What Is Conscience? (screen 4)

Calvary Baptist Church, Grenada, MS, USA

Holding to the truths embraced by Baptist for centuries.

It is in this vital part that the two former theories of conscience were fundamentally deficient. They rejected God's Word as a perfect standard of right and wrong, and chose the flickering light of reason or opinion, and, consequently, were wholly out at sea, with ship and sail and rudder and needle, but without chart by which to steer, sea-lost, tossed and driven to-and-fro until wrecked upon the reefed lea-shore of national destruction.

But the standard of right and wrong—the Bible—must be correctly interpreted, understood, and applied, and to do this God has endowed us the power to compare, to reason, to understand and decide, and we call these operations reason, understanding, and judgment. By the proper exercise of these we can, without doubt comprehend God's revealed will, and learn all he requires of us to believe for salvation or do to honor and please him—in other words, what is, and what is not in accordance with his Word—all our moral and positive duties. Now the soul can not know all this without conjoint assistance of the judgment and understanding—judgment in interpreting and applying that Word, and, therefore, we may say the operation of conscience is complex, as its etymology indicates. Con, with, and scio, I know—know with some other operation or faculty. In the Greek it is sun eideseos. Sun, with; eidoo, I know—know in conjunction with some other operation or operations; and these we have seen are the powers of understanding and judging of the requirements of God's Word.

Without the conjoint operations of the powers of the soul in interpreting the will of God, there can be no result entitled to be called conscience. There may be human opinion, feeling—will only—as there was during the bloody scenes of the French Revolution, and in the reign of American Higher-Lawism, but no conscience. We see why we can not predicate an act of conscience of an infant, an idiot, or a brute, and we can understand why those who are beclouded with ignorance, with little knowledge of God, with these moral faculties almost wholly undeveloped or perverted through misuse, have exceedingly weak and unreliable consciences. In some, the moral faculties are almost a blank, and some declare them entirely wanting. Theft, deceit, and lying are the universal and inveterate vices of all such, and in all persons, just in proportion as the moral faculties are uncultivated or perverted.

We are now somewhat prepared to consider the question before us. Has any one a right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience? If it is meant right so far as individual or civil authority is concerned, I answer emphatically, yes. But if it is meant, in the sight of God, I answer that depends upon the character of the conscience, i.e., whether it is a good or a bad conscience. God requires of us a good conscience, and that we worship him in the exercise of a good conscience; and this implies that we are responsible for the kind of conscience by which we govern our actions.

Since the conscience we have depends upon the proper exercise of other powers of the soul, as reason, understanding, and judgment, it is just as liable to be wrong as these faculties are to err, i.e., as we are to reason irrelevantly, misunderstand, or misjudge, even if the Word of God is our standard. An error in any one of these will invariably result in a bad conscience—a conscience that will approve of what is wrong. If the understanding is "darkened" by ignorance, the judgment perverted by prejudice or feeling, or biased by evil influences, and above all, if the soul itself is depraved by sin, the result will be an evil and defiled conscience that will be satisfied with and approve what is displeasing to God. On the other hand, where the soul has been cleansed by the blood of Christ and the understanding enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and the judgment "just," there will be a good conscience, void of offense before God and men.

It is the duty of each one to possess such a conscience. He is responsible for not having a good conscience. It is his supreme duty to worship God with a good conscience, for then, and then alone, he pleases God. All can see that a good conscience will approve only that which the Word of God reveals is in accordance with his will and pleasure, and will disapprove every thing contrary to that Word. In all that we do we must act conscientiously, so that conscience approves the act; but we have seen that the approbation of conscience does not make the act right any more than sincerity in error makes the error truth and safe. Many a person has taken morphine for quinine, and fallen a victim to his sincerity. Saul of Tarsus, while breathing out fire and slaughter against the infant church at Jerusalem, and "doing many things contrary to the name of Jesus," acted conscientiously; he verily believed he was doing God's service, but he was sinning against God and man. While his conscience seemed good to him it was an evil and a defiled conscience. He did not properly enlighten his understanding, and he allowed himself to decide upon his course with a judgment perverted by bitter prejudice and biased by popular feeling. He tells us that it was through ignorance he persecuted the saints, and he was responsible far that ignorance. Paul, when wearing himself out preaching that same Jesus, and building what he once sought to destroy, acted conscientiously also; but we hear him say, in all carefulness: "We trust we have a good conscience."

He trusted that his heart was right toward God, that his understanding was duly enlightened—for how diligently had he studied to learn God's will—and that he was acting unprejudiced by flesh or blood, and, therefore, he was warranted in saying that he was persuaded that he had a good conscience. I prefer the more literal translation of the Emphatic Diaglott (New Testament original Greek text): "Pray for us; for we have confidence, because we have a good conscience," etc. Henry the VIII conscientiously in consigning three thousand Baptists to martyrdom, during his reign, worshiping God contrary to the faith and the ritual prescribed by law; and so did the New England Puritans act conscientiously in fining, cruelly whipping, and banishing from their homes Quakers and all opposers of infant baptism, but they acted contrary to the plain dictates and genius of Christianity, and their acts were sins against the Most High. Conscientious conduct will do us no good at the judgment, unless that conscience be a good one—in unison with the teachings of the Bible. Worship is obedience. Cheerful, affectionate obedience to Christ's revealed will is the highest worship the creature can pay to God. He certainly has some choice in the character of the worship he would have offered him. There can be no obedience where there is no law, and where that law is not obeyed. God must then have revealed to us the service and worship he requires at our hands, and to offer him more or less, is will worship, and insultingly sinful. He has left no religious act or rite of worship, as Baptism or the Supper, to be determined by our tastes, conveniences, or feelings. Every thing, the least as well as the greatest, Christ has most carefully taught and commanded, and for us to say we have a right to alter or modify, by adding or taking away something that we think will do as well, is open rebellion, and is "as the sin of witchcraft." God commanded Saul to go up against the Amalekites and utterly destroy them, old and young, with their flocks and herds, bringing away nothing. But Saul saw fit to spare the King and the best of the flocks, and of the spoil he brought away, that he might offer it in burnt offering and sacrifices unto the Lord. And Samuel said unto Saul: "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion [acting in accordance with our own feelings and notions, as Saul did when he spared what God bade him destroy] is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is iniquity and idolatry" (I Sam. 15:22-23).

