.
A Bad Conscience
In the case of the Pharisees who accused the adulteress in John 8, the conscience is bad. A wicked purpose was filling their hearts all the time they were in the presence of Christ. What must He do with such a people? His presence shall be found intolerable to them. “Being convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last.”
What less could be done with such a shocking material? And so will it be by and by. All the wicked must perish from the presence of the Lord. This was not the common way of Jesus, for He came to save, not to judge. But when these accusers of the sinner would gladly deal in law with her, then the Lord can give in them a sample of the day of doom, when the wicked shall perish from the presence of the Lord.
Unlike the poor Samaritan, they valued their character. Being exposed, they would rather hide their sin than have it published and then taken away. For such Christ has died in vain.
Thus, the Lord Jesus is seen to deal with the conscience in different conditions. With the awakened conscience He deals in all grace. With the sinner who will still abide with Him, though being exposed to his shame, He will deal till He relieves and satisfies him. With the wicked who practice their wickedness and when exposed will leave Him, He shows that presence to be intolerable.
In these simple, unpretending narratives, we get these precious secrets of the ways of God in Christ, thus discovered to us. There remains, however, another which I must not pass over — the blind beggar of John 9.
An Honest Conscience
In him we see an honest conscience. It is not a happy or an awakened or a sleepy or a bad conscience. We do not see in him any uneasiness about his soul, nor has the arrow of conviction entered him, but he is honest. He is true to the light he has, and he suffers rather than yield his integrity. The Pharisees cast him out, for religiousness persecutes truthfulness—a common case.
Could Jesus leave such a one alone or be indifferent to him? We know He could not. He heard that they had cast him out, and He at once sought him out. He made him His object, and the sight of Jesus and this beggar meeting for the second time is full of blessing and comfort.
As yet, this poor man knew Him only in His power to heal him. There had been no exercise of soul as a sinner, though there was an honest conscience. But on seeing Jesus now the second time, outside the camp, his soul is exercised. Jesus calls him into this exercise. “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” And the poor man is at once made ready to take anything from Jesus. “Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?” And Jesus reveals Himself to him as the One who had given him sight when he was blind, and now takes him up when all were casting him out. “Thou hast both seen Him,” says the Lord, “and it is He that talketh with thee.” The soul then discovers Jesus. Love and power thus combined and, acting in divine virtue, were enough. “Lord, I believe,” he answered, and then “he worshipped Him.”
Thus Jesus reached his soul and dealt with him. And we are conscious that while he was only an honest man before, he is now a quickened soul, for an honest conscience is not a saved soul.
A Purged Conscience
But in addition to all this, let us notice Paul’s dealing with the conscience in his epistles. He sees none of these varieties. He sees the sinner just as he is, a sinner. He instructs the conscience as to how it should deal with God and His gospel, rather than showing us, as in John’s Gospel, how Christ deals with it. He tells the conscience that it may enjoy a purged condition—not merely an awakened, convicted or honest condition, but a purged condition.
This argument is found in Hebrews 9-10. The Apostle there teaches that by faith in Christ, we may have a good or a purged conscience, because after Christ had made His one offering, He entered the holiest place, never more to leave it. His offering was effectual to put away sins, because it was such a sacrifice as rendered “without spot” and was “through the eternal Spirit.” The Holy Spirit Himself, in revealing the new covenant, has also established the fact that sins and iniquities are remembered no more.
Thus, under the teaching of the Apostle, the conscience is taught to deal with God. The sinner is exhorted to be happy in His love, having entered the kingdom as a little child, not reasoning but receiving.
In John, we see living cases in which the Lord was dealing with the conscience; in Hebrews, we are taught in what way the conscience is to deal with the Lord and how it is to reach the condition in which the conscience of Andrew, Nathanael, the Samaritan, the adulteress and the beggar were left by Jesus.
J. G. Bellett (adapted)
A Good Conscience
“Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck” (1 Tim. 1:19).
