What is conscience? Elsewhere, I’ve described it as judgment. But what kind of judgment? There is judgment of mere truth from falsehood, what we call discernment; and there is judgment between two distinct truths (i.e. one car is green, the other is red). Are these matters of conscience? Not quite. Conscience is the faculty of moral judgment. William Ames calls it a judgment of discourse because conscience seems to be the host of an internal argument. According to the Scriptures, there are two main functions of conscience: Accusing and excusing (Rom. 2:15). But in order to do either of these things—thought puritans like Ames—the conscience must entail some sort of internal argument within the conscience-bearer.
A person cannot simply accuse or excuse without having an internal wrestling match over the matter. Let’s use an imaginary friend, Joe, as an example. Joe talked back to his mother. Now, internally, if Joe is a Christian, he goes through a simple process, “If I talk back to my mother, I have sinned (Ex. 20:12). I did talk back to my mother. Therefore, I have sinned.” Joe’s conscience, guided by the Word of God, has accused Joe. Why? Because Joe dishonored his mother, and his conscience is informed by a standard that tells Joe such dishonor is sinful.
In Romans 2:14, 15, we see the accusing and excusing functions of the conscience applied to Gentiles who were without the law of Moses:
For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them.
Of course, when the conscience excuses—either through personal obedience or through the obedience and sufficiency of Christ (Heb. 9:14)—it leads to comfort. Conversely, Ames notes that the conscience can actually terrify the conscience-bearer, and this he says because of places like 1 Corinthians 8:7, “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.” A person with a terrified conscience is a person with a defiled conscience, or a conscience which is accusatory instead of excusatory.
We’ve just defined what conscience is, that is, a judgment of discourse, or an internal argument or wrestling match by which a person judges their own actions as sinful or not sinful. The conscience either accuses or excuses the conscience-bearer. But in order to understand conscience rightly, we need to understand that the conscience must be informed. In other words, the conscience must be guided or filled with content if it is to accuse or excuse accurately. So, then, what or who is the informant? If you fill your mind with wicked things, wicked things will be the informant of your conscience. If you fill your mind with good things, good things will be the informant of conscience. If your conscience is informed by a bad source, you will be accused for good acts, and excused for bad acts (Is. 5:20). Thus, your conscience must be informed by something that will enable it to judge accurately, and this must be the very Word of God (Ps. 119:105).
This is why Ames and others understood that the supreme religiously binding authority upon the conscience is the Word of God. God’s Word is sufficient unto all faith and life. If it is sufficient unto all faith and life, it is sufficient unto our moral living before God (2 Tim. 3:16-17). If it is sufficient unto our moral living before God, it is the highest standard by which our conscience must or should be informed in terms of living rightly unto the Lord.
The clarity of conscience, therefore, can only come if it is informed of something that clears it, something objectively true which extinguishes objective guilt. This informant must be the gospel itself. Thus, we say, a rightly informed conscience is informed by the Word and Spirit, as the Spirit opens our understanding to the Word; and if a sinner’s conscience is rightly informed, they will understand their dismal relation to the law of God, and will be moved to seek relief from such an inflamed conscience. But what relieves it of its guilt? Is it obedience to the law? No, it must be the gospel. So, the conscience is first informed by the law, which causes a sense of guilt. And then, should the Spirit work, it is informed by the gospel, which causes comfort and relief. But what is our comfort? It is, “Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God (Heb. 9:14),” and this He did so that He might “cleanse [the] conscience from dead works to serve the living God (v. 14b).”
Victory Baptist Church | A Sovereign Grace Church in Kansas City 