Conscience

By William Matheson

Chesley, Ontario.

IN THE functioning of man’s spiritual nature his understanding distinguishes between the true and the false and between what he believes to be right and what he believes to be wrong. He weighs the facts in a case and surveys them in their relations and arrives at a judgment of right and wrong on the basis of some accepted rule of right. This is man’s normal experience however faintly his judgment of right and wrong may at times register in the focus of his attention. But having arrived at this judgment another factor enters to endorse the conclusion by a peculiarly mandatory urge of obligation to the right and of deprecation of the wrong. This other factor we call conscience.

That there is such a function in the human constitution underlies the approach of God to man in Scripture and is regularly taken for granted by men in their dealings with one another. Even societies of men, such as national governments, which sometimes make claim of being above obligation to the moral code, find themselves obliged to reckon with it when they seek, as they do, to justify their policies and actions before the world. Shakespeare spoke the language of common human experience when he wrote, “Conscience doth make cowards of us all”. For conscience seems to derive its distinctive characteristic from experience of guilt. There is truth in the proverb, “to excuse oneself is to accuse oneself”, and yet the mightiest powers in the world, ruthless and contemptuous of moral considerations as far as they dare be, at times seek to excuse their actions before the tribunal of men’s consciences. Even they are cowed by conscience into admitted self-accusing by their attempted self-excusing.

In Paul’s Epistle to the Romans the Gentiles are said to “shew the work of the law written in their hearts” because they “do by nature the things contained in the law” so that they “having not the law, are a law unto themselves” (2:15). Then the apostle adds that their conscience is a corroborating witness. Does this imply that “the work of the law written in their hearts” is a factor in man’s nature or constitution quite distinct from the conscience? We take it that it rather means that conscience is a function that seals the judgment of the understanding regarding conduct, and does so in accordance with “the work of the law written in their hearts”. The prior process of arriving at a judgment gives rise to the self-accusing and self-excusing thoughts within them of which the apostle writes. There does appear, however, to be a distinction made between the witness of conscience and “the work of the law written in their hearts” which should not be lost to our attention. The witness of conscience has a certain finality about it, impelling them to “do by nature the things contained in the law”, that is, in the law of Moses, “written with the finger of God” on the tables of stone (Exodus 31:18). Thus the characteristic seems to be given to conscience that it speaks for God in the sanctum of man’s heart.

In any analysis of the factors which condition the functioning of conscience the primary element is the sense of personal responsibility for our acts and words, for our thoughts and emotions. This sense of personal responsibility is an ultimate fact of rational experience. It cannot be defined by any account of simple elements which combine to produce it. It is quite on a par with our experience of seeing a colour. No argumentation regarding the conditions necessary to individual responsibility can destroy our sense of it, so long as rationality is retained, any more than our experience of seeing red can be destroyed by any process of reasoning. Such experiences as appreciation of personal responsibility belong to the ultimates of human experience. They are not derived, and, therefore, cannot be explained nor accounted for as derivatives. As long as any sense of personal responsibility holds a man in thrall, so long does conscience function. Conscience is as indestructible as a man’s personality.

Yet we have to face seemingly conflicting facts in actual life. A man may arrive at such a state of insensibility of conscience that, so far as his understanding is concerned, he may be perfectly clear and firm in his judgment that what he is doing is wrong, and at the same time may proceed with such wrong-doing without any apparent qualms of conscience. This appears to be the state of conscience alluded to by Paul under the word “defiled”, but especially as described in I Timothy 4:2, “having their conscience seared with a hot iron”. Their conscience is still existent but is in a quiescent state. The skin of one’s hand is naturally responsive by pain to the burning effect of a hot iron. Yet through experience of gradual and frequent applications of the hot iron the skin becomes seared and thickened and incapable of the normal response of the skin to the touch of a hot iron. So may conscience become more and more quiescent through repeated disregard of its reproofs and urgings until at length it may appear to be no longer a factor in a man’s consciousness. The authority of conscience over a man’s behaviour may be so ignored and its dictates so trodden under foot that some men are said to be without conscience; but the language of such speech concerns the seeming, not the actual. That same so-called conscienceless person may have deliberately and wilfully set himself to silence the voice of conscience in his own soul. Yet in his dealings with his fellow men he remains quite alive to the natural factor of conscience in human experience. Indeed he is perhaps the more alive to its possibilities through the difficulties encountered in seeking to silence his own. He proceeds accordingly with penetrating insight and wide-awake adroitness to take the utmost advantage of the functioning of conscience in others to further his own plans and purposes, even posing as a friend of conscience while doing so. Such a person can be no more truly without conscience himself than he is without an appreciation of its presence in his fellows, or than he is without a sense of personal responsibility in himself. As beneath the seared skin the potential sensitivity to pain from burning still remains as keen as ever, so is it with conscience when quiescent. The development of the appropriate conditions is all that is needed to prove that insensibility and quiescence are but superficial conditions. Conscience is indeed an indestructible function in the human constitution. Even those who become mentally deranged and who are considered irresponsible do not lose the function of conscience. Often it is then most sensitive, though morbidly so and under erratic direction. The rich man in our Lord’s narration (Luke 16:19–31) appeared conscienceless in his earthly life, in so far at least as being alive to his religious and social responsibilities was concerned, as evidenced by his attitude and conduct toward Lazarus. He is not revealed by Jesus to be so in the hereafter. He was very far from it, as his bitter thrust indicates, when he appeals for a special message to his brethren lest they too come into torment. His appeal is an insinuation that he had not been given fair and full opportunity himself. It is self-excusing.

