Can You, Like Paul, Say that Your Conscience Testifies with You?

By Mark W. Christy, PhD

In Romans 9:1, Paul defends his integrity before the Lord, and then adds, “my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit.” How is it that Paul could use his own conscience as a part of his gospel witness? To answer this, this article will discuss the role of the conscience in one’s life, the hardening effect of sin upon it, the cleansing effect of the Word of God, and the call upon Christians to actively maintain a clean conscience so as to properly empower their witness for Christ.

Before addressing the role of the conscience in one’s witness for Christ, one must first understand the role and purpose of the conscience. To this end, Paul helps his readers with the following discussion in Romans 2:14-16: “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.” From these verses, one learns that everyone is born with a conscience. As a part of humanity’s fallen nature, the conscience serves as an inner witness of God’s eternal law as well as a guiding judge so that each person is equipped to recognize the difference between right and wrong. When people choose wrong, the conscience has the ability to point out their sin and bring judgment upon them.

In his early life, David, for example, gave serious consideration to the idea of taking Saul’s life at a time when he had the opportunity and even acting on this to some extent. By doing so, his conscience was disturbed according to 1 Samuel 24:5: “David’s conscience bothered him because he had cut off the edge of Saul’s robe” (1 Sam 24:5). Though he had only cut a portion of Saul’s garment, David became so guilt-stricken that he convinced his men not to take Saul’s life and then went and made things right with Saul. Despite David’s possession of a tender conscience, which is common among those who are still youthful, ultimately sin would have its way with David and his conscience would harden against any immediate, humble, self-corrections that he displayed here with Saul.

Later in his life, David commits adultery with Bathsheba and then kills her husband to hide it by means of an elaborate plot. So callous was his conscience by this time that he could offer this response to the messenger sent to tell him of the husband’s death: “Thus you shall say to Joab, ‘Do not let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another; make your battle against the city stronger and overthrow it’; and so encourage him” (2 Sam 11:25). After this callous remark, David simply moves on with his life. When Bathsheba finished mourning for her deceased husband, David marries her and their son is born.

At this point, who would blame God for turning His back on David? Afterall, God is holy, and David definitely has shown himself not to be. When Cain murdered Abel, God cursed him to wander the earth and vanquished him from His presence. Cain’s doom was sealed from that point on. This was what happened to Cain, but what would happen to David, a man who the Bible calls “a man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Sam 13:14; cf. Acts 13:22)?

God sent Nathan the prophet to confront David. When he arrived, he told David a story about a rich man who was hosting a traveler (2 Sam 12:1-4). This rich man had many lambs to pick from so as to prepare a meal for this traveler, but chose to take a lamb of a poor man who owned but one. David hears this story, his anger rages at the rich man, and he wants this rich man to face a severe judgement. At this point, Nathan informs David that he is the rich man. In short, David the calloused sinner is confronted with the word of God. Through Nathan, God pronounces judgement over David in 2 Samuel 12:10-12, “’Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.’”

This judgement of God comes upon David, a man after God’s own heart. His tender conscience had no power to prevent him from ultimately falling headlong into sin’s grasp. At some point along the way, David quit listening to the subtle warnings of his conscience until finally he was able to commit heinous deeds, and yet remain completely untroubled in his conscience.

In response to his sin, God could have simply condemned David. Instead, God graciously sends a prophet to him, and this is where David’s being a man after God’s own heart (that is, a man who had been chosen by God and graciously redeemed) comes to light. Nathan rebukes David to his face, and David repents. This, however, is not the end of it. While God mercifully accepts David’s repentance, He does not remove the temporal consequences which include the death of his child, his wives being given to other men, enmity between his family members, and his being subject to open shame (2 Sam 12:10-14).

Like David, believers can allow themselves to be given over to the hardening effect of sin, but how does this work out for those among their ranks who are false confessors or appear to be so given their lack of repentance. As most would agree, the modern church is filled with Christians whose weak theology and lackadaisical commitment levels (sometimes brought on by their weak theology) have led them to a point where strong preaching of the Word of God is desperately needed to call them back to repentance. Among these supposed weak believers, no doubt that there are many whose confession of faith is false. For them, the innocence that accompanied their childhood and was lost as they gave way to sin and its hardening effects will also not be restored apart from a humble response to the Word.

