1b A Call to Holiness: How to Train Your Conscience

Though everyone has a conscience, not all consciences are the same. Like everything else about people, our consciences are fallen and imperfect. Some are weak and burdensome, bound to unnecessary scruples or a legalistic moral law. Some are shallow and immature, prone to taking unnecessary offense. Others are calloused and cauterized from years of abuse and neglect. And it’s not just a question of their varying sensitivities— consciences are also bound to a vast array of sinful standards and man-made moral laws. The Catholic’s conscience is bound to the pope, the sacraments, and the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. The Mormon’s conscience is likewise tethered to the rituals and ceremonies of his or her faith. The same goes for Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, atheists, and agnostics— all their consciences are fixed to the highest moral standard they perceive, whether it was adopted from a religious system or concocted on their own.

In some cases, the conscience has become so corrupted and perverted by worldly influences that people believe they ought to be lying, cheating, and gossiping. They are convinced there’s something wrong with them if they’re not routinely getting drunk, taking advantage of others, and engaging in all kinds of immorality. Scripture refers to such people as those “whose glory is in their shame” (Phil. 3: 19). Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord proclaimed, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isa. 5: 20).

If your conscience is to function the way God designed it— if it’s going to shed the light of truth into your soul and hold fast to a standard of morality— you need to calibrate it to the light of the highest, purest, truest moral law. You need to conform your conscience to the truth of God’s Word.

Like any skylight, the usefulness of the conscience is determined by the amount of pure light that passes through it. A properly functioning conscience is fully informed by the truth of Scripture. When David said, “Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You” (Ps. 119: 11), he was confessing his desire for a fully informed conscience. Christ prayed for the same thing for His disciples: “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth” (John 17: 17). Holiness comes as a result of the Word of God informing the conscience and the conscience informing the person.

And when the conscience is properly calibrated to biblical truth, it sends accurate, trustworthy warnings. When the conscience reflects on the reality of God’s truth and cries, “Pull up! Pull up!” we must listen! So, how do we keep our consciences functioning at maximum capacity? Let’s consider some practical steps.

Cleanse Your Conscience

Before the redeeming work of Christ, there’s nothing the sinner can do to cleanse his own conscience. Decades of nothing but unrepentant sin might dull its sensitivity and stifle its cries, but the conscience continues to accumulate guilt. It’s the silent witness within, always ready to make its detailed case in the soul’s courtroom. That’s one of the primary reasons why our culture is dominated by alcohol and drug abuse— sinners are desperate for anything that will silence the cries of a conscience burdened by a lifetime of sin.

It’s also why the world’s religions of works-righteousness cannot calm or quiet the grief-stricken soul. There is no amount of outward piety that can numb or nullify a lifetime of accumulated guilt. In his heart of hearts, the outwardly pious sinner still knows he’s a sinner and that none of his external acts of devotion and supplication can truly satisfy the shouts of his grieved conscience.

The only means for truly cleansing the sinner’s conscience is the justifying work of Jesus Christ. Only through belief in the gospel can anyone know freedom from the grief and guilt of our sin. Contrasting the efficacy of Christ’s work on the cross with Israel’s sacrificial system in the Old Testament, the writer of Hebrews asks, “For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (9: 13– 14). Only Christ’s atoning work can fully satisfy our need for righteousness. Paul describes that glorious reality with these powerful words: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5: 21). Only through repentance and faith in the sacrifice of Christ can we be made clean.

In faith, we acknowledge the guilt of our sin and trust in the substitutionary death of Christ to pay our eternal debt and secure forgiveness on our behalf. In Him, we have been bought at a price (1 Cor. 6: 20), purified (Heb. 1: 3), and set aside for good works (Eph. 2: 10). Having been made new creations in Christ, our faith informs our conscience that our past sins have been paid for— that we have been washed and pardoned by the work of Christ. In fact, the writer of Hebrews explains that a cleansed conscience goes hand in hand with the assurance of our salvation: “Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (10: 22). A cleansed and quiet conscience is sweet comfort to the newly redeemed sinner. And it’s not just a one-time cleansing— 1 John 1: 9 promises, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Once the conscience has been cleansed by Christ, it is the believer’s job to keep it clear.