And conscience speaks in man’s heart with authority. It, so to speak, demands attention and commands obedience. There is complete indifference to merely personal feelings in the functioning of conscience because its concern is solely with the question of right and wrong, and there is no respect to persons. That man has within himself a factor whose functioning is perfectly impartial and without bias, which cannot respect his own person as over against another and which claims binding authority over him, is surely a striking fact. To deny the claim of one’s conscience is consciously to break one’s own integrity, to prove disloyal, traitorous, untrue to oneself.

That conscience is natural to all men constrains us to ask what law or principle binds it in asserting authority over men. We know that men vary greatly in what they call their conscientious opinions and scruples. Yet we are bound in reason to seek some universal principle according to which the common experience of conscience is distinguished. It is a fact that education and environment play a most important part in influencing and moulding the conscientious opinions of men, but conscience is neither the offspring nor the servant of either or of both. With all men, to have to admit responsibility for injustice of any kind is to have to admit guilt. With guilt the distinctive activity of conscience has to do. In his epistle, James sets forth the principle that binds conscience: “If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors” (James 2:8, 9). The principle which properly binds conscience then is justice, no respect to persons.

Many claim that the fundamental principle of virtue is love. This is to place love in command in the conscience. It is a profoundly mistaken and dangerously erroneous opinion. Love is purely subjective. It is an affective reaction to an object of consciousness. It is a moving force. It is simply the power of self-expression. According to the character of the self is the character of its love. But love is not a law, neither can it define a law. It is not, properly speaking, a principle at all. Love, welling up from the love of God, is the vital power of moral rectitude. Justice is its vital principle. Love “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (I Cor. 13:6). And we may accurately regard the truth as justice to the facts, whatever the facts may be. There is no coercive character in love. Love exercises power by suasive influence. But there is a stern coercive and unyielding character in justice. It is identical in character and nature with truth. It can not be broken. It binds with a bond from which there is no escaping. Hence arises the note of necessity in the activity of conscience.

Justice is not a variable principle though the opinions of men vary as to what is just and what is unjust. There is in men the consciousness that justice has an invariable character. It is an eternal principle that is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Within the limits set by justice lies a broad field of liberty wherein love can have free play and conscience rests content. Within these limits alone can true love move. Perhaps from one point of view we may justly say that it is within this sphere that the ethics of Christianity shine with unique distinction. For “the work of the law written in their hearts” requires the recognition of justice even among the heathen. It is where the free play of love reigns that the will to serve rather than to be served, which is the distinctive glory of the Christian way of life, reveals itself (Matt. 20:27). It is within this same sphere which is delimited by justice that expediency and utility have their place. That which is merely expedient or useful can never be the bond of conscience. Conscience disapproves when response to considerations of expediency impinges on justice. Yet it may be remarked here that the law of justice is “the perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25) simply because love rejoiceth in it. True freedom or liberty is not known by us merely because there are presented to us alternatives of choice, but always because we enjoy the conditions under which our nature finds perfect satisfaction.

At this point we may refer to matters of expediency which pass for conscientious scruples. Considerations of expediency may rise to such strength of urgency that many minds fail to realize that it is still only with what is expedient they are reckoning. Indeed, though it fails to satisfy the facts of experience, a superficial view of the bond which binds conscience is that it is based merely on expediency and utility. This is implied in Satan’s challenge respecting Job, “Doth Job fear God for nought?” (Job 1:9). In matters of mere expediency and utility, however, there cannot enter the trait of necessity however strong the urgency may become, and the trait of necessity is distinctive of the true bond of conscience. The moment that the characteristic of necessity enters we are faced with the problem of justice, the claims of truth. Only then are we face to face with that which binds in conscience. The case of pacifism may illustrate. All pacifists, with rare exceptions, acknowledge the propriety of police and welcome and, under pressure of assault, seek such protection in the maintenance of justice within a nation. They balk at the use in war of such police forces as armies, navies and air forces. War in the sense of human internecine strife springs from the clash of human wills determined by national and personal ambitions and by lusts for possessions and for power. In all such clashes faults may be revealed on both sides. The conflict of war involves inestimable sorrow, loss and suffering for many unoffending and personally uninterested people, as well as for those immediately engaged. The pacifist allows himself to become so impressed with these facts, with a false conception of what constitutes the dignity of the human personality, and with the alleged unfruitfulness of all war, that he concludes that war is absolutely the wrong way to attempt any solution of international disputes. There is a large measure of truth in this conclusion but it does not cover the entire issue. He fails to bear in mind that there is always aggression in a war, and that it is this aggression which constitutes an assault upon justice and is therefore wrong. Whatever faults may lie with other parties to the strife the aggressor must be definitely in the wrong. He has truly enough taken the wrong way. He has dealt unjustly. Justice, which defines, may also appropriately be said to defend, by its power in conscience, that freedom without which the true dignity of the human personality perishes. The trait of necessity in justice which naturally registers itself in the conscience asserts itself by stirring men to do and to die to maintain justice, the sole bulwark of freedom. It is only thus that the dignity of human personality is upheld. Against this all the arguments and reasonings of the pacifist can prove to be but the urgings of expediency, which, in their nature, fall short of necessity and, in the present case, far from binding the enlightened conscience, conflict with its true bond, justice.

