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