7.12.3 " A good conscience" : A Biblical
Analysis
There is a clear NT theme: that the believer always has a good
conscience (Acts 23:1; 24:16; Rom. 9:1; 2 Cor. 1:12; 1 Tim. 1:5,19;
3:9; 2 Tim. 1:3; Heb. 9:14; 10:22; 13:18; 1 Pet. 3:16); this clear
conscience is a gift from the time of baptism (Heb. 10:22; 1 Pet.
3:21; Heb. 9:14 cp. 6:1; Rom. 6:17). If a believer loses that good
conscience, he has fallen from grace. Those who leave the faith
have a conscience which is wounded (1 Cor. 8:12), defiled (1 Cor.
8:7; Tit. 1:15), seared (1 Tim. 4:2). It's hard to find a consistent
Biblical definition of conscience. " Conscience" in the
Biblical sense often refers to how God sees our conscience, rather
than how we feel it. Therefore only rarely does the Spirit
speak as if " conscience" is something which is good one
moment, and bad the next; it is something which we have on a permanent
basis. Thus to say " I watched TV last night with a good
conscience, but I had a bad conscience that I didn't give out any
tracts today" isn't really using " conscience" in
it's Biblical sense. Paul repeatedly emphasizes that he has always
had a good conscience (presumably, from the time of his baptism,
when he stopped kicking against the goads, Acts 9:5).
7-12-3-1 A Biblical Definition Of Conscience
The conscience which the Bible defines is not necessarily our intuitive
sense of right and wrong; that twinge of guilt which we may have
after certain thoughts or behaviour. All men (and animals) have
such a streak in them; yet a good conscience is associated with
holding the true faith (1 Tim. 1:3-5,19 3:9). It is impossible for
those outside the faith to have a " good conscience" in
the Biblical definition of conscience. It therefore doesn't just
refer to a lack of guilt twinge. Paul must surely have had twinges
of guilt over his behaviour at times (not least over the bust up
with Brethren Barnabas and Mark, Acts 15:39 cp. 2 Tim. 4:11); and
yet he insists that he always had a good conscience. Hezekiah likewise
lived with a good conscience but was at the same time aware of his
sins (Is. 38:3 cp. 17). Paul likewise claims that the Jewish forefathers
served God with a pure conscience (2 Tim. 1:3 NIV). Yet the Jewish
fathers, dear Jacob particularly, must have had plenty of twinges
of guilt over their years. Indeed, all the Jewish fathers had a
bad 'conscience' because of their sins (Heb. 9:9; 10:2). Surely
Paul must mean that they had such a firm faith in forgiveness that
in God's eyes they had a pure conscience.
Our natural sense of right and wrong is hopelessly corrupt; our
heart is so deceptive that we don't really know how deceptive it
is (Jer. 17:9). Many of our daily sins are probably committed due
to our deceptive sense of right and wrong. Paul says that although
he knows of nothing that would stand against him at the judgment,
this doesn't justify him, because the Lord sees differently to us
(1 Cor. 4:4 RSV). David likewise knew that his own self-examination
was unable to give him an accurate picture of his status before
God; " Who can understand his (own) errors?" (Ps. 19:12).
All too often one hears it said: 'It's OK in my conscience, so there's
nothing wrong with it'. Yet my comment is that our 'conscience',
our natural sense of right and wrong, won't jump outside of us at
judgment day and stand there and judge us. There is one thing that
will judge us: the word of the Lord (Jn. 12:48). Morality isn't
relative; there is such a thing as ultimate right and wrong, regardless
of what our intuitive sense is.
And yet 1 Cor. 8-10 and Rom. 14:23 seem to teach that what may
be right for one man in his Biblical definition of conscience may
be wrong for another in his conscience. According to this principle,
God blessed the Rechabites for their obedience to their conscience,
even regarding something He had not specifically commanded (Jer.
34:19). " Conscience" seems to be used in these passages
in a way similar to how we generally use it in modern English. These
verses seem to suggest that conscience means our personal sense
of right and wrong. However, Corinthians and Romans speak specifically
about the food / drink question. They don't talk in general terms
about the principles of conscience. There was a right and wrong
here; it was quite OK to eat meat, any meat. Indeed to
think otherwise, Paul demonstrates, reflected a weak understanding
of the Gospel and a respect of idols very close to believing those
deities had real existence. However, whilst ideally all believers
should have accepted this, there were some weak ones who just couldn't.
If they ate the meat, it would be a sin for them, and therefore
the stronger believers were not to do anything which might encourage
the weak to eat such meat. Here we see a concession (another one!)
to human weakness. The standard was: idols don't exist, Christ died
to free us from Mosaic regulations; God created this meat to be
thankfully received by you; therefore eat! But a concession
was made; God allowed men to justify their refusal to accept His
teaching, He (the Almighty!) respected their human sense of right
and wrong, with the proviso that if they did what was against their
conscience, He would count it as sin. I doubt whether we can certainly
infer that this principle applies to other issues apart from meat.
God made an allowance there, at that time, on the question of meat.
He may well do in many contemporary issues, but it is His prerogative
to judge this, not ours. In any case, the existence of different
'consciences' was a sign of immaturity in the early brotherhood.
Many issues which we tend to class as 'matters of conscience' would
be better classed 'matters of personal judgment / allowance'. Whilst
God does not aim at robot-like spiritual uniformity between us,
we mustn't give the impression that if it's OK in your conscience,
then its OK with God. We all have the same clear conscience, and
should all respond to that in the same way when it comes to moral
issues. There is clear Biblical guidance on issues like how we spend
'our' money, whether we watch certain films etc.; as there was on
the meat question. If we have a truly cleansed conscience with God
and we believe this, our way of life will become clear, without
any struggles of 'conscience' or indecision. But all this
depends upon having a clear Biblical definition of conscience.
