Chapter Thirteen--Conscience, Covenant

Lesson Thirteen CONSCIENCE, COVENANT

Conscience The word "conscience" is from the Greek suneidesis, literally meaning "a knowing with (sun, with, oida, to know);" that is, a co-knowledge or joint-knowledge. It is used thirty-one times in the New Testament. It appears nowhere in the four gospels. It is most frequently used by Paul, twenty-one times in all. W. T. Davison suggests that the Pauline use of the word has left "more impression on the moral history of the world than all that Aristotle and Seneca ever wrote." Twice it occurs in Acts five times in Hebrews, and three times in Peter's epistles.

Primarily, suneidesis designates the consciousness or awareness of anything. For example, in Hebrews 10:2 it pertains to the awareness of sins; in 1 Peter 2:19 it pertains to the awareness of God. But more than mere awareness or consciousness of anything, it has a moral quality about it, approving or disapproving that of which it is aware. Con-science, then, in the moral sense is that other "I" one carries with him that passes judgment upon his motives and conduct, declaring what is right and wrong in his life. This concept of suneidesis is found in secular Greek. In a papyrus of 194 A. D. there is a description of a woman who had stolen some goods and painfully felt the disapproval of her conscience: ". . . oppressed by the consciousness (suneidesei) of what she appropriated of the furniture and stored articles." In a papyrus of the second century A. D. there is found the phrase "being oppressed by an evil conscience (suneidotos)."

The negative sense of conscience is indeed conspicuous in the New Testament. Conscience disapproves of actions or motives the individual deems wrong. This is either expressly mentioned or implied in such passages as Romans 2:15 and Hebrews 10:22. But more conspicuous in the New Testament is the positive sense of conscience. One's conscience approves what he deems to be right and should thus prompt him to obey the right. Paul says that the Christian is to obey civil authority "for conscience' sake" (Romans 13:5); that is, prompted by a realization that this is the right thing for the Christian to do. In Romans 9:1 Paul declares that his conscience attests his truthfulness: "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit." In 2 Corinthians 1:12 he affirms along with his co-worker Timothy that their conscience attests their sincere, holy life: "For our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward."

While conscience approves what one deems to be right and disapproves what he believes to be wrong, it cannot by itself be the final ethical authority, infallibly declaring what is right and wrong. A person's conscience is a creature of his environment, of all the forces that have shaped his ethical or moral sense. The Hottentot who defined good and evil by saying, "It is good if I steal somebody else's wife and bad if my wife is stolen," was only expressing the influence of his environment in shaping his sense of right and wrong. The conscience that is considered good by God is the conscience that approves only His ethical teaching as revealed through Christ and that prompts obedience to it (Acts 24:16; 1 Timothy 1:5; 1 Timothy 1:19; 1 Timothy 3:9; Hebrews 13:18; 1 Peter 3:16).

Of course, unregenerate man has been able to formulate some ethical concepts that are in harmony with God's will. In an elemental sense he retains an innate knowledge of what is good. This is implied by the Lord's utterance in Matthew 7:11, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children . . ." Elsewhere he addresses to the multitudes the question, "And why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?" (Luke 12:57). Paul wrote concerning the Gentiles, who were not given a direct revelation from God as the Jews: "For when Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are the law unto themselves; in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts with one another accusing or else excusing them" (Romans 2:14-15).

But it is only as a person is regenerated by Christ, thus to have a heart receptive and a life lovingly obedient to the divine will, that his conscience receives God's approval. It is such a conscience that one longs for who is baptized for the remission of his sins (Acts 2:38): "Baptism . . . saves you today (not the mere washing of dirt from the flesh but the prayer for a clean conscience before God), by the resur-rection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21 --Moffatt). Only the regenerate person, who looks to Christ for the pattern of ethical living, can truly be described as "holding faith and a good conscience" (1 Timothy 1:19).

