The New Covenant Part Ii (The Conscience)
The New Covenant is a promise from God to write His laws in our hearts and to be our God, and for us to be His people, with the conscience playing a key role in guiding us in making moral judgments.
Robert Wurtz II preaches about the New Covenant where God promises to write His laws on the hearts of His people, showing His mercy by forgetting their sins. The process of sanctification involves Christ being fully formed in believers, requiring a transformation of the heart into His image. This transformation involves dealing with the conscience, which acts as a divine law within us, convicting us of sin and guiding us towards God's will.
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This brings us to the New Covenant.
Hebrews 8:10-13 (See also Jeremiah 31:33)
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away (Hebrews 8:10-13).
God begins to write HIS laws upon our CIRCUMCISED HEARTS once we are genuinely born again- having trusted Christ with an "Abrahamic Faith" that rejects TRUSTING the "flesh" (GK Sarx Sin Nature). Once our heart is 'exposed' with open face (as it were) it can then be changed into the image of Christ from glory to glory by the Spirit of God (II Corinthians 3).
It was a lite thing for God to form man out of the dust of the earth; it would prove to be a great work to form Christ in us (Galatians 4:19). This is the true essence of sanctification- that Christ would be fully formed in us.
The writing of the laws of God upon our heart or the changing of our hearts into His image from glory to glory is a process that requires several things to happen. First, we have to deal with our CONSCIENCE. And that, because the end of the commandment is going to be (among other things) a pure conscience. As it is written... Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a GOOD CONSCIENCE, and of faith unfeigned (I Timothy 1:5)... and again... Holding faith, and a GOOD CONSCIENCE; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck (I Timothy 1:19)... and again... The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a GOOD CONSCIENCE toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ (I Peter 3:21).
Our CONSCIENCE is that unaffiliated member of our being that God has placed in us to speak on HIS behalf. It is a double or joint knowledge, namely, one of a divine law or rule, and the other of a man's own action. It calls our actions against the laws written upon the heart-- exactly as it sees them.
The conscience in its God given form is used by the Holy Spitit to convict us of sin (John 8:9). It is the mechanism of moral judgment which men/women pass on the morality of his/her own actions, and as to their purity of his/her motives. It is the secret testimony of the soul, whereby it approves things that are good, and condemns those that are evil without partiality. The will of God is the only rule that should immediately bind the conscience. No one has authority over the conscience but God. Man can sear their conscience; but they cannot make it call evil good and good evil.
Sermon Outline
- I. The New Covenant
- A. God's promise to write His laws in our hearts
- B. The role of conscience in the New Covenant
- C. Sanctification and the formation of Christ in us
- II. The Conscience
- A. Definition and purpose
- B. The conscience as a mechanism of moral judgment
- C. The role of the Holy Spirit in convicting us of sin
Key Quotes
“It was a lite thing for God to form man out of the dust of the earth; it would prove to be a great work to form Christ in us.” — Robert Wurtz II
“Our CONSCIENCE is that unaffiliated member of our being that God has placed in us to speak on HIS behalf.” — Robert Wurtz II
“No one has authority over the conscience but God.” — Robert Wurtz II
Application Points
- We must deal with our conscience in order to experience the fullness of the New Covenant.
- The conscience is a mechanism of moral judgment that guides us in making decisions and actions.
- Sanctification is the process of Christ being fully formed in us, and is a result of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives.