Conscience – An Evil Conscience, Part 4 – Good and evil are the only two forms of conscience. 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Audio Download

Conscience – An Evil Conscience, Part 4 – Good and evil are the only two forms of conscience.

[Study Aired November 4, 2023]

Our inherent nature of an evil conscience knows to do good and doesn’t. Such a one rightly divides the truth from error and is bewitched to disobediently choose error.

1Pe 3:15  But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts [where conscience resides]: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear [prompted by a good conscience. How?]:
1Pe 3:16  Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.

Heb 10:22 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.

Hebrews 10:22 is the only verse in the Bible that directly refers to an “evil conscience.” However, as previously pointed out, the Bible abounds with stark nuances of both forms of a good or evil conscience. It is impossible to speak about specific evil consciences without juxtaposing them with their corresponding good conscience.

As we have seen in the preceding studies, a ‘good conscience’ is dramatically differentiated by Adam and Eve partaking of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Subsequently, a pandora’s box of evil conscience blooms like leavening in bread dough.

As such, Mr Barid’s order of sixteen headings for his conscience study does not descend in order of authority, but rather it is in order of scriptural reference.

      1. The Natural Conscience
      2. A defiled Conscience
      3. An Evil Conscience
      4. A Convicting Conscience
      5. A Purged Conscience
      6. A Pacified Conscience
      7. A Good Conscience
      8. An Answering Conscience
      9. A Pure Conscience
      10. A Witnessing Conscience
      11. A Conscience Void of Offence
      12. An Emboldened Conscience
      13. A Wounded Conscience
      14. A Weak Conscience
      15. A Seared Conscience
      16. An Abandoned Conscience

Our study today is on an “Evil Conscience”, yet when we review the above headings, the vast majority of them are all aspects of an evil conscience. Nonetheless, it is the Saint’s God-given passion to study every detail of His word, leaving nothing alive that breathes of misunderstanding and thus our continuation of the sixteen mostly evil versions of our conscience.

Clearly, Adam and Cain within us initiated the many forms of evil consciences, yet the first time the term is directly used is in Hebrews 10:22, the entire Bible bleeding defiled evil consciences from the beginning to near the end.

Hebrews 10 admonishes us to remain faithful to the New Covenant in Christ and not regress to the Laws of Moses so etched in our hearts that we temporarily battle a dual of tortured consciences as Paul did regarding circumcision.

Heb 10:19  Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
Heb 10:20  By a new and living way [one that literally leads to life eternal], which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh [revealing the path to a more excellent conscience];
Heb 10:21  And having an high priest over the house of God;
Heb 10:22  Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled [a sprinkle (little by little) is the beginning of a storm, a flood of truth] from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Heb 10:23  Let us hold fast the [new] profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) 

Christ’s mission was to declare the Father and our worship of Him in spirit and in truth. Formally, Israel worshiped God by attempting to keep His laws through physical washings and sacrifices that most certainly caused His people a good conscience via those laws. Yet, as depicted by Saul, who became Paul, his pricked conscience while under the slavery of the Old Covenant was subliminally aware of a strange new conscience opposing most turbulently his established beliefs. Paul’s boldness became dramatically evident through his earthquake of miraculous blindness as he whimpered, ‘”Who art thou, Lord?” And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.’ (Acts 9)

Paul’s conscience was kicking against the pricks of his murderous ways and imploring eyes staring back at him upon his many stonings as he demanded the church of the day adhere to Moses’s laws; subliminally, he couldn’t identify why these people over whom he lorded authority couldn’t and wouldn’t remain as faithful as he. A new disconcerting spirit of change was blowing upon his mind.

By the one who had the power to change the way mankind worshiped God, Christ cast aside the physicality of the Old Covenant to create in man a worship of God by the same laws, only by spirit and not by sweat. It was a shift in how each of us now perceived what constituted an ‘evil conscience’ and was earth-shattering. That seismic shift in how to live by the Law was quickly realized to be immensely liberating. Its overpowering joy eclipsed martyrdom, as Steven exemplified in Acts 7.

Heb 7:11  If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? 
Heb 7:12  For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. 
Heb 7:13  For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar. 
Heb 7:14  For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood.

Unlike Paul, Moses wasn’t given or ready to have his conscience pricked by a better conscience by the holy spirit…

Heb 7:15  And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest, 
Heb 7:16  Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. 
Heb 7:17  For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. 
Heb 7:18  For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.
Heb 7:19  For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God. 
Heb 7:20  And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest:
Heb 7:21  (For those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath by him that said unto him, The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec:) 
Heb 7:22  By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.
Heb 7:23  And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: 
Heb 7:24  But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.

… governed by a pure conscience. 

Heb 7:25  Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
Heb 7:26  For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless [a pure conscience casts out all fear], undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; 
Heb 7:27  Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. 
Heb 7:28  For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore. 