Clear Your Conscience

It’s the duty of every believer to protect the purity of his conscience— to guard against the presence of unchecked sin and keep short accounts through self-examination and faithful confession. The newly cleansed conscience will be all the more sensitive to sin, so it’s important to heed its warnings and keep it clear. That’s accomplished on several fronts.

fronts. First, we must confess our sins. First John 1: 9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This should be the pattern of the believer’s life— an established routine from which we do not deviate. Proverbs 28: 13 gives us additional encouragement to that end: “He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.” David further illustrates the destructive effects of unaddressed sin: “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer” (Ps. 32: 3– 4). Instead, we need to long for the freedom and blessing of keeping a clear conscience before the Lord: “I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD’; and You forgave the guilt of my sin” (v. 5).

In addition to confessing our sins to the Lord, we need to seek forgiveness and reconciliation from anyone else we have sinned against. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ illustrated the importance of not allowing personal wrongs and grudges to accumulate: “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering” (Matt. 5: 23– 24). As children of God, we must likewise cultivate a humble attitude of forgiving others who sin against us. “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (Matt. 6: 14– 15). Forgiveness and restoration should be woven into the culture of the church, marking the people of God as distinct from the world.

Along with seeking forgiveness and reconciliation, we need to make restitution to those we’ve wronged. The Lord included a provision in His law detailing how the Israelites were to pay back their debts to those they sinned against. God said to Moses, “Speak to the sons of Israel, ‘When a man or woman commits any of the sins of mankind, acting unfaithfully against the LORD, and that person is guilty, then he shall confess his sins which he has committed, and he shall make restitution in full for his wrong and add to it one-fifth of it, and give it to him whom he has wronged’” (Num. 5: 6– 7). A lingering debt can cause just as much grief and guilt as active sin. In those cases, true reconciliation isn’t possible without restitution.

Finally, keeping a clear conscience means not overlooking its indictments. We need to echo the words of Paul and do our best “to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men” (Acts 24: 16). Don’t put off addressing your guilt and sin— don’t assume it will go away on its own over time. We cannot procrastinate when it comes to dealing with sin. Postponing it inevitably leads to anxiety, depression, and more sin. Allowing sin to linger is an invitation to spiritual cancer. Keeping your conscience clear means addressing guilt and sin immediately, thoroughly, and biblically as soon as you are aware of it.

Strengthen Your Conscience

The smoke detectors in your home are designed to alert you to the presence of a specific, imminent threat. In the same way, the warning lights in the dashboard of your car are intended to make you aware of a malfunction before the damage becomes catastrophic. But what good is an alarm that routinely misfires, constantly alerting you to nonexistent danger? An inaccurate, inconsistent warning system can be as bad as not having a warning system at all— worse if you develop a habit of ignoring it altogether. In the same way, a misfiring, overactive conscience can do more harm than good.

In the same way, a misfiring, overactive conscience can do more harm than good.

For example, a conscience that is too closely fixed to personal feelings is often untrustworthy. When it rises and falls with inconsistent emotions, the conscience can falsely magnify doubts and fears rather than reflecting the true state of the heart and its affections. The conscience can also be confused by too much focus on failures with sin at the expense of recognizing the work of God’s grace. Such imbalance cripples the conscience’s ability to accurately weigh spiritual fruit and often leads to unproductive and unhealthy doubts about one’s standing with the Lord. To function properly, the conscience must be disconnected from the unpredictable whims of the human heart. If it is to be a reliable guide and guard, it must be informed by God’s Word alone.

Another common way to corrupt the conscience is to cultivate an unbiblical emphasis on good works. Many Christians— and particularly new believers— fall into the trap of thinking too much about their personal piety. While they’re not necessarily trying to earn God’s favor, they seem to think it’s their job to secure and maintain it through their efforts and acts of self-discipline. That undue emphasis on externals foolishly alters the focus of the conscience, pointing it outward and shifting its attention away from its intended target, the heart. We must not confuse our consciences with a false notion of righteousness. The most accurate, trustworthy conscience is the one that holds fast to God’s Word and eschews all man-made standards.

