In a previous study, we learned that the conscience is our “inner sense of right and wrong.” It’s a kind of built-in moral compass given to us by God. Even so, we need to teach and train our conscience to align with God’s Word because it isn’t always accurate.

We also learned that we can “hurt” our conscience in the following ways:

• It can be weak (1 Cor 8:7, 10, 12)
• It can be wounded (1 Cor 8:12)
• It can be defiled (1 Cor. 8:7; Tit 1:15)
• It can be encouraged or emboldened to sin (1 Cor 8:10)
• It can be evil or guilty (Heb 10:22)
• It can be seared as with a hot iron (1 Tim 4:2)[1]

These problems occur when we allow our past sinful choices, habits, and experiences to shape our conscience. They also occur when we allow wrong teaching, whether licentious or legalistic, to shape our conscience rather than the accurate, gospel-oriented, grace-filled teaching of God’s Word.

With these things in mind, we need to learn more than just how we can “hurt” our conscience. We need to learn how we can “help,” “improve,” or “strengthen” it, too.

Nonbelievers can never quiet their conscience completely.

According to Heb 9:9, for instance, when Old Testament (OT) Israelites offered sacrifices for various sins, they were never able to “make their conscience perfect” or to “perfect their conscience.”

“It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience.”

This means they were never able to offer enough sacrifices, whether in number or in kind, to quiet their conscience completely from the guilt they felt inside. They would always walk away still feeling guilty about something else, because no confession was ever thorough enough and no sacrifice was ever good enough to get the job done.

Believers receive a clean conscience before God.

How can we enjoy a clean conscience before God? Through the perfect, eternal, once-for-all sacrifice offered by God on our behalf, the death of Christ (Heb 9:14).

“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

The bloody, sacrificial death of Christ is eternal, not temporary. Furthermore, it applies to all of our sins, not just some of them. Finally, it is good enough.

You see, animal sacrifices were an inferior approach that merely served as an illustration of our need, not a solution to it (Heb 10:2).

“For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.”

Christ, on the other hand, was a truly superior approach. Not only was he a human being, but he was a perfect human being who also is God. According to Heb 10:22, it is the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ for our sins that enables us to approach God with a clean conscience.

“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

We can never be good enough to achieve this status, nor can we do enough good things to earn it. The awareness that our conscience is completely and entirely clean before God is something that we celebrate and commemorate when a believer is baptized (1 Pet 3:21).

“There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Baptism doesn’t cleanse the conscience of course, but it does announce in a tangible way what has happened to our conscience before God.

Believers must maintain a good conscience before God.

Just because our record is clean before God doesn’t mean that our responsibility to live in a godly way has been erased. We still have an obligation to maintain a “good conscience” before God (1 Tim 1:5, 19).

“Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith.”

“Having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck.”

In other words, it is our responsibility before God to live in a way that matches our innocent, guiltless standing before God. We want our actions on earth to match our records in heaven.

Though we wish it were not so, we have to acknowledge that believers still sin from time to time (1 John 1:8, 10).

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

“If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

While this doesn’t erase our salvation from God or put a blemish on our record of innocence before him, it will affect something else that’s important – our day-to-day, functioning relationship with God.

Think about it this way: speaking mean words to your spouse doesn’t annul your marriage, nor does disobeying your parents annul the fact that you’re their child. The record stays the same and the relationship remains, but the quality of your relation will diminish and the closeness of your relationship will weaken.

When a believer does something that he (or she) feels is sin, his (or her) conscience will go into “guilt” mode. This is a relationship thing, not a record thing. Our record of innocence before God remains, but our relationship with God gets strained. We lose the ability to read God’s Word with enjoyment, pray to God with confidence, worship God with freedom, and serve God with poise.

When this happens, two things need to occur.

• We need to confess our sin(s) to God.
• We also need to reaffirm our awareness of God’s cleansing through Christ’s atonement (1 John 1:9; Heb 4:16; 9:9; 10:22; 13:18).

Believers need to confess known sins to God.

In 1 John 1:8, 10, John acknowledges that every believer still sins from time to time. Anyone who denies this is being either ignorant or dishonest. Yet nestled in between these two verses is a crucial bit of pastoral instruction (1 John 1:9).

“If [or whenever] we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

According to this instruction, God does not require us to offer sacrifices when we sin. The only sacrifice he accepts has already been offered, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the effects of this sacrifice still stand. We are guiltless and innocent before God, even when we’ve sinned. However, our sins still disrupt our relationship with God – and close fellowship with one another. To resolve this dilemma, we need to confess our sins.

