Rom 2:13-15 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)
In his letter to the Christians at Rome, Paul pointed out something that rings very true for us. But, unfortunately, we often skip past a very key part of his message. The law which the Gentiles have is not in the form of some written “code,” it’s in their conscience. They instinctively have the basic moral concepts that underlie the law in their heart, and their conscience bears witness. And we need to remember that, even though we are believers in Christ, we still have a conscience that is constantly bearing witness – accusing or excusing us.
However, a mistake that many Christians make is to consider their conscience as their “guide”… let your conscience be your guide! But that’s not how God made it. He gave us a conscience as goad, like the spiked stick used in the Old Testament to drive cattle, to prod or motivate them. That’s what our conscience is for, to prod or motivate us. It’s the watchdog of our soul, and just like we can muzzle our watchdog that sits at the front door, we can silence or even sear our conscience, making it insensitive to the things of the Spirit. We can even get our conscience to approve a wrong act on our part. As a result we must constantly educate our conscience by the Word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit. It’s the Holy Spirit that takes hold of our conscience through conviction and leads it to the Word to work on it, leading it into the truth. And that’s where we often get off the track. Apart from the Word of God our conscience is a very uncertain and untrustworthy faculty of our soul. It we don’t go to the Word for our answers, our direction, we will be hopelessly led astray in our decision-making process.
Our conscience (our watchdog) is the part of our mental makeup by which we judge our actions and, as J.B. Phillips says, it passes sentence upon them. It’s our conscience that is ultimately answerable to God because it is the final arbitrator of our actions. And as the bride of Christ, as opposed to the unbeliever, we are going to be held more accountable because we have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to guide us. Look at verses 15 and 16:
Rom 2:15-16 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) 16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.
The day when God calls to light all of our secrets, all the things we should have done and didn’t as well as those we did that we shouldn’t have done, will reflect how we treated our conscience. We tend to forget that those things are not forgotten by God and they will be recalled at the Judgment Seat of Christ where we all will give account of what we did with what He gave us. And how we treated our conscience is going to be a key part of that judgment. So a word of warning to us all… we need to be very careful how we treat our watchdog!