The Good Conscience
The good conscience is Biblically defined in Hebrews 9, 10. Here
the writer is basing his argument on how those under the Old Covenant
still had a guilty conscience after their sacrifices, because the
blood of animals could not take away sin; the yearly Day of Atonement
required them to confess their sins once again. Their conscience
was not made perfect (Heb. 9:9). In his overpowering way, Paul drives
his logic home: not only is our conscience cleansed by the one sacrifice
of Christ, but we are in a more exalted position than the OT worshippers;
we are in the very position of the High Priest who on that Day of
Atonement entered the Most Holy; we can enter the Holiest
with boldness (cp. the nervousness of the Priest) because
our consciences are cleansed with Christ's blood. And because of
this, " let us draw near" (Heb. 10:22), the language the
LXX uses about the priestly serving of God; now we can
do the priestly work, because our consciences are cleansed. We are
not like the OT believers, who had a bad conscience because of their
sins and needed to offer an annual sacrifice for them, as a result
of their conscience. We, Paul is saying, by contrast, have no more
conscience of sins. According to this Biblical definition of conscience,
the conscience is cleansed, and we partake of that cleansing by
baptism. At and in that sacrament, we make a pledge to keep that
good conscience (1 Pet. 3:21 NIV); perhaps we need to point this
out more to baptism candidates. We are once and for all forgiven.
Our emphasis must be on confession of failure, not feeling guilty
and rushing off a quick prayer, as if this will get us forgiveness.
We have been cleansed and covered, we are in the new covenant of
grace. Only by breaking out of this can we lose the gracious position
in which we stand: we have a conscience which is free of guilt,
if we truly believe in the power of the cross and our relationship
to it through baptism.
Piling wonder upon wonder, Paul also makes the point that the Lord
Jesus made one sacrifice for all sins for all time, and
therefore we don't need to offer any more sacrifices or use a human
priesthood; we are already totally forgiven of all our sins. Sin
was completely overcome by the Lord's victory; " For by one
offering he hath perfected for ever (in their conscience) them that
are sanctified" (Heb. 10:14 cp. 9:9). " Their sins and
iniquities [there seems no hint that this only refers to pre-baptismal
sins] will I remember no more" (Heb. 10:17). If we sin wilfully
after knowing this, there is no more sacrifice for sins- because
that sacrifice was only ever made once (Heb. 10:26). At our baptism,
our conscience was cleansed of all sin. There is further evidence,
apart from the reasoning of Hebrews, that all our sins, past and
future, were forgiven at Calvary:
- On the cross, sin was ended, iniquity reconciled, everlasting
righteousness brought in (Dan. 9:24). One sin offering was made
for all time.
-We must forgive one another even as God for Christ's sake hath
forgiven us (Eph. 4:32); not waiting for our brother to repent
before we forgive him, but forgiving in advance, in prospect,
even as we were forgiven. This takes this issue out of the realms
of theology into the painfully practical.
- Our sins were / are forgiven by the blood of Christ- not by
our repentance or words of prayer. " God's forgiveness is
not just a wiping clean of the slate [from hour to hour]...if
it were, prayer would be immoral- a mere incantation to bring
about a magical result: and we need to be continually wary of
the pagan conception which would reduce it to such a level"
(1). These words are so true. Whenever
a twinge of guilt arises, we rush off a quick prayer for forgiveness-
and then, at the end of the day or the week, we are left with
a doubt as to whether our spirituality is valid or not. If this
is our experience, we are all too similar to Israel of old; offering
the sin offering (cp. praying for forgiveness), feeling guilty,
coming to the day of Atonement (cp. the breaking of bread), still
feeling guilty, realizing that as the sin offering couldn't cleanse
sin, neither could the sacrifice at that feast, offering more
sin offerings... It can become the ritual of a bad conscience,
stumbling on because there seems no other way to go. But our sins
(yes, yours, that snap at your wife, that curse as you spilt your
coffee) really were forgiven through the Lord's work on the cross;
we really do have access to this through really believing
it- and therefore expressing our faith in baptism. Our prayerful
response to failure should be to confess it (1 Jn. 1:9), and also
profess our faith in the redemption already achieved for us.
All our sins were forgiven when the Lord died for us;
both past and future. By baptism we identify ourselves with this
work, and we are thereby in a position where we have " no more
conscience of sins" (Heb. 10:2,22), knowing that all is forgiven,
and only if we fall from grace will this become untrue. Thus YLT
speaks of " the conscience" in the NT, as if
it is something specific which we have, rather than an occasional
twinge of guilt. We have this Biblical conscience " toward
God" ; this is how He sees us (Acts 23:1; 24:16; 1 Pet. 2:19;
3:21). Thus we may have a guilty feeling about something, we may
doubt our salvation, but our conscience in God's eyes is pure; we
are still cleansed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because we have a clear
conscience, God will punish those who persecute us (1 Pet. 3:16
RSV). 1 Pet. 3:21 teaches that baptism saves us not because in itself
it means that we are free from the deeds of the flesh (" putting
away the filth of the flesh" uses words which elsewhere carry
this connotation), but because it gives us a good conscience in
God's eyes- according to the Biblical definition of conscience.
Notes
(1) L.G. Sargent, The Teaching Of
The Master (Birmingham: C.M.P.A., 1961), p.277. |