Hebrews 7 highlights the most profound shift of a good conscience to a means to attain a pure conscience through Christ, our High Priest. Stephen was so committed to the spirit of a ‘good conscience’ of greater purity that he was willing to be martyred. Stephen, Christ and all the martyrs of old, all died having acted in good faith in accordance with their consciences defying an ‘evil conscience’, and so, too, does the Bride of Christ. From that foundation arises the focus of this study and our immovable confidence…

Heb 10:22  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.

For those given understanding, what a glorious and most joyful release it is to be under Christ’s light yoke, where he is the author of the Temple he is constructing.

The following scriptures annul an evil conscience.

1Jn 3:18  My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. 
1Jn 3:19  And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.

There in the above scripture lies a conscience that is a foundation to rightly discern the truth, and in the below scripture, the bisection of choosing by His will a good or evil conscience.

1Jn 3:20  For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.

If we are an Elect of God, He assures us that our heart, that is, our mind, will know the difference between a good and evil conscience, and our Lord will provide the power for us to ultimately learn to choose righteously.

1Jn 3:21  Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.
1Jn 3:22  And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

How easy is it to simply ask our Lord to give us a pure conscience in all that we think. If we thus have that pure conscience, we are keeping all the commandments of Christ, and our hope in the First Resurrection, Lord willing, will be assured.

1Jn 3:23  And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
1Jn 3:24  And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the spirit which he hath given us [in practising a good conscience].

We have seen that we can’t have light without knowing darkness, and comparably, a good conscience without knowing an evil conscience. Let’s review some everyday examples of us being assailed by an evil conscience, namely the seemingly imperishable lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.

In the Old Covenant, an evil conscience was somewhat foreign to lust yet still pricked their consciences.

Mat 19:8  He [Christ] saith unto them [the Apostles], Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
Mat 19:9  And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. 

Wow! What an indictment of a good conscience that mankind, subliminally from the beginning, as did Adam, Eve and Cain at heart, knew by their subsequent actions of hiding, revealed an evil heart against what constituted a good conscience.

Mat 5:27  Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 
Mat 5:28  But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

In Matthew 5, Christ is instituting the spirit of keeping all His commandments, resulting in growing a perfect conscience as He and the Father perpetually exist without contrast.

Yet, like Cain and Paul, their consciences beheld a shadowy dichotomy of a pricked conscience suggesting something (spiritually) awry. With that same conscience, Solomon, who is who we are before knowing Christ, withheld from himself no lust, as seen in Ecclesiastes 2:10. Solomon and everyone under the Old Covenant were blessed materially for their lawful dedication to loving God. Their physical wealth denoted their love for God in a shadowy good conscience and was evidence of their righteous living.

Deu 11:26  Behold, I [The Lord before Israel] set before you this day a blessing and a curse;
Deu 11:27  A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day [and resulting good conscience]:
Deu 11:28  And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God [and resulting evil conscience], but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known [and assuredly a resulting evil conscience].

As earlier expressed, much later Achan, under those commandments,  knew by his evil conscience that he had done wrong since he hid his treasure in the ground beneath his tent. The spirit of keeping the Lord’s commands was already evident by the conviction of their Old Covenant hearts.

Jesus, being flesh, lived in perfectly good conscience, yet He knew that He was subject to an evil conscience by virtue of being tempted to acquiesce with an evil conscience in submitting to the Devil’s wiles ~ evil was present within His flesh as it is in us, yet he didn’t sin, but we do.

Mar 10:18  And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

We all, as Solomon, if given to honestly study our consciences, would conclude that our lusts are vanity, a vapour of joy unable to be retained. Solomon came close to understanding the misty conclusion of his polarised conscience, confusing him while he did his best to live by the Laws of Moses, and yet knew some unidentifiable spirit couldn’t be grasped. That missing something was the unheard-of holy spirit that urges a pure conscience that later, in his experiences with the Shulamite he frustratingly continued to see blackness. Christ’s love isn’t awakened in Solomon and the world until He pleases in the Resurrection to Judgment (Son 8:4). The Lord’s double portion of love in the brilliant light of His word is only awakened in His Bride since Christ.

Ecc 1:12  I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
Ecc 1:13  And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.

Life’s experiences only produced struggles against sin to be always faced with the junction of choosing, by our Lord’s hand, a pathway of either a good or evil conscience.

Ecc 1:14  I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Our works always cause us to constantly be vexed by having to choose the route of a good or evil conscience. 

Ecc 1:15  That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

We are constantly besieged by the choice of a good or evil pathway of conscience. 

Pro 21:8  The way of him that is laden with guilt is exceeding crooked; But as for the pure [conscience], his work is right.

Ecc 1:16  I communed with mine own heart [my conscience!], saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
Ecc 1:17  And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.

There in that preceding verse is Solomon’s Shulamite-like vexation of knowing that unidentifiable something we know as the holy spirit was missing from his vast wisdom.

Ecc 1:18  For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. 

Without the holy spirit to prick our consciences, when in Babylon, we as did Solomon, experienced an indefinable sorrow where immense physical prosperity and wives (churches) eluded our quest for peace and perfect joy, always searching but never coming to the truth. Our dichotic consciences increased sorrow.