The common experience of men coincides with the doctrine of Scripture that justice is the principle that binds the conscience of man. But justice is a concept entirely distinct from that of expediency and utility. The idea of “no respect to persons”, which is justice in our personal relations, is a concept quite distinct from the altruistic idea. As was once pointedly asked, “What is altruism but a patchwork on the torn garment of justice?”. If it is attempted to develop the idea of justice out of the higher reaches of altruism so as to make justice a form of concern for, or of interest in, the universal common good, then we have to recognize a development wherein the characteristic trait of the offspring is not only distinct from any characteristic in its parentage, but is distinctively in conflict with it. There can be no escaping the fact that a creative act must intervene here, as by no process of thought can the central and distinctive concept in justice be derived from the notion of altruism. Justice specifically excludes all thought of personal interest. It concerns a perfect balance between persons as in all relations. That is its specific trait. This antinomy between the principles of expediency and utility on the one hand and of justice on the other hand has always been recognised. This is illustrated by Plutarch’s observation that the two names, “peace”, and, “war”, are mostly used only as coins to procure not what is just but what is expedient. Thus conscience, having for its bond of obligation and its rule of right the concept of justice, seems to force an impasse on those who build their philosophy on a theory of evolution.

But we must face the fact that conscience may be gravely errant in its verdict. Many think that to be conscientious is to be right. There is vital truth in this presumption though subtle error underlies it. No man can despise his conscientious scruples and maintain his integrity. When anyone commits himself to anything the rightness of which his conscience cannot approve he does wrong, “for whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). And this is true even though that to which he committed himself was not in itself wrong. This is a vitally important fact and reveals the transcendent character of conscience in man’s moral nature. Even the common sense of men approves this position regarding the absolute necessity of what we call conscientiousness for the maintenance of integrity.

The core of the functioning of conscience is the simple recording of an objective fact. The action, if an action be the subject of judgment, stands in the consciousness and along with it the rule or standard of right as accepted by the person. Conscience functions simply by sealing the decision of conformity or of non-conformity between the action and such rule of right. Error in the functioning of conscience may enter from both directions of this associated knowledge. Through error in knowledge of the facts of the case error in the urge of conscience may, and continually does, enter. We cannot but look at things which are the subjects of our moral judgment out of eyes whose vision of things is coloured by the bias of our affections. Furthermore, when our affections are set on any object our range of focal power is narrowed according to the intensity with which our affections are so set. Even the vision of things within focus becomes distorted by our willingness to see only the favourable, or in reverse, the unfavourable. Our wills are decided by our affections as our affections are the expression of our selves. Our affections are our responses or reactions to any objects presented to our consciousness. And so there is truth in the old adage, “None are so blind as those who will not see”. Thus from the direction of defect in knowledge of fact error in the functioning of conscience may enter. Discrimination regarding the true meaning of actions as defined by motives may fail, and this failure often gives rise to very troublesome misjudgments. This is illustrated by the readiness with which Elisha’s response to Naaman’s reference to his having to bow down in the house of Rimmon when carrying out his duties toward his master is freely and flatly opposed and condemned by many who might be expected to be more humble and guarded than to question the judgment of so faithful, zealous and uncompromising a servant of Jehovah. Failure to see distinctions where distinctions exist led the weak conscientiously to condemn the strong unjustly in Paul’s day.

From the direction of knowledge of the rule or standard of right error may also enter. It is here that education and environment have a profound and vital influence. If a person is taught from infancy that a certain action is wrong, and especially if he continues under the influence of such teaching for many years, the supposed rule of right on which such judgment is based becomes a fixed thing in that person’s mind. Yet this rule of right may have its source merely in some usurping authority, or in considerations of expediency and utility. It becomes deeply ingrained, when the usurping authority is religious, through experience and knowledge of evils readily associated with, though not truly due to, the action condemned. And so powerful may such a bias prove that its influence remains to interfere with the functioning of conscience long after the understanding has been freed from the entangling error. This may be illustrated by the outlook of different persons on such matters as the use of alcoholic beverages. To many earnest people it appears criminal for a Christian to use any alcoholic liquid as a beverage. To others, who believe their mind and outlook to be under the direction and influence of the recorded conduct and teaching of Christ and His apostles, a wholly divergent rule of right, the rule of self-control in the use of things, is held. Plainly, likes and dislikes are frequently allowed to decide what is to be accepted as a rule of right and what is to be rejected. Conscience comes under the liability to err which is thus natural to men.

It is thus abundantly evident that while to be right morally one must always be conscientious, it does not necessarily follow that to be conscientious is to be right. Conscience is categorical in its dictate because its bond is the principle of justice. It is perhaps to this that it is due that so many take for granted that if they are conscientious they are right. But they can be right only in so far as the data before conscience are right. This emphasises the vital importance of instruction in the truth. It is most pathetic that ecclesiastical organizations in particular make mischievous use of this factor in man’s moral nature to try to make of it merely an instrument prostituted to their own ends. This is a grievous betrayal of trust, for the church has been put in trust with the word and testimony of God. Believing the church to be so honoured of God, many are seduced the more readily to yield their minds to the false instruction imparted through it, with consequent prostitution of conscience.

