A Matter of Conscience by W.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 27, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 33.

A Matter of Conscience

By W.

"My conscience does not condemn me," is a plea frequently put forth, in these days of enlightenment, by professed Christians, to excuse them in some habit or course of action over which they have sometime felt condemned, and which, perhaps, they know to be contrary to the Word of God. The duty is perhaps urged by some friend who has an interest in them, and the last excuse is, "My conscience does not condemn me." And this may be true. Conscience is a very uncertain quantity, even tho it be so greatly exalted in these latter days. It is one of the unsafest of standards; in fact, God never gave it as a standard of right or wrong. It is only as men have perverted God's design that they have offered such a plea as the above. Conscience is not a standard of character or morality. It was not designed of God to be the standard which determines between right and wrong. "What is conscience, then? and what is its office?" asks a reader.

"Conscience" comes from the Latin "conscire, to know," and is defined by Webster to be "the faculty which decides on the lawfulness or unlawfulness of our actions and affections." Or the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, "the moral sense which sides with the requirement of the law," that which holds us to some standard of right or wrong.

With this definition we have no particular fault to find. It expresses the meaning as well, perhaps, as it could be expressed. Let us study the office of conscience:

1. Conscience is not the law of conduct. The law is prior; conscience decides as to whether or not the action is in harmony with the law. Just as the judge is related to the actions of a man arraigned before him on a criminal charge, so the conscience is related toward the actions of the person. The judge is not the law. Neither does the judge sit in judgment on the law. He simply interprets the law. It is the law which condemns the criminal; the judge merely shows how the law was broken, and makes application of its penalty. Just so conscience does not take the place of God's standard of right or wrong. "Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man" (Eccl. 12:13), and "So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty" (James 2:12), are expressions of man's duty from both Old and New Testaments. Conscience has for its duty to bring home that great standard of right to each individual act. Conscience acquits or condemns only as it does this through the law. Conscience is a friendly judge, which makes application of the law now, teaching us its holy principles, that it may not condemn us by and by.

2. As it is the duty of the judge to honor the law, likewise it is also the office of conscience to exalt God's great moral standard. A judge honors and upholds a good law; if he did not, he would arouse against himself a storm of indignation. He would be unjust and corrupt. Thus it would be with a conscience which did not honor and exalt the law of God; it would be a corrupted conscience. Therefore the apostle says that to "them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled." Titus 1:15.

3. Conscience must be informed in regard to the great moral standard of God. A good judge is one that is well versed in the law and its meaning and intent. If he is ill informed, his judgment will be partial, and he will thereby dishonor the law. If conscience is ill informed, it will be a one-sided or perverted conscience.

4. Conscience can not be a standard by itself. The constitution and laws always circumscribe a judge; the eternal law of God is designed as a standard to which conscience is to bring every motive and act. It would be as unreasonable for each man to set up his conscience as sole judge or standard of right as it would for each to make a standard timepiece of the watch which he carried. Men have too much sense to do such a thing in the matter of time. It would disarrange all manner of business, and be the means of endless strife and confusion. But in the realm of morals and religion, matters of paramount and eternal interest, man sets up uncertain conscience as a certain guide, a perverted conscience as a perfect judge; and he not only judges his own acts and those of his neighbors by that conscience, but he sits in judgment on God's great standard of morality, and degrades it by erecting in the judgment-seat an "evil conscience."

Many of the numerous divisions in Christendom may be traced to times in the church when the consciences of men refused to follow the truth of God, or new light shining out from that truth. They rested in error, content with the thought, "My conscience does not condemn me." Such turn from the worship of God to the worship of self, from God's great moral chronometer to their own fallible "cylinder escapements."

5. There is a reason why conscience should not be depended upon; namely, it is a creature of education. Man may educate his conscience to do without a qualm that which would horrify others. He who has no standard outside of himself will ever find himself changing by his surroundings. Many young Christians start out in the battles of life with "hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience" (Heb. 10:22), and run well for a season. But in a little time they return to habits which they once abhorred; they practise, uncondemned by conscience, that which once would have caused them intense pain. What is the reason? — They have ceased to look upon God in secret communion; they have ceased to study His Word; they have turned from the perfect rule of His law and the perfect example of His Christ to their own heart and conscience, and their conscience has become defiled, seared.

Paul thought with himself that he ought to persecute the church of God (Acts 26:9-11); the Hindu mother feels that she is doing a worthy act as she casts her child into the sacred Ganges; and our Lord assures us that "the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." (John 16:2). And all this, He declares, is done because men know not the Father nor Christ. John 16:3. As one writer truly says: "A terrible array of conscientious errors and persecutions, which have infested and afflicted the church in all ages, warns us of our individual need of perfect light and sanctifying grace. A 'good' and 'pure' conscience (1 Tim. 1:5; 3:9) is sprinkled with Christ's blood, clearly discerns the will of God, and urges us to obey it from gospel motives. In proportion as we thus obey God's will, conscience is void of offense (Acts 24:16), and its approbation is one of the most essential elements of happiness." A "weak" or irresolute or blind conscience (1 Cor. 8:7), or a "defiled" conscience (Titus 1:15), is the slave of a corrupt heart, and will finally become so seared that God's truth will never be able to affect it.

Dear reader, think not that you are in no danger. The only standard of moral conduct is God's holy law, of which "it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle" "to fail" (Luke 16:17), and our only example is our Lord Jesus Christ, "who did no sin" (1 Peter 2:22), in whose life shone in all its beauty God's perfect law. Would you have a good conscience? Take the law as your regulator of conduct, Christ Jesus as your Saviour and example, His Spirit as your life. W.