The most familiar cause for malfunction is what Scripture calls a “weak” conscience (Rom. 14: 1). The weak conscience is immature and fragile. It’s too quick to accuse and too easily offended. It’s prone to fret over matters that wouldn’t provoke the conscience of a stronger, more mature believer. In fact, it won’t allow the believer to do things he is free to do— the weak conscience puts unbiblical limits on the believer’s liberty in Christ. Unlike the seared conscience, which has been dulled to the point of insensitivity, the weak conscience is hypersensitive.

Paul devoted significant attention in his epistles to instructing the church in how to care for believers with weak consciences. Those who suffer from a weak conscience most often feel the pangs of guilt over activities and associations that call to mind aspects of their former sinful lives. In the first-century church, the primary issue was whether to eat food that had been offered to idols.

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him. However not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled. (1 Cor. 8: 4– 7, emphasis added)

Many of the men and women in the New Testament church had been saved out of paganism and idolatry. While they would have affirmed their faith in the one true God, it likely would have taken some time to fully cast off the familiar influences of their former religious experiences. It’s understandable that those immature believers would reject and repudiate their former lives, shunning any aspect of public life that could potentially draw them back into pagan rituals and idol worship. That included eating foods that had previously been offered as a sacrifice to those false gods. Paul was saying that a mature believer could eat without troubling his conscience— that such a believer would know that the food itself had no bearing on his standing before the Lord. He wrote, “But food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat” (v. 8). There was nothing inherently spiritual about the food, but it nonetheless posed a problem for those whose consciences were still stinging from their formerly pagan lifestyles. Paul instructed the rest of the church to defer their freedoms for the sake of these weaker brothers.

We could use more of that attitude in the church today, when too many people thoughtlessly exercise and even parade their Christian liberty. They don’t give enough thought to the example of their lives and the impact it can have with weaker, less mature brothers and sisters in the faith. Paul’s primary concern with the Corinthian church was not eliminating hindrances to the full exercise of their freedom in Christ. Rather, he was urging them to make sure their freedom did not come at a spiritual cost to a fellow believer.

But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. (vv. 9– 13)

Paul is instructing us to defer the exercise of our liberty in Christ, or even surrender it altogether, for the sake of those who are less mature— those who might fall back into old patterns of sin by following our example. At the same time, he’s warning us not to teach weak believers to ignore their consciences, lest it become a habit. We need to be willing to patiently teach and lead young believers in the truth, rather than pushing them to exercise their freedoms too early and violate their consciences.

In a parallel passage in Romans, Paul further exhorts mature believers not to look down on those weaker brothers: “Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions” (14: 1). But it’s not just mature believers who might be tempted to pass judgment: “One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him” (vv. 2– 3, emphasis added). Here Paul highlights one of the dangers of a weak conscience— that its oversensitivity can be easily mistaken for fastidious spiritual maturity. Some will point to a conscience that is particularly tender and sensitive as a spiritual strength. It’s actually the opposite— a liability that often leads to unnecessary offense, an unduly critical spirit, and slow spiritual growth. Those who nurture a weak conscience are also more susceptible to legalism and self-righteousness, mistaking their list of dos and don’ts as a measure of spiritual maturity.

Throughout Paul’s descriptions of the weak conscience, he consistently diagnoses it as a case of spiritual immaturity. He writes that these weaker brothers lack knowledge (1 Cor. 8: 7) or are “weak in faith” (Rom. 14: 1). The Apostle instructs us to support and defer to these immature believers for a while, but we’re not supposed to coddle them permanently. The implication of these passages is that those with weak consciences will— or at least should— eventually grow out of that state and progress to further spiritual maturity.