We may now attempt to probe the significance of conscience from the religious standpoint. Is the fact of conscience a testimony to the being of the living God? The testimony of conscience plainly is that mankind, in whose constitution it has a universal place, belongs to a world in which the reign of justice, the rule of right, the moral law, is to be recognized. The law which justice dictates, the law of perfect balance, binds free agents everywhere with the awful majesty of “ought”. Thus conscience claims and asserts an authority in man’s own inmost being which endorses the authority of which the law of justice is but the expression. It is axiomatic that “the less is blessed of the better” (Heb. 7:7), and it goes without contradiction that “the servant is not greater than his lord” (John 13:16). It cannot be denied that the authority which says, “I will”, is greater than any power which cannot so speak. The highest form of authority that man knows is personal, taking the form, “I will”. That supreme authority, therefore, which speaks in the conscience of man must be personal, must say, “I will”. Otherwise its claim to authority would be confessedly spurious. It cannot be that anything impersonal can hold sovereign sway over the personal. Conscience, we therefore take it, does testify, not to a merely impersonal authority or power, but necessarily to the personal authority of the living God.

There is about the dictate of conscience a specific independence so far as the likes and dislikes, the plans and purposes, the will (and the will is the very seat of personality), are concerned. We do speak of our own conscience. But the intrinsic nature of conscience, and the specific independence of its dictate, seem to make it not our own so truly as that it possesses us. It seems to be a power within us that represents an authority without and above us. It differs from the power of apprehending the true for it asserts a claim upon us, and presents demands to us, of an inescapable character. However much we may seek to sidestep its demands or to silence its voice that we may go our own way, there cannot but remain the consciousness that it has not been defeated. It has registered its dictum indelibly, however strongly we endeavour to close our ears to its voice or to set our faces against its impulsion. This dissension within a man’s bosom is not like the experience wherein rival objects merely of attraction or of revulsion seem to set us at odds in our emotional life until the stronger affection prevails and our choice is made. In this case we are conscious that we are somehow inwardly divided but in a manner that issues in what we call true self-expression. The decision is our very own, and, after a manner, we are masters through it all. But with conscience it is distinctively different. Dissension, where dissension is, lies between another authority, another mastery, that claims sovereignty over us, and ourselves. In this sense conscience may be recognized as truly representative. It represents within us another will than our own. And that will or authority is not just like the power of physical law, because we recognize, face to face with physical law, that we have no choice but to submit, whereas with the former our free agency is allowed free play, and we may refuse to obey the authority that speaks in our conscience and set ourselves against it. There is inherent in the very nature of this clash of our free agency with the authority that speaks in conscience, the character of a clash of wills, a dissension between persons.

The counterpart of the sense of responsibility is the sense of accountability. It is never to our fellows that we are accountable in the experience of conscience. In the secret of our hearts where no fellow creature can probe we realize the sorest pangs of conscience for guilt of which no other being can be aware except the Spirit who searcheth all things. Our accountability is to a greater than we, and that means to the living God. Yet conscience in man is no evidence whatsoever of any righteousness in him. The functioning of conscience according to righteousness does not constitute a man righteous. Judas could say, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood” (Matt. 27:4), but he was not thereby constituted or proven a morally better person.

It is in order now to observe that through conscience God deals with men in their relations to Himself. This is well illustrated in the case of David in his sin with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. With great cunning and highly offensive ruthlessness David tried to cover up his offence from the eyes of men. He seemed to have succeeded. But in the majestic simplicity of Scripture statement we read, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord” (II Sam. 11:27). In accordance with the pertinent passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews (4:13), that it is with Him we have to do, the Lord sent Nathan to David. By the simple story of the rich man’s injustice to his poor neighbour David’s sense of justice was outraged, and he exclaimed, “As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die; and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity. And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man” (II Sam. 12:5–7). When Nathan went on to expose David’s act in the light of Jehovah’s eye David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord” (v. 13). Thus there came the reawakening of David’s conscience as, consciously face to face with God through His word by Nathan, he saw himself in his blood-guiltiness. David, no doubt, had previous experience of an awakened conscience, and so far forth his experience must be differentiated from that of one who had hitherto lain “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Yet the essential elements of the true awakening of conscience are clearly illustrated in this case. The basic point in the divine message of awakening to David is the stress on the injustice of his action. And this injustice concerned only the relations between the rich man and his poor neighbour. David was a king and was conscious that “he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God” (II Sam. 23:3). All this belongs to the ordinary sphere of human social relationships. David’s conscience was aroused to action by the iniquity of the rich man’s deed, and the prophet, pointing his finger as the very finger of God at David as the guilty party, proceeded to uncover David’s action in the profounder and more deeply penetrating light of its offensiveness against God. Then, however overpowered he must have been by a sense of his guilt against so true a friend as Uriah, David’s consciousness of that was lost for the time under the crushing sense of his guilt against God. Thus he exclaimed, “I have sinned against the Lord” (II Sam. 12:13). The force of this is revealed in Psalm 51:4, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight”. It could not be that in his consciousness there was indifference to his guilt against Uriah. The condition of his mind may rather be illustrated by the fading from our vision of the stars in the sky at the rising of the sun. The stars are still there, but their presence is dimmed from view by the brilliance of the sunshine. So the overwhelming consciousness of his guilt against Jehovah cast into the outer shadows from the focus of his attention David’s guilt against his friend. But this illustrates the functioning of conscience as what, with latitude, we call the organ of the moral sense and that of the religious as well. Beginning with the moral, the prophet proceeded to the deeps of the religious and thus the true order is seen to be, as Jesus declared, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:37–40). Conscience is the organ of the religious phase of man’s activity and, therefore, of the moral as well.

