ROMANS 2:12–16 - The Compass of Conscience

Introduction

One of the movies Dad used to show his students in History class was the 1941 Gary Cooper classic, Sgt. York. The true story of Sgt. Alvin C. York, who initially sought exemption from serving in World War I as a “conscientious objector” because of his strong Christian faith that led him to oppose killing another human being. He said that when the United States entered the Great War, “I was worried through and through—I didn’t want to go and kill. I believed my Bible.” Initially drafted in a non-combat role, York went on to study the Scriptures further and came to the conclusion that it would not go against God’s Word to fight in the war. His remarkable skill as a sharpshooter and hunter eventually led him to become one of the most decorated soldiers in the First World War, killing at least 25 enemies and capturing 132 prisoners.

One year after Sgt. York was released, in 1942, another young man entered military service as a conscientious objector. 23-year-old Desmond Doss also held strong religious convictions against taking human life, influenced by his Seventh-Day Adventist upbringing. Unlike Alvin York, however, Doss never shifted from his commitment to avoid taking human life, and instead served as an Army medic with the 77th Infantry Division in the Pacific theater of World War II. During the Battle of Okinawa, Doss was credited with saving between 50 to 100 wounded soldiers atop the Madea Escarpment—an act of valor that would earn him the Congressional Medal of Honor, and would be immortalized in the 2016 movie Hacksaw Ridge.

Now, these two men both held deep religious convictions against taking human life—both of them were bound by their conscience to object to killing. One of those men eventually saw his conscience change over the course of time, and the other one never had a change of his conscience. And both men were rightly honored for their bravery. What are we to make of this? How do we evaluate the role of our conscience in the decisions that are being thrust upon us in these days? How do we make decisions based on our conscience? What is our conscience, anyway?

These are not academic questions for us, are they? We may not be facing questions of whether or not we can participate in killing in a war, but there are just as many “matters of conscience” that are part of our lives today. From employers who refuse to pay for abortion services as part of healthcare to small business owners who are threatened with fines and jail time because their conscience does not allow them to celebrate sodomite marriages, to people who are threatened with termination at their job because they refuse to go against their conscience and receive an experimental mRNA gene therapy derived from and tested on the stem cells of children murdered in the womb.

And before we even start to trying to navigate through these issues we have to take into account all of the ways the conscience can be twisted or numbed or thrown out of alignment—people who labor to silence their conscience or dull it so that they can keep pursuing their lusts in sexual sin—and then turn around and over sensitize their conscience to the point where they can’t bear to watch at T.V. show because one of the actors used the “N”-word fifteen years ago in college!

As we will see in the coming weeks as we study this topic, the Bible says that our conscience can be violated, appealed to, silenced, sharpened, dulled, and so on. We can have a good conscience, a seared conscience, a clear conscience, a guilty conscience—it can be a source of grief and sadness for us, or our conscience can be a means of great joy and freedom before God.

And so we want to spend the next several weeks learning what the Scripture has to say about our conscience.

--How does your conscience relate to your spiritual maturity?

--How do we navigate matters of personal conscience in church fellowship?

--How can we bring our conscience into line with God’s standards without sinning against our conscience?

--How can we be free of our guilt and experience a “clear conscience”?

One of the things that the Scriptures teach us is that our conscience is a gift of God given to us to guide us towards obedience to God—as we will see, it is a witness to God’s righteousness that exists in each one of us. Each one of us has been given a “moral compass”, as it were, that is meant to show us the moral standards of God. And as we begin our study this week I want to start with the most important teaching God’s Word has for us on this subject. What we will see in our passage this morning is that

You will ANSWER to God for how you follow the COMPASS of your CONSCIENCE

Our passage this morning in Romans is one of the thirty places in the New Testament where the Greek word translated “conscience”, sunedeisis, shows up. In this passage Paul is teaching about the whole world’s universal guilt before God—that Jewish people are just as guilty as Gentile people when it comes to breaking God’s Law—even though Gentile people were never given the Law the way the Jewish people were:

Romans 2:12 (ESV)

12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

The Jewish people stand condemned before God for breaking the Law that was revealed to them by Moses on Mt. Sinai. But Paul goes on to say that the Gentiles stand condemned before God for breaking the law that was revealed to them by God in Creation:

Romans 1:19–20 (ESV)

19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

God has placed into the hearts of every single person, Jew and Gentile alike, the knowledge of God’s power and God’s nature. And as we will see, every person has rejected the knowledge of God’s power and nature that has been revealed to them through this inner faculty that we call the conscience. Paul goes on to say that very thing in the next verse of Romans 1:

Romans 1:21 (ESV)

21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

And so this is one of the reasons we say that the conscience is like an inner compass that points us towards God and His righteous nature and power—but each one of us has been given the capacity to know God, but each one of us has ignored that compass and the direction it tells us to go, going our own way instead—and when you ignore your compass, you are lost.