Therefore, strengthening the conscience is a function of growing in love for God and the knowledge of His truth. As the believer’s understanding of spiritual truth deepens and he develops godly affections, the attraction of the former, sinful life fades. Those things that once tempted and seduced the heart no longer hold the same allure. And as the world loses its influence, the conscience is less prone to false alarms and unnecessary offense. As believers grow spiritually— that is, as their minds are enlightened by the Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, and as their faith is built up in love for Christ and His church— the weak conscience will grow stronger and they will embrace freedom in Christ.

Guard Your Conscience

What good is a state-of-the-art alarm system if you don’t pay attention to its flashing lights and wailing sirens? You wouldn’t blithely ignore an alert that your house was on fire or that someone was breaking into your car.

In the same way, the believer cannot afford to ignore the cries of the conscience. When it calls us to attention, we need to act. We need to take seriously the warnings it provides and deal swiftly with the sin it identifies. There is no room for a lackadaisical response— we must instantly go to battle with the flesh, thoroughly “putting to death the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8: 13). On the other hand, there is no better way to damage and darken the conscience than to let sin reside within us and fester. That is particularly true when it comes to sins of the mind.

Nothing is more destructive and deadly to the conscience than the secret sins of the mind. Indulging in the private thoughts of a wicked imagination is a direct attack on the conscience. It’s an act of open defiance, engaging all of one’s inner faculties in the vile, vicious assault. Those who nurture sinful thoughts can’t hope to have a pure conscience. Sowing such impurity internally corrupts and perverts the conscience, defiling it and rendering it effectively useless over time.

God’s people must not buy in to the demonic lie that God is only concerned with the exterior— that sins of the heart and mind are acceptable as long as they remain secret. That false notion undergirded Israel’s system of works-righteousness, and it was one of the first things Christ confronted in His public ministry. He declared:

You have heard that the ancients were told, “You shall not commit murder” and “Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.” But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, “You good-for-nothing,” shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, “You fool,” shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. . . . You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery”; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matt. 5: 21– 22, 27– 28)

In truth, there is no such thing as a private, secret sin. The wicked imagination is merely the seedbed of external sin. No one “falls into” immorality or adultery— the sinner indulged those lustful desires internally long before he ever acted on them. In the same way, the thief ’s heart was corrupted by covetousness long before he ever stole anything. Wickedly toying with sin internally is the best way to guarantee that it will eventually manifest itself externally. And in the meantime, the conscience is battered and defiled while its cries fall on deaf ears.

We cannot afford the occasional dalliance with sins of the mind. We cannot indulge our sinful imaginations with impunity. If we think the sins of our imagination are truly secret, we’re lying to ourselves. There is no corner of our hearts or minds that is hidden from the Lord. David declared: “You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD, You know it all” (Ps. 139: 2– 4). We need to echo the conviction of Psalm 44: 21: “Would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.” Nothing is secret from the Lord.

God’s people also need to remember that our thoughts are the truest test of our character: “For as he thinks within himself, so he is” (Prov. 23: 7). What goes on in the deepest recesses of our hearts is the best measure of who we really are. “As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects man” (Prov. 27: 19). We need to heed the call of Proverbs 4: 23: “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.”

We began by saying the battle for personal holiness is won in the conscience. It’s just as easily lost there too. If we’re going to have a conscience worth listening to, we must not misinform it, or abuse and defile it. We need to guard it faithfully— most of the time from ourselves.

Charles Wesley wrote more than six thousand hymns; we sing many of them to this day. But one of his best— and sadly, one that I have never heard in a church service— is his personal plea for a tender, godly conscience.

I want a principle within

Of watchful, godly fear,

A sensibility of sin,

A pain to feel it near.

Help me the first approach to feel

Of pride or wrong desire;

To catch the wandering of my will,

And quench the kindling fire.

From Thee that I no more may stray,

No more Thy goodness grieve,

Grant me the filial awe, I pray,

The tender conscience give.

Quick as the apple of an eye,

O God, my conscience make!

Awake my soul when sin is nigh,

And keep it still awake.

May that be the prayer of my heart as well