Are you justified in obeying your conscience? Can it be wrong? Is it innate and inborn or developed and nurtured? Do we inherit it or is it God-given because we are in the image of God? I posit that we do not instantly know right and wrong from birth ("Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies" [Ps. 58:3]). The conscience is different in each individual and may be destroyed or muffled by ignoring it or highly fine-tuned by obeying it when we say we have a sensitive conscience. The criminal in jail for stealing may condemn someone for "stealing" his cigarettes.
Jiminy Cricket said to always obey your conscience. This only is safe if our conscience is edified by the Word of God as Martin Luther testified to the Pope and Charles V at the Diet of Worms: "...my conscience is held captive to the Word of God, and to go against conscience is neither right nor safe." It is no excuse to claim your conscience approves, because it can be wrong or if you have a clear conscience it means God is pleased with you--the Word of God is the standard, not you nor your conscience.
R.. C. Sproul defines conscience: The inner awareness or consciousness of right and wrong and the ability to apply sets of standards or norms to concrete situations. This may be right and may be wrong. Do all people know the same sense of right and wrong? Does it happen at once or do we reach an age of reckoning or accountability that God demands we choose Him or the ways of the world? Some people let their religious beliefs or convictions interfere with their conscience and violate it and become fanatics for a cause. Conscience does convict us and God speaks through it: "I speak the truth in Christ ... my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit" (Rom 9:1).
The very essence of sin is to do what you know is wrong: "..to him who knows to do right and wrong, to him it is sin" (Rom. 14:23). Isaiah 7:15 says that the child will one day be able to distinguish good from evil. I deduce this means that it is developed over time and can be seared, scarred, hardened, or ignored because he reaches that time of the decision to go one way or the other.
What I see the conscience as is not a set of standards, but the ability to develop them and it is part of being in the image of God. Good advice from Paul: "I strive to keep my conscience clear before God and before man" (Acts 24:16). An analogy is that we are born with the ability to speak, but must develop and nurture or train and practice to perfect it. God simply doesn't expect much from a young conscience as the well-refined one. Soli Deo Gloria!
Jiminy Cricket said to always obey your conscience. This only is safe if our conscience is edified by the Word of God as Martin Luther testified to the Pope and Charles V at the Diet of Worms: "...my conscience is held captive to the Word of God, and to go against conscience is neither right nor safe." It is no excuse to claim your conscience approves, because it can be wrong or if you have a clear conscience it means God is pleased with you--the Word of God is the standard, not you nor your conscience.
R.. C. Sproul defines conscience: The inner awareness or consciousness of right and wrong and the ability to apply sets of standards or norms to concrete situations. This may be right and may be wrong. Do all people know the same sense of right and wrong? Does it happen at once or do we reach an age of reckoning or accountability that God demands we choose Him or the ways of the world? Some people let their religious beliefs or convictions interfere with their conscience and violate it and become fanatics for a cause. Conscience does convict us and God speaks through it: "I speak the truth in Christ ... my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit" (Rom 9:1).
The very essence of sin is to do what you know is wrong: "..to him who knows to do right and wrong, to him it is sin" (Rom. 14:23). Isaiah 7:15 says that the child will one day be able to distinguish good from evil. I deduce this means that it is developed over time and can be seared, scarred, hardened, or ignored because he reaches that time of the decision to go one way or the other.
What I see the conscience as is not a set of standards, but the ability to develop them and it is part of being in the image of God. Good advice from Paul: "I strive to keep my conscience clear before God and before man" (Acts 24:16). An analogy is that we are born with the ability to speak, but must develop and nurture or train and practice to perfect it. God simply doesn't expect much from a young conscience as the well-refined one. Soli Deo Gloria!
No comments:
Post a Comment