Ecc 2:9  So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.
Ecc 2:10  And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour.

There is some truth that, in good conscience, particularly Solomon in his time, and remnants of us in Babylon believe that it is our right to pursue any joy of the flesh as long as we use our “wisdom” to not directly contravene Christ’s laws. The major snag is that riches afford unrestrained pursuit of pleasure, so the more powerful bias is to love them more than our Lord’s greater riches of His commandments.

Gal 5:16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 
Gal 5:17  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

Luk 14:26  If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. 
Luk 14:27  And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

Mat 19:29  And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

With an elusive Shulamite-like epiphany, Solomon was further vexed by his conscience. With classic introspection, he says, 

Ecc 2:11  Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.

How utterly frustrating it is in Babylon when a mist of Christ’s spirit, for the most part, veils our conscience. When given a Stephen-like revelation upon keeping all the commandments of God, a good conscience hailstones our understanding, washing away the multitude of lies and outshining all vexations of darkness.

Probably the most exceptional lust for a male is what is highlighted in being taken out of him in the form of a woman. If the majority of his femininity wasn’t placed in front of him in the form of Eve to see himself, he would have had only a vague Solomon-like understanding of his evil nature. Being face-to-face with his own flesh is highly arousing to lust for all kinds of spiritual ethnicities (as did Solomon ~ and us ~ with captivating doctrines) while not understanding that they all represent the same ruling deception. A man’s wife mirrors himself as having a heart that ensnares his conscience with evil and fetters his hands to ‘excuse’ himself and hide from sin (Ecc 7:25-29). She is the reflection of his narcissism, and he is unwittingly taken by his own beauty, having ascended to heaven unconsciously to presume a dethroning of God. While pricked by a good conscience, he is so easily led away by his lust and conceit to be god; flattering himself seems the more, at least, temporal joy. Like Esau’s fleeting passion to satiate his famished state, we always have time to reflect upon our choice of conscience. If a semblance of righteousness resides, we should be stabbed through our liver with an evil conscience for not fully considering the Lord’s commandments.

Pro 6:23  For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: [and peace through a good conscience]
Pro 6:24  To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman [the strange woman within ruling our conscience].
Pro 6:25  Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids. 
Pro 6:26  For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life [we buy our own lies by indulging the whore within].
Pro 6:27  Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? 
Pro 6:28  Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?
Pro 6:29  So he that goeth in to his neighbour’s wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent. 

Satan went into Eve, Adam’s wife, tempted her and spiritually impregnated her mind with his lying spirit of another Jesus ~ insidiously, himself.

Jas 1:12  Blessed is the man that endureth temptation [In this case choosing a good or evil conscience]: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. 
Jas 1:13  Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: [God doesn’t have an evil conscience to tempt anybody] 
Jas 1:14  But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. [… with his bias towards an evil conscience]
Jas 1:15  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin [and the knowledge of an evil conscience that is amplified to hide the sin]: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

The famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said,A bad conscience is easier to cope with than a bad reputation.” Why? Because a bad conscience is mostly contrived in secret, whereas a bad reputation is humiliating and mostly for everyone to see. We are more likely to fear another’s condemnation rather than God’s since God seems far off and not in our faces. It is easier in the short term to hide a bad reputation, even with having to live with the amplification of an evil conscience forever.

Pro 9:10  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

Luk 2:35  (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

We can accuse, excuse and run and hide all we like from an evil conscience but are guaranteed to face the music of the last Trump heralding our judgment, either in this age or the next.

As stated in the previous studies in this series, by being made from the outset in Adam having a trace of our Lord’s spirit, we know, as Adam proved, a conscience when we are disobedient to God’s laws. If we weren’t by default disobedient, we wouldn’t have known a good conscience.

Gen 3:4  And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 
Gen 3:5  For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

God gave us His power to have dominion over what we take into our minds as spiritual food and to learn not to believe in the power of the beast within to pursue every ‘foul’ spirit of doctrine. He says,

Gen 1:26  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

In Gen 1:26, our Lord says parabolically that he will give us first physical power and later his power, his spirit, prior to being faced with a fork in the road of knowledge and thoughts to choose good or evil and a resulting conscience.

Conclusion

It is impossible to escape the God-given choice of good and evil and the corresponding consciences.

The Bride of Christ is most grateful for her Lord making “all things” hers to experience (1Co 3:22), the good equally with the day of evil, to cause both a good and evil conscience to be astronomically impactful. There is no escaping hiding among the trees and passing the buck when discovered, only to vainly excuse ourselves from the evil that we are since our thoughts already condemn us before displaying a pair of bare butts bobbing at speed through the brush.

Gen 6:5  And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Heb 4:12  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.

Rev 22:14  Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

Such a person rightly divides the truth from error. His foundation of judgment is guided by the holy spirit of truth and, with a good conscience, condemns his warring evil conscience.l

If we love lying, we love our bias for an evil conscience, one that, in a soon-coming study, runs the grave risk of a “seared conscience” that is impervious to a good conscience.

Rev 22:15  For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

Rev 2:7  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. 

Other related posts