Thus we come face to face with the question of the specific rule that binds the conscience. We have said that justice is the principle which, to our common consciousness, binds the conscience. Justice defines the sphere of righteous freedom or liberty in all relations and under all conditions. This does not conflict with the fact that “God alone is Lord of the conscience” for justice so binds the conscience simply as it has its source and norm in God Himself who has created all things for His own pleasure. Only God can interpret for us specifically, however, and make known in necessary detail, what this His will for the order of free agents requires. Sinfulness entails bias in our judgments and inability to discern the things of the Spirit of God (I Cor. 2:14). In other words we are, and must be, wholly dependent on God’s special revelation of Himself and of His will. There is revelation of His will written in the constitution of the material and spiritual world and in history, but our understanding of it must wait on His special revelation recorded for us in the Scripture of the Old and New Testaments.

We have seen that the presence of conscience in man does not in any way imply any germ or root of righteousness in him. The fact of the matter is that the word of God tells us through Paul, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing” (Rom. 7:18). Therefore it was that Jesus declared to Nicodemus, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:5, 6). Yet through their consciences God awakens men to a sense of the unsatisfactory relationship in which they stand to Himself. This awakening to a sense of doubt and fear as to their relationship to God may come without the written word of God. Men may thus be moved to a marked amendment of conduct and to behaviour that is strikingly like righteousness. For there comes with such awakening always a sense, however feeble, of overhanging penalty as the natural accompaniment of a sense of guilt. Therefore conscience goads to amendment of life in order thereby to escape avenging justice. To this state of awakened conscience Paul, no doubt, refers when he contrasts the issue of the sorrow of the world with that of godly sorrow, “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (II Cor. 7:10). Such an awakening is characteristically self-centered in its outlook and concern but may range from very feeble stirrings to really agonising concern. It comes to its crisis under consciousness of being face to face with God, with the consequent appreciation that the sinful-ness of sin arises from our disobedience to Him.

The normal and ordinary means whereby men are brought to this truly awakened condition of conscience is the word of God written in the Old and New Testaments. It may come through the Christian behaviour of one’s fellow men (I Peter 3:1, 2). The Agent by whom men are thus made alive through the word to the living God and to their sinfulness before Him is the Holy Spirit (John 16:8ff.). The witnessing power of the word thus experienced in conscience is described in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (4:12, 13). So are men made conscious of the hidden things of their souls, and their understandings function in judgment on the state of heart and mind and will, not only on external acts and spoken thoughts; and conscience seals the judgment. Thus through conscience, under light from the word of God, men become conscious of God’s eye searching them; in measure they see themselves even as He sees them, and their condemnation is complete. It is utter. Thus Paul writes, “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” (Rom. 7:9).

The experience of an awakened conscience in the natural man does not conflict with the fact that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (I Cor. 2:14). Conscience can only prove a disturbing function in the natural man, even though its activity is perverted under the bias of enmity to God. The Pharisees could not see why Jesus should warn his disciples, “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20). When they found fault with Him for eating and drinking with publicans and sinners Jesus simply said, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matt. 9:12, 13). Plainly He did not encourage them to consider themselves righteous. His constant differences with them and final severe rebuke of them as hypocrites precludes any such interpretation. They could kill God’s witnesses and in doing so think that they were doing God service. Their conscience functioned but did so in the darkness of ignorance of God. Jesus made it plain that His mission had at its very core the calling of men to repentance—to a change of mind respecting God as well as to a change of attitude and of behaviour toward God, to a recognition that only they could heed His call who realised themselves to be astray from God and sinners in a sense of which they, the Pharisees, were ignorant because ignorant of God. Plainly, in making true acquaintance with God men have their own condemnation as sinners sealed in their own consciences. Only under experience of this do men come to repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. With this repentance and faith comes the functioning of conscience as a fountain of peace, “the peace of God which passeth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7).

But there is a vital difference between these two stages of the activity of conscience. This difference turns on the changes involved in the reconcilation of the sinner to God. These changes are twofold. God’s favour replaces His disfavour. The sinner’s mind and heart are changed. This brings us face to face with two vital questions in particular. The first is the question of conscience and the atonement. The second is the question of regeneration and the conscience. These are both questions of great interest and involve very delicate and complex problems. But clear and Scriptural views of conscience in these relations are decidely important for practical Christianity and for the faithful exposition of the testimony of Jesus in general.