As Paul is writing about the universal "lostness” of Jew and Gentile alike, he appeals to the operations of the conscience to make his case. There are at least three things we can learn from this passage about the conscience and its role in our lives. First,

I. It is part of being HUMAN (v. 14)

Look at verse 14:

Romans 2:14 (ESV)

14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

The Gentiles, who had never had God’s power or character revealed to them by the Law of Moses and the Covenant with Israel, still know what God requires because it is part of their nature. So we see here that our conscience is part of human nature:

It is a MORAL capacity

Our conscience is an inner moral guide, it is an inner voice, if you will, that causes you to evaluate your actions on the basis of a moral sense. And this moral calculus, this ability to distinguish between right and wrong, is one of the primary faculties that separates us from God’s other creatures.

I remember reading an anecdote from a woman who walked into her bedroom to find that her three-year-old daughter had gotten into her makeup table and had thoroughly covered herself and the family dog with foundation, lipstick, mascara, and anything else the child could get her hands on. She said something like, “When I walked in, only the dog knew they were in trouble!”

But for as much as it seems like animals like dogs have a moral conscience, they really don’t—they have no way of discerning an action that is morally good from an action that is morally wrong. (Neither do cats, but everyone knows cats don’t have a conscience…) Perhaps this is why we say that certain horrible criminals are “like animals”—because they seem to have no conscience; no moral sense of right or wrong at all.

Paul says here that Gentiles stand accountable before God because they have an innate consciousness of right and wrong that they have disobeyed. And we know from Scripture that this is a moral capacity that you have because

It is part of GOD’S IMAGE in you (cp. Gen. 1:27)

In the first book of the Bible, in Genesis, God says of Adam and Eve’s creation:

Genesis 1:27 (ESV)

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Of course we know that it is not God’s physical image that we are created in—God is a spirit, and does not have a body like man. So when we say that we are created “in God’s image”, part of that image means that we have an innate, hard-wired recognition of the difference between right and wrong—our conscience.

It is part of being human—it did not come about as a result of the Fall; Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, has a conscience as well. But His conscience never suffered the corruption of the Fall—His conscience is the only human conscience that is perfectly aligned with His Father’s power and nature.

You and I, though, have a conscience that—like every other human faculty—has been corrupted by sin. It can often give us a good general direction of right and wrong, but like a compass sitting too close to a magnet or inside a steel-framed building, it is not ultimately reliable. But even so—even though our conscience is imperfect and not always reliable, the Scripture tells us that

II. It is a POWERFUL Voice (v. 15)

Verse 15 describes a situation that every single person in this room can understand—every one of us has experienced this very thing:

Romans 2:15 (ESV)

15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them

You know, don’t you, that the voice of your conscience is a powerful one? When you think about it, it seems strange, doesn’t it—that there should be an inner voice inside your head that feels completely independent of your own feelings? You may want to believe that something you did wasn’t wrong, but somehow there is that feeling that you don’t approve of your own actions!

But whether we understand why this is the case or not with our conscience, the truth is that

We LIVE for its APPROVAL (Acts 23:1)

Everyone wants to have a “clear conscience”, a “clean conscience”. We talk about our choices in ways that demonstrate that this is what we want: “I made that decision with a good conscience”—it’s why men like Desmond Doss refused to touch a weapon and almost got discharged over it; it’s why Alvin York searched the Scriptures to understand what God said about warfare—so that he could go on to serve with a clear conscience.

In the Book of Acts, the Apostle Paul testified that he did have a good conscience before God:

Acts 23:1 (ESV)

1 And looking intently at the council, Paul said, “Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.”

And in the next chapter he said that he strove to make sure his conscience was clear:

Acts 24:16 (ESV)

16 So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.

And the reason that we live for the approval of our conscience is also found here in Romans 2:15—

We DREAD its ACCUSATIONS

As one pastor notes, “Psychology… is usually less concerned with understanding the conscience than with attempting to silence it” (John MacArthur, quoted in Naselli, A. D., Crowley, J. D., & Carson, D. A. (2016). Conscience: What it is, how to train it, and loving those who differ (Illustrated ed.) [E-book]. Crossway. p. 45) People can be tormented by the accusations of their conscience, sometimes for years or decades at a time. In some cases people even have been known to take their own lives because of the terrible accusations that their conscience continues to lay against them.

But, as we have said before, since our conscience has been corrupted by the Fall, we can’t know on our own whether we are being condemned accurately, can we? And I think sometimes this is part of the agony of a bad conscience—we don’t know for sure if we are being rightly accused by a healthy conscience, or wrongly accused by an unhealthy conscience. As we will see, Lord willing, in future installments of this series, there are times when we can have an oversensitive conscience and believe we are sinning when in fact we are not—and there are other times when we have a perfectly clear conscience about something we’re doing that is in fact a sin. In either case, our conscience needs to be “recalibrated”—brought into line with God’s will.

But whether or not your conscience needs to be realigned or brought more closely to conform to God’s will and His Word, one thing that we must understand clearly is that it is always a sin to disobey your conscience. We will explore this more as we go along through this series, but for now it is enough to understand that if you believe it is a sin, and you do it anyway, you are sinning. Even if the action itself is not sinful at all, a person who believes they are sinning by doing it are guilty of an attitude and a heart that decided to sin.

