“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