We who have been brought to Christ through God’s saving grace are presently blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ and in present possession of eternal life in His Son. What indescribable blessing! Yet as still in this world, we are in need of grace day by day, for we have life’s wilderness journey before us on our way home to our Father’s house above. For this journey we have our Savior’s wise and sufficient provision, as His divine power has given to us “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). But just as Joseph gave his brethren “provision for the way” before they set off for their journey from Egypt back to Canaan, he also gave them an exhortation: “See that ye fall not out by the way.” We have need of this exhortation as well, so that, rather than falling out along the way, in the language of the Apostle Peter, we receive an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit
Upon completing the great work of atonement on Calvary’s cross and tasting death for every man, the Lord Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of God. “And having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.” This is Christianity. Believing, individually, the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, we each have been “sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,” the divine Comforter who will abide with us forever. Never before were men and women of faith indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God; never before could the children of God address God consciously as Father, having the Spirit of sonship, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father.” Little wonder that it has been said, “Every Christian blessing is a mountain peak.” In humble adoration, we bow in this grace, declaring like the master of the wedding feast in Cana, “Thou hast kept the good wine until now” (John 2:10).
But does this provision of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in us, in and of itself, secure good success in our spiritual life, for the journey mentioned above? We know it does not, and that it is possible for even a true believer, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, to be turned aside and to be unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we are taught that having received the Spirit, it is now essential that we be led of the Spirit (Gal. 5:18) and that we walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:25). So in a practical sense, in my daily life, how can I know that I am led of the Spirit? How can it be so that He would be free to teach me all things, to enable me to understand and enjoy the things that are only spiritually discerned, and to display the fruit of the Spirit in my life for His glory? Remarkably, He uses something I had even before I was saved and that man acquired thousands of years ago: my conscience.
Discerning Good and Evil
We can say that just as the eye is a part of the body that can discern light, and discern things by the light, so the conscience is a part of man morally that can discern good and evil, or right from wrong. God chose to give this moral ability to man after Adam’s fall, which was through the exercise of his will in disobedience to a known command of God, whom he ought to have trusted, honored and obeyed. This inward knowledge instilled in every man leaves man without excuse, for God ensured that when sin entered the world, conscience was given to man as well. But just as the eye cannot generate light, neither can man within himself determine that which is needed to guide his life. The mere knowledge that stealing and murder are wrong and that work or giving or other things may be good does not adequately guide man’s life. The saying in the world, “Let your conscience be your guide,” is not true; conscience is not enough. For this, God be thanked, we have been given the Word of God, His revelation to man. A revelation is something we could not know through our own discovery efforts or by reason; God reveals certainties and facts and the truth itself, and these can only be received by faith.
Light
As believers now possessing the mountain peak privileges of the dispensation of the grace of God, we have received, by faith, God’s testimony in His Son, who has come as the light of the world. Now our consciences are able to function in the brightest of all possible lights, and rather than merely helping us in simple, natural matters of right and wrong, serve to help us in accordance with the leading of the Holy Spirit of God and in accordance with the revelation of Himself in His Word. Just as our bodies, which we possessed before our conversion, can now be presented in living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, so our consciences too can now perform this spiritual and exalted function of ensuring that our lives are consistent with our calling, that we are imitators of God, walking in love and walking as children of light. For the believer it can now be stated, “All things are yours” and “all things are for your sakes.”
Enjoyment
In making himself known to his brethren in Egypt, Joseph said to them with an overflowing heart, “Come near unto me.” It has been said that the object of Christ’s love is to bring us into the enjoyment of all that He enjoys Himself. How humbling to us that God desires our company in this way and that He desires it even now while we are still here in this present world. Our fellowship, or communion, is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, and this will be felt and enjoyed by us as we keep His word in response to His love shed abroad in our hearts. This is the promise of John 14, of the Father and the Son coming to us, and making Their abode with us (vs. 23).
We are called into this fellowship with One who is holy, and we are to be holy in all manner of conversation. It is by the Spirit’s ongoing application of the Word of God to our hearts and minds that we are conformed more to Him morally, and the practical effect of the washing of water by the Word sanctifies and cleanses us that we might have “part with Him.” As faith enables us to have our hope in Him, it also leads us to purify ourselves, even as He is pure. This is to maintain a good conscience. And so Paul could say that he exercised himself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and men.