Yet there is a sense in which the unregenerate person can have a good conscience, when he is true to what he believes to be right, even though his moral sense may be in conflict with the Christian ethic. When Paul declared, "Brethren, I have lived before God in all good conscience until this day" (Acts 23:1), he affirmed that even as a persecutor of the church, contrary to the will of Christ, he did what he conscientiously believed to be right. See Acts 26:9. The only course of moral integrity for a person to follow is his sincere conviction as to the right course of action. In so doing, at least he preserves the sense of duty and personal dignity. The same unflinching loyalty to his conscience that Paul showed as a persecutor of the church was manifested in his relation to Christ as a zealous Christian. The man who acts conscientiously, who is true to his convictions even though they are wrong, is always com-mended above the man who acts against the disapproval of his conscience.

To act from conscience does not necessarily make the act good, but to act against conscience invariably makes the act bad. See Romans 14:23. Only in the course of being true to one's honest convictions does the possibility of further enlightenment exist. To stifle the voice of con-science can only result in shutting the door to additional light. John Calvin said, "Whenever we take a step in opposition to conscience, we are on the high road to ruin." At Worms Martin Luther made the coura-geous, earth-moving affirmation, "My conscience is found in the word of God. I am not able to recall, nor do I wish to recall anything, for it is neither safe nor honest to do anything against conscience. Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise. God help me! Amen." No matter how wrong he may be, the conscientious person, sincerely desiring to be right and to do right, is never far from the kingdom of heaven; he is always a ready subject for genuine conversion to Christ and commitment to His ethic. Cf. 1 Timothy 1:12-13. But whoever persistently acts contrary to his conscience is in danger of losing his moral sense and thus of losing all sense of the need of Christ and the forgiving power of His blood. Paul speaks of those "branded [seared] in their own conscience as with a hot iron" (1 Timothy 4:2). In his comments on this passage, E. Conder said, "A nerve diseased or almost paralyzed may possibly be healed; but when it has been subjected to the cauterizing iron it is perished. What hope for a man whose conscience is cauterized?" Cf. Ephesians 4:19; Hebrews 3:13; Hebrews 6:4-6.

No man can afford to act contrary to his conscience; if he pursues such a course, certain moral and spiritual doom faces him. The Christian ethic insists, however, that the conscience not only be obeyed but that it also be enlightened and educated by the word of God. Only the person who by the power of Christ's blood has cleansed his conscience to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14), whose conscience thus both approves and obeys the Christian ethic, enjoys the kind of faith that continually has access to the grace, mercy, and power of God in Christ.

Covenant The Greek word for "covenant" is diatheke, primarily signifying "a disposition of property by will or otherwise." It is one of the commonest words used in the Septuagint, and it is also quite common in the New Testament. In its ordinary, non-technical usage in the Septuagint it signifies a covenant or agreement entered into between two parties; for example, the covenant the Gibeonites wished to make with Joshua (Joshua 9:6), the covenant which the Jews were forbidden to make with the inhabitants of Caanan (Judges 2:2), and the covenant between David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 23:18). See Genesis 31:44.

Diatheke is also used in the Septuagint of the promise, agreement , or covenant that God made with man. An example of this is the agree-ment God made with Israel as recorded in Deuteronomy 4:13; Deuteronomy 4:23, "And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform , even the ten commandments . . . Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of Jehovah your God, which he made with you." Diatheke also designates the new agreement God made with man after the flood (Genesis 9:12-17) and God's agreement with Abraham (Genesis 17:4-9). References to its use in the Old Testament are found in the New Testa-ment; for example, the covenant God made with Abraham (Acts 7:8) and the covenant God made with Israel (Acts 3:25; Romans 9:4).

In classical Greek one of the uses made of diatheke is that of any "agreement" or "treaty" between two parties, as in Aristophanes, The Birds 440. It is also used in the general sense of "ordinance" or "disposition," as in Plato, Laws 1.624, and of "last will and testament," as in Epictetus, Discourses 11.13, 7. In the Koine, as illustrated in the papyri and inscriptions, diatheke means "testament, will" with such absolute unanimity that examples would be superfluous.