The word confess means to “acknowledge, admit, or agree” about our sins. This means more than saying something like, “I goofed,” or, “I messed up.” It also means something more than saying something like, “I missed the mark,” or, “I sinned.” It means to be specific, to acknowledge to God and agree with him about the nature of what you did. If you were dishonest, acknowledge that you lied. If you lusted in your heart, acknowledge that you committed adultery (5:27-28). If you slandered or belittled another person, acknowledge that you displayed a murderous heart (Matt 5:21-22).

This doesn’t mean we have to recite certain words in a monotonous, legalistic manner but it does mean that we should be accurate in our assessment of our sins. We have a tendency to downplay what we’ve done and this makes our confessions to God not just weak and pathetic, but dishonest. It also does very little to quiet our conscience. When we downplay our sin, our conscience has a hard to resting.

Confession reboots and reprograms our conscience to Christ.

When we confess our sins more accurately and honestly (and bluntly), our conscience responds in a more peaceful way. Such honest assessments also help to avoid repeat the same sins again as we allow the gravity and scope of what we’ve done in God’s sight to truly sink in.

When we acknowledge our sins to God, we train our conscience to “reboot,” to realign with the fact that we’ve been cleansed, forgiven, and reconciled to God completely. We don’t deserve this, true. It seems too good to be true, true. But it’s true because Christ died in our place and took the full punishment for our sin. We know this is true as a matter of faith and theology, but you need to train your conscience to function accordingly.

Bear in mind, that this guilt and confession applies to things that are clearly sin, like lying, stealing, committing adultery, murdering, speaking vulgar language, abusing people, and so on. Yet it also applies to things that may not themselves be sinful (like eating meat offered to idols). If you do such things feeling or thinking they are wrong, then since it is “not of faith” for you (not done with full confidence that God allows you to do it), then it is sin for you at that time (Rom 14:23).

We need to train our conscience to know what is actually sin.

Knowing that this can occur, it’s important to study the Bible, ask questions of seasoned, mature Christians (like your pastors and other mature believers in your church), and learn to train and reshape your conscience according to the Word of God.

There may be some things that your conscience allows, but it shouldn’t because those things are actually sinful. The problem is that your past experience or ignorance led you to think it was okay. This is an example of training your conscience to be more careful because the Bible is more careful.

There may also be some things that your conscience feels is wrong to do, but it shouldn’t because those things are actually just fine. The problem here is that your past experience or ignorance led you to think it was sinful. This is an example of training your conscience to be less stringent because the Bible is more acceptant.

This second point is important because if you accept a weak or overly strict conscience, you’ll be feeling guilty and needing to confess sins to God much more than necessary, making your Christian life far less enjoyable and joyful than it should be. In future studies, we’re going to examine various topics about which we may need to train our consciences to be either more or less careful.

How is your conscience doing today?

Let’s ask ourselves some questions about our conscience.

• Have you stopped trying to suppress your conscience and have you stopped trying to earn or work your way to a clean conscience before God. Have you acknowledged your sinfulness and turned to Jesus Christ alone as your God and Savior? Have you depended on his once-for-all sacrifice as the full payment for your sins and the only way to receive a clean conscience before God forever?
• If you have, then how close and how confidence is your relationship with God right now? Have you committed any sins that you’ve refused to confess or acknowledge to him, giving you a feeling of perpetual, recurring guilt in your conscience before God? Or when you speak to him about your sins, do you downplay them and speak about them in general terms or as though they weren’t that big of a deal? Is your conscience bothering you about anything right now that you need to speak to God about in honest terms so that you can enjoy the confidence that you and God are “on the same page”?
• Are you growing as a Christian by shaping your conscience according to the Word of God? Or are you just coasting on “auto pilot” with the same conscience you’ve had for the last ten or more years? What are some areas of your life in which you may be sinning without even knowing it? Or what are some areas of your life in which you may be thinking you’re sinning (or thinking something is sinful), but it’s not?

As individuals and as a church, let’s take these questions to heart and take steps to program and train our consciences to agree with God. Let’s learn to enjoy the fact that our record of sin is clean and clear before God forever. There’s nothing spiritual or godly at all about walking around feeling guilty all the time! Let’s also learn to speak honestly to God about our sins when they occur so that we “stay on the same page” with him and enjoy a close, confident relationship with God on a daily basis.

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[1] Andy Naselli and J. D. Crowley, Conscience, Kindle ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 41.