No Conscious Sin

No Conscious Sin
Robert Wurtz II


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I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. This being so, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men. (Acts 24:15–16 NKJV)

Our passage is a summary of Paul’s attitude towards the commandments of God and his understanding of the will of God. He states plainly,  I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men. This is a way of saying that he endeavored to keep his conscience clear. In other words, he strove to live without any conscious sin. Twenty four hours a day and 365 days a year, he worked to keep any sin from riding on his conscience. He wanted no controversies between him and God and he wanted nothing on his conscience about how he treated others. 

Christian Perfection and Finney-ism

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48 ESV)

This verse reminds me of a story a dear brother tells of a man rolling an ostrich egg into a chicken coup to encourage the hens. What is more unsettling is the late renowned Greek scholar A.T. Robertson’s commentary on the verse: “Perfect (teleioi). The word comes from telos, end, goal, limit. Here it is the goal set before us, the absolute standard of our Heavenly Father.” Sometimes the word is tranlated as “mature,” however, God never matured so this cannot be the translation contextually. That would be Mormonism. God is, was, and ever shall be perfect. We have another challenging verse: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:13 KJV) Is that God saying that He is determined for us to come into a perfection like unto Jesus Christ? How can this be? 

As a student of Old Testament law (I speak as a fool), I took five semesters of the 613 Laws of the Old Testament. I discovered that the Rabbis had summarized the Torah into 365 negative (Don’ts) and 248 positive (Do’s) commandments, and each one had a little commentary. The 365 negative commands corresponded to one for every day of the year. A great number of these commandments are specific to Israel in the land and in service of the Old Covenant. Nevertheless, I realized very quickly that someone — someplace — could find a verse that anyone at any given time may be in conflict with. At that point, any hope of Christian perfection was for me a mere pipe dream.  


Obviously, my approach was all wrong. I even went as far as to start a list of New Testament commandments like unto how the Rabbis had synthesized the Torah. It was a hopeless cause. At one point I thought I would reach more commands than 613! I began to view the hope that any Christian could live in perfection or victory over sin with cynicism. Add to that certain views of salvation that left little or no security for the believer and I was confused and vexed. I vigorously fought against any notion of what is often termed as “Christian perfection.” What was wrong? I mistakenly tied the notion of perfection with assurance of salvation. That was a deadly trap. 

With my background in Old Testament law, and my quest to codify the New Testament, I was certain that nobody on earth, save the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, could attain such a standard of perfection as we read in Matthew 5:48 and Ephesians 4:13. I could straw-man the arguments with the best of them. Simply put, if God really demands perfection then I have no hope of salvation. To me, it was simple enough; nobody is perfect, therefore, Christian perfection is a false doctrine. Something had to give for me; it would either be a belief in perfection or the belief that our salvation is fragile (sometimes called Finney-ism). Nevertheless, God began to use people to challenge my approach. I had to first abandon the notion that our salvation was “on the line” at every second; and from there, God could show me His desire to perfect us into the image of Christ in grace and with the full assurance of salvation.

The Purpose of the Commandment

As a young Christian I came across this verse; “Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith.” (1 Timothy 1:5 NKJV) I then reconsidered Matthew 5:48. the emphasis there is how God loves people indiscriminately and is no respecter of persons. He sends rain on just and the unjust alike. We are to be perfect in that same sense. We are to love others like God loves them. But how? Love from a pure heart and from a good conscience. I knew about love, so I began studying all kinds of verses about the conscience. I came to understand, even then, that God wanted us to walk before him with a clear conscience. Unfortunately, my studies in theology eventually muddied this simple concept. In fact, after about 10 years the notion was far from my mind. 

Then one day I was challenged by a couple brothers about “walking before the Lord with no conscious sin.” I needed to keep my conscience clear before God and man. Suddenly I remembered what I had been taught of God as a young Christian. It was as if for 10 years I had been on some kind of spiritual hiatus. I resumed walking in a pure conscience and my Christian life got back on track.