Part of why we say this is because of what Paul says about the conscience in Romans 2:16—he shows us there that

III. It will be EVIDENCE at your JUDGMENT (v. 16)

Paul says that the conscience “bears witness, their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them

Romans 2:16 (ESV)

16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men “by Christ Jesus.”

Notice how Paul says that on the day of judgment, your conscience will “bear witness” when you stand before God. Surely at least part of what this means is that your conscience will demonstrate the times when you believed something was a sin and did it anyway. Your conscience will be “entered into evidence”, as it were, of the times when you were willing to sin against God.

Paul says that on that day God will judge the secrets of men—He will judge your secret thoughts— “by Christ Jesus”. Now, there are a couple different ways that we can understand that phrase—it can be a preposition of conformity or a preposition of agency. If we say we did something “by the book”, then it means we carried out an action in conformity to the standard. So part of what it means for God to judge our secrets by Christ means that He will judge your thoughts

Measured against the STANDARD of Christ

In other words, how will the record of your conscience stack up against the record of Jesus’ conscience? How many times did you willingly do something your conscience told you was a sin compared to how many times Jesus willingly did something He believed to be a sin? (I’ll give you a hint—the answer for Jesus is “zero!”) Your conscience will be measured someday against the standard of Christ’s perfect conscience before His Father.

Another way that we can say that God will judge our secret thoughts by Christ is in the sense of the agency of Christ—for instance, if I say that I came up with the answer to this math problem “by multiplication”, it means that I arrived at the answer by using that type of arithmetic. So in this sense, God judging our secrets “by Christ” means that we will be

Evaluated by the JUDGMENT of Christ

That is to say, Jesus Christ will be the one who passes judgment on whether you obeyed your conscience’s directions of what is sin and what is not. He will be the judge, He will be the one to determine whether you are guilty or innocent, and the Scripture says He will use the record of your conscience as part of the evidence He weighs.

And this can either be the best news in the world for you, or it can be the most terrifying reality you will ever face—because on that day when your conscience bears witness at your judgment, when God judges every last secret of your heart by the standard of Jesus Christ who sits in judgment over you, the only hope you have is to be

Redeemed by the GOSPEL of Christ

The conscience God has given you to know the difference between right and wrong, that powerful voice within that either accuses you or excuses you, that corrupted but potent reflection of God’s image in you to see and understand moral actions will not be the means of your salvation on that day.

There are a lot of people—and I mean a LOT—who believe that God will accept them as long as they obey their conscience, as long as they “always do what I think is right”. When you ask them if they are a good person in God’s eyes, they will say, “Oh, God knows that I always try to be a good person”, that they always “try to do the right thing”, that they “follow their heart”. But the Scripture says that a good conscience is not the way you get saved, it is a gift God gives you when He saves you!

The Apostle Peter writes in his first epistle:

1 Peter 3:21 (ESV)

21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

in other words, you don’t come to God because you already have a good conscience—you come to Him because you have a rotten conscience, and you want to appeal to Him to make it clean through the resurrection of Jesus Christ!

That conscience that God has given you is a great gift—it is a gift because it shows you that you are a hopeless sinner apart from Him! It shows you that you know the difference between right and wrong, that God has revealed it to you by your very nature. And even though there are times when your conscience approves of you, there are other times when your conscience loudly and repeatedly condemns you—and you can’t know on your own whether that compass of your conscience is right or wrong to accuse or excuse you.

So don’t you see that the only way you can have a good conscience—the only way to silence that accusation and guilt and uncertainty—is through repentance and faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ! Come to Him to appeal for that good conscience—come to Him and lay before Him everything that your conscience is throwing at you; the guilt, the shame, the regrets, the hatred and lust and greed and envy—give Him all of the things your conscience accuses you of and let Him sort it out!

Because He died a completely innocent death on the Cross, with a conscience completely clear of any of the accusations His enemies threw at Him—He is able to grant your appeal for a good conscience! He will delight to take away that guilt and shame, silence those accusations, replace the weight and burden of a guilty conscience with the joy and freedom of a clean conscience, washing you by His blood and giving you His own perfect righteousness! If your conscience is condemning you this morning, then don’t ignore it—come, and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Ephesians 3:20–21 (ESV)

20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

What are some of the “matters of conscience” that people are being faced with today? Do any of these issues impact you directly? What does this passage say about the importance of your conscience as you make decisions in these matters?

Is your conscience a completely reliable indicator of what is right and wrong? Why or why not? If the conscience is not completely reliable, what does that mean for people who believe that following their conscience will make them acceptable to God?

Think of a time when your conscience weighed on you for something you had done. How did you deal with that accusation? What are some ways that people try to suppress or ignore their conscience? Why is that a dangerous thing to do, according to Romans 2:15-16?

What does Paul say in this passage about the role our conscience will play when we stand before God someday? Do you have confidence that you will stand before Him with a clean conscience on the Day of Judgment? Read 1 Peter 3:21 again. Have you come in repentance to God to appeal to Him for a good conscience through faith in Jesus’ resurrection?