We now begin at the point where a man in his consciousness stands face to face with God in his naked guiltiness. He realises God’s eye searching him and against him stand the hidden things of darkness of his own life. He can appreciate the testimony of the woman of Samaria, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” (John 4:29). He understands now the word of John concerning the message committed to the church by Jesus, “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (I John 1:5). The natural testimony of his conscience is of justice austere and uncompromising in its requirement of penalty, and his conception of the living God is especially clear that He is “the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase” (Dan. 4:37). He cannot see any way whereby reconcilation between God and himself can be effected. The burden of responsibility for this impasse is all his own. He it is who broke with God in causeless rebellion. Rapprochement cannot come from his side. He cannot take away the offence whereby he has created the separating gulf. He is aware that all his efforts to win God’s favour fail, for all he does is in his own interest, not for God whose pleasure he is bound in conscience to do. Though God has spoken the word of reconcilation by Jesus Christ, the light of that word seems to be barred from his understanding. His consciousness seems to be exclusively of his own guilt in the light of the inexorable justice of God. True it is that he cannot see the kingdom of God, nor enter into it. Then somehow even as “the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth” (John 3:8), his understanding is opened to the truth of the person and of the mission of Christ, “For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Unreserved confession of sin cannot be restrained. To the authority of God in the word of the gospel his conscience responds. He can now no more doubt the word that sets him free than he could doubt the word that before had bound him, simply because it is the word of God.

But conscience cannot know peace under any sense of disregard for justice. The word of God in pardon fully satisfies the conscience and imparts the conviction that God is “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). God does not deal with sinners in a merely arbitrary manner. He will have us to say, “neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me” (Ps. 131:1), yet He has regard to the nature that He has given us. In that nature conscience is a vital factor and it can function in ineffable peace only in the assured knowledge that justice has been vindicated. There are those, however, who tell us that forgiveness of sins based on the atoning death of Jesus of Nazareth is an impossibility; that nothing can be more self-evident than the injustice of inflicting the punishment due to the guilty on an innocent person; and that such a proposition is revoltingly offensive to a true sense of justice so that only a cur could rejoice that another bore his guilt for him. How then does conscience function in acceptance of the gospel message?

Manifestly God alone can make known to men the truth in this matter. The foundation of the faith that is in Christ Jesus is that He is “his only begotten Son” (John 3:16), even “God over all blessed forever” (Rom. 9:5); and that of His own will, and according to the will of the Father, He came, as He was sent, to do the work that the Father gave Him to do, of which work John Baptist was sent to testify in identification of Him, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). It is not in conflict with the principle of justice that a man should do what he will with his own, when he gives it to meet the necessity of another (Matt. 20:15). There is no possible bar in justice to prevent the Son of God from becoming incarnate in order to give His life a ransom instead of many (Matt. 20:28). He who took sinners into union with Himself that He might make their guilt His own and die in order to vindicate the claims of justice against them is Himself the eternal source and norm of justice, for He is God Most High. The absolute sanctity of justice is thus proclaimed to the universe from the cross of Christ. Therefore the conscience of the believer functions to keep his heart and mind through Christ Jesus in the peace of God.

There is nowhere else amongst men to be found anything that points comparably, even in the most distant and vague manner, to the grandeur, the majesty and the absolute inviolability of justice as does the doctrine of the cross of Christ, in showing forth the necessity of His death as residing in the fact that He voluntarily undertook for transgressors to plead their case and to assume responsibility for them before the eternal throne. How meaningful are His own words, “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:31, 32). The man whose conscience rejects the doctrine of the substitutionary atoning death of Jesus Christ as in conflict with the principle of justice must be gravely astray on the facts of the case or perversely blind to the dictates of this principle. The conscience of the Christian rests in it, not only because he has God’s word to assure him that this is God’s plan for meeting his overwhelming need, but also because God reveals to him that eternal justice is therein vindicated and gloriously established. The very nature of conscience finds vindication in this scheme of reconcilation. Here, and nowhere else, can men reach the eternal bed-rock on which to rest, because justice and judgment are the foundation of God’s throne (Ps. 89:14).

Not only is the absolutely inviolable character of justice manifested in the cross of Christ but the love of God is ineffably revealed. Here is the miracle of all miracles. For, as justice must be held inviolable and thereby sinful man is irretrievably lost under its condemnation, God’s own eternal Son voluntarily interposed His own person in human nature to meet, at whatever cost to Him, what that “must” required. Thus, in the face of the cross, He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39). That He drank the cup clearly proves the necessity of His doing so. That He did drink it displayed that love of which it is declared, “having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (John 13:1). There can be no miracle to compare with this act of God’s becoming incarnate to give Himself up to the cursed death of the cross in the room of guilty men. The evidence and proof of love is in giving. This giving of Himself by God’s only begotten Son is the basic fact of the gospel message. It is the one transcendent transaction which He has asked His redeemed ever to keep in ritual remembrance until He comes again. All other wonders of whatever order fade into comparative insignificance in the presence of this miracle of love.

