On the somewhat ambiguous topic of conscience and it’s real roll in our lives, Puritan writer William Gurnall writes this:

“Conscience is God’s sergeant He employs to arrest the sinner. Now the sergeant hath no power to release his prisoner upon any private composition between him and the prisoner; but listens, whether the debt be fully paid, or the creditor be fully satisfied; then, and not till then, he is discharged of his prisoner.”

I thought this was interesting because all of us have at some time or another been arrested by our conscience. And, most of us (probably all of us) have made or attempted to make private deals with our accusing conscience. Attempting to convince ourselves that we’ve been wrongly accused.

When it works, it’s almost always short lived. It won’t be long before our conscience is banging down our door again with charges against us.

When our conscience assaults us, we have to make our peace with God and his Word, not with out conscience. Of course, the truth is, that’s hard to do. Because God’s word will speak in truth that we don’t always want to hear—and when we try to make deals with our conscience, it’s a pretty good indication we know we’re in the wrong.

The past few days I’ve been reflecting on the idea in Romans 2:14-15:

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them”

This idea of the work of the Law being written on people’s hearts is very interesting. It’s clear that in a fairly universal sense all cultures tend to agree with some basics tenets of morality. Murdering is bad. Lying is un-virtuous. Stealing is reprehensible. Sex is wrong apart from commitment. Yet many people who agree with these things, and who’s conscience is stricken because of them, do not know of the express commandments from God about them.

What’s the deal with that? Why do human beings seem to universally agree on some very basic moral structure, while the religious and moral institutions vary dramatically?

Well, it seems that this is exactly what Paul has in view when he says that the gentiles are a “law to themselves". There is a God and he is Holy and he has graciously given such a law in the hearts of people–even those who don’t know him. But, I think, there’s something even more astonishing than that.

We all know that God’s law is more demanding than any person can survive. In the heavenly court, no human will be justified on the basis of God’s law. All have sinned and all are guilty. But, if we were to scale back and look at only the requirements of man’s law–the one written on every man’s heart–we would still be guilty. Not only are we unable to keep God’s perfect law, we are unable to keep our conscience clean on our own terms.

Even apart from God’s holy law, a savior is not only necessary, he is imperative to our very lives. Praise the Lord that God had done what he has and that all sins are paid for through the atoning, justifying, propitiating, sanctifying work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.