As a warning to these potential apostates, Paul in 1 Timothy 4:1-2, writes, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.” Here, Paul identifies false believers as those whose conscience remains hardened by sin. This condition, he says, coincides with a preference for false doctrine. After meditating on Paul’s warning amid other similar passages, one becomes aware that as the ministry of the gospel has gathered adherents, many quasi-believers have joined their ranks. Jesus acknowledges this in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”

This warning from the Lord should make serious minded Christians take a long look at themselves. Thankfully, true believers will find themselves to be more or less like David. Some, of course, will fall into serious error, but all will eventually humble themselves in repentance before the Word of Lord just as David himself did. For this reason, all churches should constantly preach the word and remain vigilant in their stand against sin (as opposed to simply becoming people pleasers who worry solely about how to form the next mega-church).

With sound doctrine being preached, those in attendance who find themselves to be in sin (as they are enabled by the Holy Spirit) will be afforded the opportunity to repent. Then, they will find that their consciences have been cleaned. As Hebrews 9:14 states, “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?”

In modern times, many churches seem to prefer to stop the process here and instead call these new converts to focus the majority (if not all) of their effort on winning new converts. While evangelism should certainly be a priority, so is the call to Christian maturity. Since believers remain capable of falling back into sin and then being further hardened by its presence, churches must work hard to help their members keep their consciences clean. This, of course, will not happen with skin-deep, feel-good messages taught by pastors who spend the majority of their time on learning how to captivate the masses instead of sharpening their knowledge of the Word through faithful study.

Churches that strive in this manner will enable their members to truly worship God. As the writer of Hebrews notes, “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). Faithful worshippers must actively choose to draw near to Christ by repenting when necessary and clinging to His Word. Those who would truly worship God must manifest a heart like Paul’s. Their heart must be sincere, as the writer of Hebrews has been quoted, so that they sincerely allow themselves to be confronted with the truths of Scriptures while repenting when necessary.  When they do so, they will find that, like Paul, their conscience will indeed become a part of their witness for others who will be able to see how their deeds match their words.  

Unfortunately, in today’s church, the lives of many so-called believers utterly fail to testify to the authenticity of their faith. Among these, perhaps the most dangerous are those who are of the Pharisaical variety. These are those who fully affirm sound doctrine. They are like the Ephesians in Revelations, and Jesus has the same words for them, “I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Rev 2:2-4).

Like the Ephesians, these people sit in churches every week, or now perhaps they shamelessly remain at home and just watch online. They know the truth and gladly affirm it as it is preached. Nevertheless, they no longer examine themselves by it. They no longer question themselves in light of it. They have lost sight of the goal of instruction in God’s Word. What is that goal? Paul tells us in 1 Tim 1:5, “But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Since this is the goal, the job of every believer is to carefully check themselves in light of God’s Word and repent as necessary. To put this another way, the goal is to take one’s cross and deny oneself. Honestly, how is this likely to occur in churches that focus almost exclusively on the experience?

Instead of being like the Ephesians, faithful Christians should actively work to keep their consciences clean regardless of their circumstances. Peter affirms this by remarking as follows, “For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly” (1 Pet 2:19; cf. 3:16; 2 Tim 1:3; Heb 13:18).  Taking up this commissioning, as true believers live their Christian lives by checking their consciences persistently against God’s Word, our witness will come alive. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:2, “but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” Along with this, he also writes, “For our proud confidence is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you” (2 Cor 1:12).

Paul had lived his life in keeping with the gospel that he had been proclaiming. It was there for all to see. Anyone who wanted to could go around to those who knew him and hear for themselves about the quality of his life. Indeed, they could seek out testimony from those closest to him. Paul had nothing to hide. He knew that they would only find testimony that further corroborated his faithfulness to the Word he had been proclaiming.

In conclusion, all believers must model themselves after Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. As he himself declares, “For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you” (2 Thess 3:7; cf. 9; Phil 3:17). Given their potential to fall back into sin and have their conscience harden once again, they should always avail themselves to study of the Word of God while persisting in humility as they recognize their propensity to be found in error. Likewise, their churches (and their pastors) should teach sound doctrine fearlessly while holding all of God’s people fully accountable to the Word of God. As believers fellowship together in this manner, they will find that their consciences will indeed bear witness alongside their testimony.