It is as the truth of this wonder of the love of God floods the mind with its light that the conscience speaks peace through the Lord Jesus Christ. There takes place a change in the self which evidences itself in “the expulsive power of a new affection”. The love of self which was hitherto supreme and the love of the world which hitherto prevailed now give place to the love of God. This involves a change of the profoundest character. The objects which we love reveal what we are in the secret depths of our being. The change that comes in a person when thus reconciled to God in Christ Jesus reaches more deeply than any man’s knowledge of himself can penetrate. He is a new creation (II Cor. 5:17). Conscience, in the experience of conviction of sin under law, could only endorse condemnation, driving to despair of hope in oneself and of hope in God. The truth in the light of which conscience proceeded was the truth of God’s unswerving rectitude. But now the understanding can see that unswerving rectitude in perfect unison with pardoning grace through Jesus Christ. The soul is now alive to “the only true God” (John 17:3). Under the merely condemnatory conviction of sin there was an aliveness to God, but wholly one-sided and, therefore, false views of God (Job 42:7) held the mind in thrall, and conscience functioned accordingly. Only with this change, where-by understanding in the love of God enters, can conscience be free to seal the judgment of freedom from guilt. The self that now expresses itself is God-centered through the knowledge and love of God in Christ (II Cor. 5:13–21). This is the change of which Jesus taught Nicodemus the necessity when he said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). With understanding in the love of God, which brings the comfort of forgiveness, there enters a distinctive condemnation in conscience of the sinfulness of sin. According to the esteem in which God is held is the keenness of sensitivity to the sinfulness of sin. This distinction runs closely parallel to the distinction between the sorrow of the world and godly sorrow (II Cor. 7:9–11).

Though conscience cannot any longer register condemnation as the believing sinner’s status before God (Rom. 8:1), it does not follow that it ceases to register sharp and threatening disapproval of the actions, words, thoughts and affections in the believer’s life and behaviour that are contrary to justice. It is far otherwise. The sharpness of the rebuke of conscience now may be crushingly severe (I Cor. 9:27). The light in which conscience now functions is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Cor. 4:6). The sensitivity to sin is now tender and penetrating far beyond past experience. This is basic to the constant and growing conflict of the flesh warring against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh (Gal. 5:17). How can anyone who honestly believes that God for justice’ sake did not spare His own Son nonchalantly follow the way of injustice or iniquity in dealing with his fellow men? It is one of the greatest scandals when men who loudly profess this faith and their dependence on this divine transaction for their salvation do not hesitate to practise patently unjust things. The utter hypocrisy of such a course affords the occasion for multitudes to stumble. It is not too much to say that there is no element in the testimony of Jesus that calls for heavier, more forthright, solemn, insistent and persistent emphasis to-day than the open exposure of the utter folly and crass hyprocrisy of the notion that any man can properly entertain the assurance of his forgiveness through the death of Christ who yet continues to practise contempt for the dictates of justice. Regeneration, which is a change in the hidden depths of a sinner’s being, makes him a partaker of the divine nature (II Peter 1:4). The character of the divine nature is revealed in the cross of Christ. Apart from regeneration there is no living faith and no forgiveness. All those in whom the Lord delights are by the renewal of their natures conscientiously just. This is the special message of the Lord in the Epistle of James.

Yet an honest and uncompromising facing of the facts compels one to admit that the general witness of the organised church of Christ has in no other way been more profoundly and subtly vitiated than by failure to hold true on this question. It is basic to the world’s present deliverance. The sine qua non of peace lies here and evidences Jesus Christ to be the one foundation. Yet the history of the church of Christ is simply crowded with records of crying injustices and frauds perpetrated out of professed zeal for the name and testimony of Jesus whose crowning glory is His death to satisfy divine justice. Most commonly the prevalence of unjust dealings can be traced to the pernicious error of putting the organised church in the place of Christ. Then, as if it were for Christ’s sake, pious frauds and unjust measures are freely indulged supposedly to advance and to maintain the interests and the prestige of the church. How anyone who has responsibility for anything of this nature can hope to hear the Lord’s welcome at last, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Matt. 25:21), seems surely beyond comprehension. Yet such often receive the highest honours in the gift of the organised churches here below. This does seem to contradict our claim regarding the peculiar sensitivity of conscience in the regenerate. We can, however, only state the scriptural truth with respect to regeneration and the conscience, and repeat the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:20–23).

But the revelation of God which peculiarly characterises the enlightenment of the understanding under regeneration is the exhibition of His love. The truth of this exhibition bears on conscience in a powerful manner. As justice is the bond of conscience there must be recognition of the inescapable obligation to love in response to the love of God. This colours the entire life. It is true that the affections cannot be compelled. But the underlying principle of regeneration is just that. The sinful nature cannot love God. “That which is born of the Spirit” can love Him as it is its very nature to do. This love is constrained under a sense of obligation to Him for the love He exhibited toward sinners in giving his Son to die for their redemption, and in His Son’s giving of Himself (Gal. 2:20). It is their appreciation of this love that carries sinners out of themselves so that they do “not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (II Cor. 5:15). Such is the reasoning of Paul who knew its truth by experience and who himself became its outstanding exemplar. And so there comes to be established, rather in germ than in full realisation as yet, that condition of conscience as of character, wherein the commandment holds sway, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength”, out of which inevitably issues, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Mark 12:30, 31). This is the bond that binds the conscience because it is the will of God.

