The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. ISAIAH 24:5
Conscience is the built-in power of our minds to pass moral judgments on ourselves, approving or disapproving our attitudes, actions, reactions, thoughts, and plans, and telling us, if it disapproves of what we have done, that we ought to suffer for it. Conscience has in it two elements, (a) an awareness of certain things as being right and wrong, and (b) an ability to apply laws and rules to specific situations. Conscience, as distinct from our other powers of mind, is unique; it feels like a person detached from us, often speaking when we would like it to be silent and saying things that we would rather not hear. We can decide whether to heed conscience, but we cannot decide whether or not it will speak; our experience is that it decides that for itself. Because of its insistence on judging us by the highest standard we know, we call it God�s voice in the soul, and to that extent so it is.
Paul says that God has written some of the requirements of his law on every human heart (Rom. 2:14-15), and experience confirms this. (�Heart� in Scripture is often synonymous with �conscience� : the NIV rightly renders the Hebrew �David�s heart hit him� as �David was conscience-stricken� in 1 Sam. 24:5, and there are other examples.) But conscience may be misinformed, or conditioned to regard evil as good, or seared and dulled by repeated sin (1 Tim. 4:2), and in such cases conscience will be less than God�s voice. The particular judgments of conscience are to be received as God�s voice only when they match God�s own truth and law in Scripture. Consciences must therefore be educated to judge scripturally.
The consciences of individuals are likely to reflect family and community standards, or lack of them. The book of Judges tells grisly stories of things done at a time when �everyone did as he saw fit� (17:6; 21:25).
Superstition or scruple may lead a person to view as sinful an action that God�s Word declares is not sinful; but for such a �weak� conscience (Rom. 14:1-2; 1 Cor. 8:7, 12) to do what it thinks sinful would be sin (Rom. 14:23), and therefore �weak� persons should never be pressed to do what they cannot conscientiously do.
The New Testament ideal is a conscience that is �good� and �clean� (because righteousness is one�s purpose, and sin is being avoided: Acts 24:16; 1 Tim. 1:5, 19; Heb. 13:18; 1 Pet. 3:16). But for this our conscience must first be �cleansed� by the blood of Christ; we must see that because Christ in his sacrificial death endured the suffering due to us for all our wrongdoings, they no longer constitute a barrier to our communion with God (Heb. 9:14).
Title: Concise Theology: A Guide To Historic Christian Beliefs
Section: God Revealed as Redeemer
Author: Packer, J.I. (James Innell)
Index: Concise Theology index � CLICK HERE