We shall not be judged and rewarded, at the last day, by our "honesty of purpose," our "sincerity," or our conscience, but by the Words of Christ. "The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day" (John 12:48). We shall not be asked if we were conscientious in our worship, if we did as our family or friends, our pastor or church dictated to us or told us was right, ''but if we have done all things whatsoever Christ has command us" (Matt. 28:20). To ascertain this he has given us his Written Word, to be a lamp to our feet, and our first and highest duty is to turn away from church Confessions of Faith, and from the Disciplines prepared by conferences, and to forget the relations of family and ties of kindred flesh and blood, and honestly and prayerfully inquire what the Lord Jesus requires of us in his Word, determined to do it. We so judge our own servants. What master leaves his servants free to serve him according to their own notions—the dictates of their own consciences? He, not they, knows how he wishes to be served; he gives his orders, he commands them to execute the specified work in the time, order, and manner he wants it done, and to reverse the order, change the time, or vary the mode, is to disobey. Your servants certainly have no right to a conscience that leads them to do any thing different from your express directions, and you, if a good master, would soon teach them that they had not. No man has a right to a conscience that approves the performance of any religious act not commanded, or less or more than commanded. It is our duty to take the New Testament, and, without prejudice or bias, patiently and prayerfully learn what Christ would have us do, and this we can learn without a doubt, and then, cost us what it may—the loss of friendship and the smiles of the world—do it, not to merit salvation, but to honor the Savior whom we love.

We meet with the following passages, which are at war with all other theories of conscience, save the one just submitted: ''Having their consciences seared as with a hot iron." (I Tim. 4:2) It must be borne in mind, that whatever affects the reason, judgment or understanding, affects conscience. If we will so abuse and violence to our natural powers of reason and judgment, as to deny the existence of an Holy and Just God, we may safely class that one with those "past feeling" any obligations to a Supreme Being, just as a nerve of the hand would be if "seared with a hot iron." It would be impossible for one to feel any compunctions of conscience for sin who did not believe in a God.

The conscience is said to be defiled when the heart and mind are defiled. ''...But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled" (Tit. 1:15). All such have depraved hearts and wills, in open and inveterate rebellion to God. and. hating his will, they do all in their power to oppose it, and then pervert their rational faculties to excuse their course. "Every thing which they do tends to corrupt the inner man, more and more, and to make them really more polluted in the sight of God." A defiled mind comes from a corrupt soul, and this controls the decisions of conscience, and, of course, it must be a defiled—an evil conscience.

There are two passages of like import, viz.: ''How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot, to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Heb. 9:14). "Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed in pure water." (Heb. 10:22)

I commend the remarks of Dr. Barnes upon the former verse, which equally applies to the latter: ''The word conscience here is not to be understood as a distinct and independent faculty of the soul, but as the soul or mind itself, reflecting and pronouncing on its own acts. The whole expression refers to a mind alarmed by the recollection of guilt—for it is guilt only that disturbs a man's conscience." Without a knowledge of God and his will, without a conviction of having violated God's law—there would be no guilt.

"Guilt originates in the soul remorse and despair; guilt makes a man troubled when he thinks of death and the judgment; it is guilt only which alarms a man when he thinks of a holy God; and it is nothing but guilt that makes the entrance into another world terrible and awful." The sinner, oppressed with a sense of his guilt, has a guilty conscience—a guilt-convicting conscience—which, in the latter verse, is called "an evil conscience," literally a consciousness of evil. So long as the just demands of God's violated law are unsatisfied, the wrath of God abides upon us. Not the sufferings and death—blood—of animals could do this, but

that of the Lord Jesus Christ himself alone, can do this, and the benefits of his sacrificial death and atonement are applied to all who will turn from their sins and accept

of him as their Redeeming Savior, which application is called purging the heart with blood, and sprinkling the heart from an evil conscience, and the result is, a sense of pardoned sins takes possession of the heart, and, "therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ; and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory!" We receive more than simple pardon, freedom from the penalty justly due our sins—we receive a thorough renovation of our moral nature—hearts cleansed from the love of sin and adoption into the family of God, ''and are made children; and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs of the Lord Jesus Christ." This new disposition, clean heart and right spirit created within us, confers upon us the power to possess a goad conscience; one that will be satisfied with nothing less than a personal obedience to God's will. Loving him supremely, we will, above all things, desire to seek and know his will that we may do it, not to obtain salvation thereby, but to honor and glorify his name. Therefore, the Savior was warranted in saying: "If a man love me, he will keep my commandments."