Weekly Sermon

The Human Conscience (Part 1)

The human conscience is part of our spirit and functions as a shared inner witness—testifying for or against us—yet it can be shaped, trained, and even misled.

Related Scripture

1 Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, “Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day.”

14 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,
15 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,

5 But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron,

22 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.

16 and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.

Well, tonight we’ll change topic. I will finish loving-kindness—let’s talk about the human conscience. Say conscience. Do you have a conscience?

Now, when we talk about conscience, most people immediately think of something negative—like feeling bad, like something is wrong. That is the common understanding. But that is not the full picture.

The human conscience is part of our spiritual constitution. We have conscience, intuition, and volition. And among these, conscience is very tricky. Why? Because it is teachable—you can train it.

That is why for some people, there is nothing wrong with a certain thing, while for others, the same thing is wrong. Both can be sincere, but both can also be wrong. Why? Because conscience can be shaped.

Now let us begin with what Paul said. In Acts 23:1, he stood before the council and declared that he had lived his life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to that day. That is a strong statement. That means a man can actually stand before God and say, “My conscience is clear.”

So we will not approach this merely philosophically. I may sound that way at times, but that is not the goal. We want to look at this from a biblical perspective.

Now the word “conscience” comes from the Greek word suneidēsis. It simply means “to know together,” or shared knowledge. You cannot have conscience alone—it is knowledge shared with a witness.

That is why conscience functions like a witness. It can either testify for you or against you. Like in a courtroom, it can stand for the prosecution or for the defense.

So when you say, “My conscience is clear,” what you are really saying is: there is a witness inside me that agrees with what I have done.

But here is the danger—if your conscience is trained wrongly, it can still testify, and you may feel justified even when you are wrong.

That is why we must understand this carefully.