Friends, this is a long post. In fact, if you read it all now – you’re going to get Sunday morning’s sermon in advance. This is it, pretty much. I’ll put subheadings so you don’t get lost on the page. Hey, I wrote the thing and I get lost. Enjoy.
The teacher, whose name was Paul, stood before a governing body of religious leaders and he told them, “Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day.” And then, the leader of the religious leaders told those who were standing around Paul to hit him in the face. I assume they did. I hear this story loud and clear. Reality is, I think I can relate personally a little better to the religious leader than to the teacher. That’s only because I can sometimes get jealous of those who walk around with a clean conscience. Not that I would actually smack someone in the face. Although…never mind.
Like many, I have struggled with the idea of having a good conscience, or a clean conscience. I’ve always had this idea that our salvation was contingent upon our ability to maintain a good conscience. “Is that how it works?” I asked myself. For me to have eternal life, but I be always able to keep my conscience clean. If so – how does that work? Does it work through my own effort to do what is right?
That same teacher, whose name is still Paul, once said, “This I admit to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect I do serve the God of our fathers, believing with everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the prophets; having a hope in God, which these men cherish themselves, that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.” I don’t know about you, but I have not been able to maintain a blameless conscience. At least, not with the way I understand conscience.
Dictionary.com says that conscience is “an inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action: to follow the dictates of the conscience.” Here’s the thing – my conscience – my inner sense tells me that I have not always done what is “right” nor have I always been “impelled” toward right action. Sometimes I have been impelled and am still impelled toward wrong action. Sometimes, I do the wrong thing. Sometimes, I do the wrong thing, even when I know its the wrong thing to do.
Do you ever do that? Or am I all alone on that one?
So then comes the struggle with the clean conscience. Is it possible for those who struggle with the “imulse” toward wrong action – who sometimes give in to those wrong impulses, even though they wish they did not – to have a clean conscience? Can it happen? How? Here’s a scary thought – that comes from the Bible – “To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.” Where do you sit with that one?
At Crossroads, our first goal and mission for every believer and potential disciple is for them to “enjoy freedom in Christ.” I’m convinced that in order for us to have joy – we all have to deal with this dilemma of conscience. What do we do with the fact that we have made mistakes, some big ones – and some of them are still biting us on the rear. As much as we could say in our hearts that we do not WANT to be sinners – the reality is that we are. How do we make an appeal for a good conscience? Is there anything at all we can do to HAVE a good conscience when it’s been through the moral wringer so to speak?
I’m going to share 1 Peter 3:21-22, but I want to be careful about it – because it could easily turn into a “works” or a “cheap grace” mentality.
“Corresponding to that [stuff he just said about the water saving Noah during the flood], baptism now saves you–not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience — through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.”
And so now, we’re talking about water, and floods, and Noah and this thing called immersion, usually thought of as “baptism” today. What in the world does water have to do with conscience? How do all these things tie together?
Here’s the key – First, there’s the water thing and what the water thing actually IS and what it IS NOT. Second, there is this this idea of the resurrection – and what Jesus did through his resurrection – what he accomplished — and then what he’s doing now – and how the Spirit and the Father participate also. Let’s take these thoughts in succession.
First – what is this baptism thing – or more specifically what is it not! First of all, baptism is not the basis of your salvation. To say that would be the equivalent of a person who is drowning praising and worshiping and thanking the life preserver thrown to him rather than the one who threw it. The life preserver is NOT the basis of rescue. The RESCUER is the basis. So then we get into the idea of what baptism is. Baptism, according to Peter – is an “appeal to God for a good conscience.” I like the way the NASB says it because the NIV doesn’t make sense to me – not in terms of my experience.
The NIV says that baptism is “the pledge of a good conscience toward God.” This verbiage sounds like we have to have a good conscience already before we can move toward God. I can’t swallow that one. Well, if it’s true – I didn’t and haven’t experienced it that way. The way I see baptism is that it is an APPEAL – “an earnest request for aid, support, sympathy, mercy, etc.” (dictionary.com) In other words, we don’t of ourselves HAVE a good conscience, right? I don’t. I can’t imagine how Paul managed it – I haven’t. So then – we don’t have a good conscience, so we have to appeal to God to get one.
Then the 1 Peter verse tells us how that good conscience comes to us. It gives us the short version, but it’s a starting place. Now that we’ve talked about what baptism isn’t – the basis of salvation, and what it is – an appeal! Let me read Acts 2:38 with that definition in place. “Peter (the same guy who wrote the Scripture I quoted above) said to them, ‘Repent, and each of you be baptized [make an appeal to God for a clean conscience through this immersion thing] for the remission of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now I have to chase a rabbit here. Okay I’m back. No, seriously, Peter introduces this idea of making an appeal to God for a clean conscience in baptism and he says that God’s response is going to be a gift given and that gift is called “the Holy Spirit.” What does the Holy Spirit have to do with a clean conscience? Well, from what I can tell – wh
en it comes to the Spirit – there isn’t anything we really need to do or say – no way to behave – that makes the spirit do what the spirit does. The spirit just kind of does whatever the spirit does. But the Bible tells us a little bit of what that is – especially as it relates to conscience.