In the New Testament diatheke designates the covenant between God and man made possible by the death of Christ (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; 2 Corinthians 3:6). A comparison of diatheke with another Greek word, suntheke, will cast light on the nature of this covenant. Suntheke is the normal word used in the Koine for a covenant between two persons , such as a marriage covenant, or an agreement between states. In the Koine, however, as we previously noted, diatheke means a "will or testament," as illustrated time and time again in the papyri and inscrip-tions. Why, then, should the New Testament never use suntheke but always diatheke to designate the agreement God has made with man through Christ?

The reason is plain. Suntheke always describes an agreement made on equal terms, with each party having the same rights as the other and which either party can alter. But the word "covenant," translated from diatheke in the New Testament, means something quite different. God and man do not meet on equal terms. Of His own free choice and unmerited favor, God offers man a saving, sanctifying relationship with Him through Christ, which man cannot alter, change, or annul, but which lie can only accept or refuse. "Diatheke is properly dispositio, an 'arrangement' made by one party with plenary power, which the other must accept or reject, but cannot alter" (Moulton and Milligan). Now the most conspicuous example of such an arrangement is a will. The conditions of a will are not made on equal terms. They are made by one party for the benefit of another, who can either accept or reject them but not alter them. It is entirely fitting, then, that the word used for "will" in the Koine should be the word used for the agreement or arrangement God makes with man through Christ.

The illustration of this agreement or arrangement as a "will" or "testament" is vividly portrayed in Hebrews 9:15-17, "And for this cause he is the mediator of a new covenant (diathekes) , that a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they that have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where a testament (diatheke) is, there must of necessity be the death of him that made it. For a testament is of force where there ha th been death: for it doth never avail while he that made it liveth."

We must recognize that our relationship with God as those redeemed by Christ is not something we have entered into in our own right and on our own terms. It is solely and completely made possible by the grace of the loving God through the merits of the sin-offering Christ (Ephesians 2:8; Titus 2:11-14). Philo said, "A covenant is a symbol of grace which God sets between Himself who extends the boon and man who receives it. It is fitting for God to give and for a wise man to receive."

What must we say, then, about the legalistic concept that would make man God's equal in his relationship to the new covenant? It is sacri-legious presumption, to say the least. Yet there are those who boastingly speak of their "obedience" to the new covenant as if it were of the same significance and importance as God's work in making this covenant with them. Such a concept virtually makes salvation in Christ a matter of human merit as well as of divine merit; thus it tacitly negates the grace of God. But when one truly recognizes his spiritual poverty in sin and his utter need of God's mercy, he cannot possibly equate his obedience to the gospel with the rich provisions made for his salvation by the love and grace of God. Such obedience can only be the reaching out of humility and trust to receive the free, unmerited gift of salvation in Christ. Such obedience will not glorify self but God.

"What moved God to make the covenant of grace? His own free mercy and grace, for when He made it we were like forlorn bastards and half-dead foundlings that were cast out in the open field to die in their own blood when our Lord came by and made a covenant with us" (Samuel Rutherford).

Questions

• What is the literal meaning of suneidesis? How many times does it appear in the New Testament? In whose writings does it appear most often?

• What concept does suneidesis primarily designate in the New Testament?

• What is the role of conscience, suneidesis, in the moral realm?

• Discuss some passages which deal with conscience as it approves what one deems to be right and prompts him to obey the right.

• Why cannot conscience be the final, infallible authority in determining what is right and wrong?

• When does a person's conscience receive God's approval?

• What danger confronts the person who persistently acts contrary to his conscience?

• What does the word diatheke primarily signify?

• Give some examples of the use of diatheke in the Septuagint to designate a promise, agreement, or covenant God made with man?

• What is the difference between the meaning of diatheke and suntheke?

• Why does the New Testament never use suntheke but always diatheke to designate the agreement God has made with man through Christ?

• Why is the new covenant superior to the old covenant? See Hebrews 7:22; Hebrews 8:6-12; Hebrews 12:24; Hebrews 13:20.