“Every judgment of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins.”
~Thomas Aquinas
This above quote may need to be read several times before its meaning sinks in—it is worth rereading. There is only one rider to it. The worth of a pre-seared or restored conscience is incalculable.
The Searing of Conscience
There are so many almost completely beyond the reach of God; there is no conscience left, or that conscience is confused or undermined. Hence, so often the conscience is betrayed of true Spiritual sight and sound and, therefore, God doesn’t get a look in.
Satan has his part in the world to do these things—to meddle with and muddle our sense of morality; and our flesh adds further weight. If we are fortunate what we have left is enough to work with in restoring that original frame of conscience—the God-conscience.
Life, itself, through our experience of brokenness, has produced—in select parts of our lives to the whole of our lives—the effect of conscience-as-barbecued; its outer structure has been scorched on all sides so as to prevent the entrance of discernible moral stimuli to affect obedience, even lasting change. In simple words, plain judgments of the good path (straightforward morality) become invisible, confused, or betrayed by compromise and self-justification.
The product is sin and at different levels we know it.
Searing of conscience merely adds to the weight of our problem; the rearguard against sin is weakened significantly against such a thing as can be seen via a cooking process.
Rebuilding the Conscience
The Spirit of God never forces anyone to change. There must be willingness within the vessel for the Holy Spirit to agree, and to cohabit. This must occur at the level of the conscience; convicted against its own things; mortified by its own contempt of its Maker; an agreement that the seared conscience must now be tenderised by the Word and will of God—that it will be subject to truth.
This is essentially what the rebirth into Christ facilitates.
And this is precisely why so many are stunted in their growth to the ends of Christ when Satan gets at them to stifle their need of growth; the conscience is nowhere near convicted enough. We need to recommit and regularly so.
The Lord can only do a work of the miraculous in us through our absolute obedience and total adherence to the truth as it applies to discrete compartments of our lives.
Life in Christ is essentially the process of rebuilding the conscience; to allow the Lord to open our eyes and ears afresh to the significance of Divine sight and sound as motives to be acted on, leading to the obedience of faith.
© 2011 S. J. Wickham.
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