1 Peter 3:15-16 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; (16) having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.”
Everyone has a conscience, for as we have already seen the conscience of man in an integral part of the inward man. As I have already stated, it is only in the New Testament that the conscience of mankind is mentioned for the first time. Nevertheless the New Testament writers placed a strong emphasis on the saints maintaining a good conscience. The apostle Paul tells us that he lived his entire life striving to maintain a good conscience before God and men (Acts 24:16). In fact the apostle Paul placed great emphasis on always obeying his conscience. In the above quoted passage of scripture the apostle Peter teaches the church that an essential part of the Christian walk is to have a good conscience. And so we see that it is up to the individual believer to maintain a good conscience.
Hebrews 9:14 “how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
The question is asked, what happens to man’s conscience when they become born-again. Unlike the spirit of man which becomes a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), the believer does not get a new conscience when they are born-again. Nevertheless, unlike the mind and body of man that are not impacted by the new birth, there is an affect that the new birth has on the conscience. So what affect does the new birth have on the conscience of the believer? In the above quoted passage of scripture the Holy Spirit teaches us that our conscience is washed clean in the blood of Christ. And so we see that we do not receive new consciences but rather that our old consciences are cleansed. So what does that mean? The bible speaks of the conscience of men being wounded (1 Corinthians 8:12). And so in the natural when one is wounded, the first step in the process of healing that wound is to cleanse it. In the same manner in order for a wounded conscience to be healed the first step is to cleanse it from the old sins that it has been exposed to, and that is done with the blood of the Lamb.
Hebrews 10:22 “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 with pure water.”
In the above quoted passage of scripture the bible teaches us that the Christian has their heart sprinkled from an evil conscience. Under the Old Covenant the blood from the animal that was sacrificed was sprinkled on that which needed to be cleansed. Under the New Covenant this is what happens to the conscience of the believer when they are born-again. The blood of Christ our Passover Lamb is sprinkled on our conscience in order to cleanse it. In this passage the translators have used the word “evil” in describing the condition of our conscience when we come into the kingdom of God. There is no such thing as an evil conscience however, for as we have already seen our conscience is given to us to guide us to choose good and reject evil. The word translated “evil” in the above passage also carries the meaning of “being ill or diseased”, and this would be a more correct translation of that word. In other words our conscience is cleansed from the disease of sin that it has been exposed to while we walked as unbelievers.
1 Corinthians 8:7-9 “However, there is not in everyone that knowledge; for some, with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. … (9) But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak.”
Nevertheless, even though our conscience is cleansed in the blood of Christ when we are born-again, it remains in the same condition that it was before we came into the kingdom of God. In other words if we had a weak conscience before we were born-again, then we will have a weak conscience after we are born-again. In the above quoted passage of scripture the apostle Paul is referring to Christians when he speaks of those who have a weak conscience, and in this same passage he also refers to them as being weak believers. The bible always equates weak believers with those who are babes in Christ, and so it is self evident that these believers would have come into the kingdom with weak consciences right from the start. Paul goes on to say in this passage that these believers have further defiled their conscience. In other words they have made their consciences even weaker than they were before. So why do some believers come into the kingdom of God already having weak consciences? The answer lies in the extent of disobedience to the conviction of their consciences that they walked in as unbelievers.
Michael E.B. Maher
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