In a letter to a bunch of Romans (the letter in the Bible is actually called “Romans”) the teacher named Paul that wrote about early in this post wrote to them, “For all who are being led by the spirit of God, these are sons of God. for you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God…”
Now here’s the thing. When we make an appeal to God for a clean conscience, God gives us forgiveness, which is another difficult concept to grasp – but he gives us this “Holy Spirit.” And this “Holy Spirit’s” job within us is to testify back to God and to ourselves, along with our spirit, that we are children of God.” And what I wonder sometimes is for those of us who have made an appeal to God for a clean conscience and have been baptized as an appeal, and have received the gift – I wonder if the Spirit is shouting out to God for us, “Abba! Father!” but our spirit, instead of testifying that we are sons of God, are still wallowing around feeling guilty – even though our conscience is clean. Is it possible that we might forget our conscience is actually clean? If so, what does it look like if we’ve been given a clean conscience, but forget about it?
Here’s what it looks like when we’ve been purified, but forgot. Oh, by the way, this is Peter talking again, “For he who lacks these qualities (moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love), is blind, short-sighted, having forgotten his purificaiton from his former sins.”
What happens, then, is that we make an appeal to God for a clean conscience, and his answer is YES. He gives us forgiveness and a Spirit that appeals to God saying “Abba! Father!” for us. And so God hears this Spirit saying, “I’m your son! I’m your son!” And God says, “Yes, you are!” But we can forget this. And if we forget this – and start taking on the “guilty conscience” mentality instead of the “clean conscience” mentality, we start losing the qualities of moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, etc.). Sin starts to take over our lives again because in our own minds – we are guilty instead of forgiven.
So thus far – we make an appeal (through baptism) for a clean conscience. There, God meets us with “Yes,” forgiveness, and the gift of an interceding Holy Spirit who cries out “Abba! Father!” for us. That’s pretty cool. But there’s more.
But there’s the thing Jesus did in his resurrection. We can’t forget that. So back to 1 Peter 3:21-22. This verse says that our baptism – our appeal for a clean conscience – saves us through the resurrection of Jesus. In other words, the work of Christ in his resurrection is the tool by which our appeal means anything to God. If Jesus had not been raised, then we could appeal for a good conscience, but God would have no way to make it happen. That was tried in the Old Testament. People would come to God and appeal for a clean conscience, and the blood of animals like bulls and goats was the best there was. That is, until Jesus. The fact that Jesus was RAISED is PROOF that is blood sacrifice was SUFFICIENT for salvation for those of us who make an appeal. If Jesus had stayed dead, God would have had to say, “Hmmm, well, I guess Jesus wasn’t perfect enough to accomplish this forgiveness thing.” But since Jesus was raised from the dead, through the power of an indestructible (or sinless) life – he is proof positive that his sacrifice is going to accomplish this whole appeal process!
We’re told in this 1 Peter verse, that Jesus, having been raised is now at the right hand of God. It is important for our conscience sake for us to know what exactly he is doing there. Because what we’ll get to is the fact that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all working together for our clean conscience once the appeal is made! The Holy Spirit is in us, crying out “Abba! Father!” – that’s His job.
By the way when Jesus was on trial, before he died on the cross, he told the high priest (possibly the same one that had Paul hit on the face later), “Hereafter (after I do this cross thing) you will the Son of Man (me) sitting and the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” So Jesus said after he died he would go and sit at the right hand of power. And he does. But what does he do there? And how does it connect with conscience?
And Jesus is at the right hand of God doing his job – what is His job? It’s interesting that in the John 21 story about the disciples going fishing and not catching anything that Jesus tells then to cast their nets on the “right-hand” side of the boat. What happens then “all the little fishies practically kill each other trying to get INTO the fishermen’s nets!” Jesus is saying, this “right hand” thing is going to work out. And it does. But what does He do?
Here it is: Acts 5:30-31 – again a Peter sermon. Peter says, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to (and here’s the thing Jesus does there, at the right hand of God) grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.” So Jesus is there to grant forgiveness. And The Spirit who is crying out “Abba! Father!” testifies to this as well – before God.
So there it is: Our clean conscience comes from our doing very little it seems. We make an appeal. And the trinity doe the rest. We make an appeal to God and God the Father sits on his judgment seat. What he hears is His own spirit within us crying out, “Abba! Father!” and what he sees is His own son sitting at his right hand – brought back from the grave – evidence of his ability to bring purification for sins for those who believe. And there is Jesus granting repentance and forgiveness. That Paul guy once put it this way, speaking of Jesus, “Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.”
So – if you have and are appealing to God for a clean conscience through faith in Christ. The answer is, “you have a clean conscience.” The joy of this is that even though we still sin in the flesh, we can set aside this whole guilty conscience mentality. If we don’t – then we aren’t free from sin – in fact we can’t be because in our minds we’re guilty. And we behavior like what we think we are. The more and more we embrace the reality of our clean conscience – the more we are in TUNE with what God is doing – What the Father is doing – what the Son is doing – what the Spirit is doing.
If you have made the appeal – your conscience is clean! And if you continually remember this (which is by the way what we do each week in the Lord’s supper), you will be productive in your faith
and will be able to lay some sin entanglements aside. Now this is something to enjoy.
So back to Crossroads’s mission statement – Go and ENJOY YOUR FREEDOM in CHRIST! You are FREE to enjoy a clean conscience even though you don’t deserve it. It is a gift. Through our raised Savior and the pouring out of the Spirit and the mercy of the Father – we are FREE! We are FREE, my friend! You are FREE! YOU ARE FREE!
Did I mention that you are free?
