The Christian's Conscience Part 4
| Where is God in Issues of Conscience – When Does Sin Happen? |
Some may ask: Where is God in all of this? What happens if someone goes against their conscience in an area that
does matter? What if someone is following their conscience but their conscience is wrong or seared? How will God
judge this? It is important to understand that God knows our hearts. He knows whether we are violating His directive
in our lives. We must trust God to judge accordingly realizing that He is God and we are not.
Sin does not happen when we violate someone else’s idea of what is right and wrong. Sin happens when we willfully
choose to go against what God is showing us to do or not do. As James says in James 4:17: Anyone, then, who knows
the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. Or as John Wesley defined sin: ‘Sin is a willful violation of a known
law of God’.
Leslie D. Wilcox gives an example of this in volume 3 of his Profiles in Wesleyan Theology . (see the diagram which
accompanies this explanation)
"A man buys a house and property. According to his understanding, the property line goes straight back from his
house. On what he believes to be his land is a fruit tree, so he picks and takes the fruit. The neighbor sees this, and
comes out of his house furious and screaming, accusing his new neighbor of being a thief for stealing his fruit!
Unbeknown to the new neighbor, the property line goes at an angle, and the fruit tree is clearly in the neighbor’s yard.
The question is: Did he sin? ........ According to Wesley's definition he did not (in the sense of an act of rebellion),
for it did not carry the essential elements. -First, he did not know he was doing wrong. Secondly, he did not willfully
violate his neighbor, but yet, to all rights and appearances, the new neighbor broke the law and stole what was
rightfully his neighbor’s. Now, once he was informed of the fact that he violated the law, then he owed his neighbor
restitution for his loss.
But what if the new neighbor was taking pears from the tree that was on his property, but he thought they were on
his neighbor’s property? Did he sin by taking fruit that was his property? ....... Yes! Sin is a matter of the heart and
intent, not necessarily the result of what occurred. If he thought that he was stealing his neighbor’s pears, he was
committing a sin in his own heart, a willful transgression of a known law of God. This illustration helps us to rightfully
differentiate between a mistake, an act of ignorance, and a willful act of sin ."
In the example above it might take time and study to determine if sin had occurred. For example, a surveyor may
have had to come out and survey the property. Property records might have had to be checked at the county
courthouse. It may have taken time to verify the actual location of the property line. If the records were in dispute
litigation may have been needed to resolve where the actual property line was. Only when both owners had agreed
where the line was could they then determine who was at fault.
I am not saying here that sin is relative and/or is a matter of personal opinion. I am saying that God’s judgment is
relative to what a person knows and believes, when they know it, and what they do about it. This is evident even in
the first example of this paper involving Abimilech and Abraham. God did not hold Abimilech accountable for taking
Abraham’s wife Sarah because he did not know she was his wife. Once God informed him that she was, he was then
accountable for his actions.
Before we discuss sexual orientation and the Christian’s conscience let’s look to some other examples of issues of
conscience for Christians today and how different denominations and/or Christians deal with them.
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