A Good Conscience
A good conscience does not mean that we have not failed, but that we judge ourselves in light of the Word of God if we do. This inward process readdresses the root of things, and we take God’s side in what the Spirit brings to our attention. If we fail to do this, the Spirit is grieved, and our conscience becomes defiled. God would have us hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.
Chronic failure on our part to judge ourselves and to maintain a good conscience robs us of the enjoyment we need to run the race that is before us; it also robs us of confidence in Him. If this progresses, the nagging of a bad conscience can lead us to accommodate our faith to our failure and inconsistency, or to bend truth to attempt to ease the conscience. This downward spiral hardens or deadens the conscience. It is said that a man’s conscience will never go infidel, but it certainly can become ineffectual, “seared with a hot iron” or cauterized.
Restoration
“If we judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” God’s chastening hand can come in to restore us, for we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. But how much better to experience the work of our great High Priest, being kept close to Him, with our hearts rejoicing in the statutes of the Lord and our eyes enlightened with the purity of His commandments (Psa. 19). “Moreover by them is Thy servant warned”; we are cleansed from secret faults and preserved from “presumptuous sins.”
Perhaps we have spent many days with a “wounded spirit” from a bad conscience; how wonderful that “there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.” He can restore our souls and make “the bones which [He] hath broken rejoice,” making us again “to hear joy and gladness” (Psa. 51). To have a good conscience, open and honest before God, enables our joy to be full and fits us to serve God acceptably with all humility of mind.
“Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned” (1 Tim. 1:5). May it be so with each of us!
B. Conrad
The Sense of Good and Evil
There are three ideas connected in our mind with conscience, which we must look at if we would not have confusion in our minds. Firstly, the sense of responsibility to a Being above us, principally to God; not the duty of loving Him (that is law), but authority. Adam had this before the fall. Secondly, the sense of good and evil. Thirdly, the self-judgment or repulsion of heart (as to others) produced by this sense of good and evil, when an act is contemplated it condemns. As I understand it, the second is properly called conscience.
J. N. Darby
A Good Conscience
Condition of soul has much to do with warring the good warfare. Faith must be kept up, bright, simple and exercised, the eyes of the heart ever on the things unseen and eternal. With all this, a good conscience is imperative. For if faith brings God in, a good conscience judges self and keeps sin out. This, of all importance for every Christian, is pre-eminently needful for him who is devoted to the service of Christ. There is nothing which so hardens the heart as the continual giving out of truth apart from one’s own communion and walk. Take the extreme case of Judas falling under the power of the devil; but look also at Peter, who was far from a traitor, but was himself betrayed into the denial of his Master. In 1 Timothy 1, however, it is the maintenance not only of faith, but also of a good conscience, “which some having thrust away made shipwreck concerning the faith.”
Rarely, if ever, does the soul that embraces bad doctrine maintain a good conscience; and as there cannot be a good conscience without faith, so on the other hand, where the conscience becomes practically bad, the faith is lowered, and may be at last wholly perverted. A man is uneasy at being continually burdened with the sense of his own inconsistency. He is thus tempted to accommodate his faith to his failure, and what he likes he at last believes, to the destruction of the truth; or, as the apostle puts it here, “some, having thrust away” a good conscience, “made shipwreck concerning the faith.”
W. Kelly
Keep Me Pure
Temptations eddy, swirl—
Washing at my door;
Cleanse me, lift me, keep me,
Lord, I do implore.
Prayerful, having daily
Quiet rendezvous
Time spent in Your presence
Heart to heart with You.
How can I be passive—
Casual to wrong?
Shine bright on my conscience;
Fill me with Your song.
For sin borne on the cross,
Thankfulness bends low;
Tender conscience acting;
Staunching evil’s flow.
No locked doors, dark corners,
No unswept recess;
Make my soul transparent,
And all I possess.