A subtle error sometimes insinuates itself under the cloak of love. This is the error of trying to equate the expressions of love with law. Love will move men to give their own for the comfort, aid and pleasure of others. Love can move men to yield their own liberty for the preservation of a weaker brother from falling into temptation and from sin (I Cor. 8:13). It is in this sphere of activity that the distinctive Christian ethic shines with unique splendour. The attractiveness of this characteristic of behaviour is well illustrated by the case which Paul supposes when he would set forth the uniqueness of the love of God in giving his Son to die for us while yet sinners: “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die” (Rom. 5:7). No fault in the way of transgression can be found with a righteous man. He gives to each and to all the last tittle that is due to them, but he stops there. The good man does all that and then, if the case calls for it, he gives more (Matt. 20:1–15). He gives out of what is strictly his own to meet the needs of his fellow men. The good man likes to think on the things of others. He has in richer measure the mind that was in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:4, 5). This is the true Christian altruism and it is very strongly urged under the gospel. But there are those who do not rest content with leaving the righteous man to learn voluntarily to practise the special virtues of the good man. They would coerce the righteous man into giving away his own for the help of the needy and weak. In doing so they claim that they are merely insisting on practical Christianity. The favourite motto of these advocates of practical Christianity is based on Cain’s hypocritical reply to God’s inquiry after Abel whom he had murdered, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9). A supposed reversal of Cain’s attitude is expressed in the word, “I am my brother’s keeper”, and this is erected into a maxim of Christian political action. A careful examination of the implications involved in this shows that it involves the same reflection on God’s providence as the rich man asserted when he asked that Lazarus go to warn his five brethren. There is a grave reflection on the perfection of God’s goodness. The simple fact is that the attempt to force the righteous man to behave like the good man is itself an assault on the very foundation of Christian ethics. It is an attempt at invasion of the sphere of the righteous man’s liberty, which is defined by justice. In other words, let the intention be as nobly altruistic as it is claimed to be, such coercion is an assault on justice. This is why, from the moral point of view, the enlightened Christian conscience is aroused to oppose such efforts with stern and unbending resolve, even though the same Christian himself delights to forego the very liberty, and even the possessions, in the free enjoyment of which he is determined to protect others. This urge of justice in man’s conscience dooms to failure all such schemes of social betterment. These considerations are of particular interest and significance in face of the many social and moral reforms that are advocated on this false principle, and especially as they reveal the profoundly anti-Christian character of many of the taboos in vogue in church circles (Col. 2:20–23), and the dangers that lurk in the socialist propaganda so rampant and on the rampage in the world to-day.

This erroneous development in practical Christianity receives its impulse and plausibility from the emotional factor of human experience. It is impossible to define what true Christian love is, and what it is not, in the affective experience of a Christian on the basis of the affection itself. Love is commonly recognized not as the motive power of righteousness only but as the directive law for its expression of itself as well. Very commonly, in discussion and treatment of the theme of right conduct, we hear and read of “the law of love”. If this expression is used to mean the law of righteousness, or the law which expresses justice, then it is quite proper. It is then “the law of love” in the sense that love “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (I Cor. 13:6), and in the sense that it is the law that love fulfils (Rom. 13:10). But this is not the meaning in the common understanding of the phrase. It is generally, if not regularly, understood by those who hear it and read it, as expressing the idea that love dictates a certain law of conduct, and that, the true law of righteousness. This affords wide scope for divergent views as to what is right and what is wrong, so that commonly these views, under this false notion, are merely a reflection of personal likes and dislikes. Human affections and emotions then determine what is right and what is wrong. This is in flat contradiction to the entire scope of Scripture doctrine. It is in open variance with the witness of conscience. The standard of right is an objective thing and wholly independent of personal likes and dislikes. Thus truly Christian affections are such only as express delight in the things of Christ and aversion from all that is contrary to His will. In other words our affections are to be categorised morally according to the moral quality of the objective factors which elicit them. If love for some person or thing impels us to do injustice to any person or thing, we are to know at once that such affection, however excellent it may have been at its inception, is taking on the character of sin.

It is likewise in the emotional life that the springs are to be discerned of the many gross aberrations from right which mar the testimony of many who profess devotion to Christ. There is often so much stress placed on the emotional in religious experience that the objective, and that means consideration of the true as against the false, of the just as against the unjust, and of the right as against the wrong, is simply submerged. It is, therefore, of a thing vital to practical Christianity that Paul testified when he declared before Felix, “And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men” (Acts 24:16). When men think that they may exercise an easy liberty with respect to conscientious scruples, either as to what they believe or as to what they do, because, by reason of some emotional experience through which they have passed, they feel assured of forgiveness in Christ Jesus, they are failing to recognize the first principles of the gospel of Christ. If a man say that the injustice in any particular matter to which he has committed himself was only petty, and the benefit to be gained thereby for some person or cause was great, he is to remember the word of the Lord, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much” (Luke 16:10). Salvation from sin means salvation from practising iniquity and from dealing in untruth. This requires a conscience functioning under the light of truth and free from offence toward God and toward men. To have such a conscience is the exercise of everyone who is working out his own salvation with fear and trembling because it is God who is working in him both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12, 13). Powerful Christian emotions are absolutely essential to vigorous practical Christianity, but these emotions must never be allowed to usurp the direction and control which belong to truth alone. In telling Pilate of the kingdom of which He is King, Jesus said, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice” (John 18:37).