Austin Bible Church
The conscience or συνείδησις (suneidēsis) in the Greek means to have inherent knowledge and is the basis or standard for the modus operandi of the human being, The conscience is located in the frontal lobe of your soul. Rom. 9:1-2.
“I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart.” (Romans 9:1-2, NASB)
Everyone has a conscience to the extent that they have information. Knowledge is your ruler. The conscience is a measuring rod based on knowledge, the believer’s background, training, and culture. The believer’s background often hinders their understanding of Christianity. Anything the unbeliever can do is not the Christian way of life.
The filling of the Holy Spirit empowers the Christian way of life. Knowledge includes training from your parents, your school, and the crowd with which you run. Your culture has a byproduct of education. This knowledge forms the factor by which we say that something is right or wrong, that this person is good or bad. Acts 24:16.
““In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.” (Acts 24:16, NASB)
The conscience of the unbeliever is fed from the soul. When the believer learns Bible doctrine, spiritually understood information (pneumatikos) from the human spirit is transferred by the Holy Spirit to the left lobe of the soul as gnosis doctrine. Only when the believer accepts that understood Bible doctrine by faith does the Holy Spirit transfer that doctrine to the right lobe of the soul as epignosis Bible doctrine applicable to the spiritual life.
The conscience of the believer is regulated by the Word, providing they stay in fellowship and actually develop a new conscience - a conscience that functions on divine viewpoint norms and standards instead of human viewpoint norms and standards.
The new believer has a deficiency of conscience of the soul and needs epignosis to fill up that deficiency. Guilt complexes and inferiority complexes distort the conscience. The answer is spiritual growth. Eph. 3:19.
“and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:19, NASB)