How to Have a Good Conscience

Essay by Tim Cox

An essay written for an in class exam for Biblical Foundations of World History

A good conscience is the balance to an evil government on earth, because when I do good I have a good conscience towards God because God commands us to do good. If evil governments are against what God commands, and a good conscience is what God commands, where’s the balance? There are seven things about the conscience taught by God, that I see in the Bible.  

How the Conscience Works

Our conscience convicts us of sin when we do wrong. One of the best examples of a conscience convicting someone of sin in the Bible is when a group of men were going to stone a lady for being a harlot. Jesus said to the crowd, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.” The people that heard Him were ‘Convinced by their own conscience [and] went out one by one” (John 8:7-9).

Our Conscience also bears witness of what we do. Paul says in Romans 9:1, “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.” The conscience also can be defiled. It is defiled to those who are defiled and unbelieving. The conscience can be seared so that it is not as sensitive when we sin.

How to do Something for Conscience Sake

We do something for conscience sake because God gives us the liberty to do it. We don’t do something because other people are doing it. Sometimes things that we can do in our liberty in Christ are a stumbling block to other believers and so we must for conscience sake not do those things in the sight of those believers. For if we do those things and cause that weaker brother in Christ to stumble and sin, we are guilty. So in order to keep a good, clear conscience before God we must not do those things that would cause some one to sin. If we do those things, the Bible says that ‘When [you] sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, [you] sin against Christ” (1 Cor. 8:12).

We should be subject to our authority not just because of the wrath and punishment they can give out, but because our conscience tells us to “for conscience sake”. (Romans 13:5)

Importance of a Good Conscience

The importance of a good conscience is that it is a testimony to our good deeds. God also commands us to have a good conscience.

II Corinthians 1:12 says this about the importance of a good conscience, “For our boasting is this the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and Godly sincerity… ”.  When satan accuses us of sinning when we haven’t, our conscience testifies that we have done good, not bad, and this helps us to keep walking with God without beating ourselves down. Our conscience also testifies to other people that we have done good. In Acts 23:1, Paul says to the council, “I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.”

Striving to have and keep a good conscience helps us do good and not evil. Paul says in Acts 24:16, “I myself always strive to have a good conscience without offense toward God and man”.

In 1 Timothy 3, Paul gives instructions for appointing deacons and elders. One of the things that he says the deacons need to have is, “holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience” (1 Tim 3:9)

Another importance of having a good conscience is that it leads to salvation. 1 Peter 3:21 says that baptism is an antitype which now saves us – "not the washing off of dirt but the answer of  a good conscience" – baptism saves us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

How a Good Conscience Influences Others

When we have a good conscience, (which comes from doing good) other people see our good works and are influenced to do good themselves. People are more prone to do good when others around them do good. Hebrews 10:24 says "Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works”.

When we do good and others see it, their consciences are stirred up because they see the good of what we do. Paul says in II Corinthians 4:2 that he and the apostles resisted all manner of sin and disrespect to God’s Word, “… but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”  Not only do we stir others to do good, but God sees that we influence them for good and so we will get a reward in heaven.

People who speak evil of you can influenced by your doing good because then they can’t say anything against you, and they will even glorify God. 1 Peter 2:12 says to have “… your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good words which they observe, glorifyy God in the day of visitation.” In I Peter 3:16 it says that when you have a good conscience, those that speak evil of you, calling you an evildoer, will be ashamed when they see your good conduct. Your good works will shut their mouths

How to Get a Good Conscience

Hebrews 9:9 says that even though the Israelites offered gifts and sacrifices to God, it did not give them a good conscience. So how do we get a good conscience? Hebrews 9:14 says that “the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered Himself without spot to God, [will] purge your conscience from dead works…”

Only Jesus’ blood can give us a clean conscience. Only Jesus’ blood can cleanse our conscience from all the evil and empty deeds that we did before we asked Jesus to forgive us and cleanse us. However, we can still do wrong after we become Christians and this gives a guilty (bad) conscience. But we can keep a good conscience after salvation by doing good works – this gives us a good conscience.

The Bible says that no one is good – no one has a good conscience. There is only one who is good and that is God and His Son. God’s Son came to earth to live as a human being and died on the cross for the sins of the world. The only righteous and sinless person – Jesus – died and shed His blood so that we could be reconciled with God and have a good conscience. When we accept Jesus’ gift to us, He washes away our past sins and gives us a clean conscience.

Suffering for a Good Conscience

When we do good and have a good conscience, we will suffer. People will laugh at us and mock us, and even torture and kill us. This is because satan hates Christians and those who do good and have a good conscience, and uses non-Christians to do all they can to make us miserable and turn us from God. We must not let suffering deter us in anyway from following Christ.

God tells us in His Word that if we suffer for doing good and enduring, then He will give us a great reward in heaven. In I Peter 2:19 Paul says that it is “thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.”  When we suffer wrongfully for doing good we should thank God for it and consider it a privilege and joy to suffer for Christ.

Some good examples of suffering for a good conscience are Muslims who convert to Christianity and receive a clean conscience from God. Most of the times when Muslims become Christians they are rejected by their family and persecuted by other Muslims – sometimes to the point of death. These converted Muslims were persecuted because they received a good conscience from God when they accepted Christ as their Savoir.

Doing Good is the Basis for A Good Conscience

The way to keep a good conscience is by doing good. God created us to do Good so when we do good we keep in line with God’s plan, which does not give us a guilty conscience but a good one.

The Bible says that who you are is based on what you do, and what you do is based on what your heart is like. Jesus says in Matthew 12:35 that, “a good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things”. Jesus also says that every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and every evil tree evil fruit (Matt 7:17-18).

Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:16 to let our light (the light we get from Jesus) shine before men so that they “may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”  When we do good, others see it and glorify God, and we have a good conscience. Whereas when we do evil works, we know it’s wrong and so we have a bad (or guilty) conscience.

God tells us many times in the Bible to do good. It says in Romans 12:9 to “abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good”. God created us to do good works; as it says in Ephesians 2:10, “for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus [to do] good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

Not only did God create us to do good, but He helps us do good (He also doesn’t just leave us to try and do good by ourselves.)  As it says in II Corinthians 9:8, that God is able to give all grace to us, making us able to do every good work. God is able… but we must first ask Him to give us grace to help us.

Romans 12:21 tells us to not be overcome by evil, “But overcome evil with good.”  We can overcome and conquer evil by doing good! We can do good because Jesus helps us to and when we do good, by the grace of God, we have a good conscience which will testify to others of our good works.

Conclusion

When we read the Bible we discover how our conscience works and how to do something for conscience sake. We discover the importance of a good conscience and how a good conscience can influence others. We also learn how to get a good conscience and that having a good conscience will cause us to suffer wrongfully and also that the basis of a good conscience is doing good works. All in all, the most important thing that we discover about a good conscience is that the only way to get one is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.