Acts 23:1 ... "Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, 'Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day'."
On the day after Paul's arrest in the Temple the Roman captain brought him before the Jewish Council and the chief priests in the Temple court in order that he might ascertain what charges the Jews were bringing against him. When given an opportunity to speak, Paul opened with the statement quoted above. The high priest, considering Paul's declaration to be sarcastic, gave an order for him to be struck on the mouth. To save himself from such treatment Paul, who was an authority on the Mosaic Law, reminded them that to strike him before he was convicted violated the Law. Even this appropriate statement seemed like impudence to the officials standing around, who indignantly asked the apostle, "Do you revile God's high priest?" Paul replied that he did not know that the one there in the high priestly clothing was indeed the high priest. In effect, he was saying that he did not concede Ananias was fit to hold the office. Ananias was a notorious character, a glutton, a thief, a rapacious robber and quisling in the Roman service. By calling him a "whitewashed wall" (v.3), Paul compared him to a tomb painted white, echoing the words of Jesus in Mat. 23:28 to the Jewish elite, "Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." Outwardly, Ananias was garbed in the spectacular vestments of the high priestly office, but inwardly his heart was as rotten as the inside of a tomb.
Paul's statement that he lived in all good conscience before God set his life in bold contrast to the high priest and his minions arrayed against him. There was no dichotomy in Paul's constitution. His inward life and his external life harmonized. Unlike his opponents, he did not project himself as a spiritual leader and expect people to defer to his sanctity and piety while in his heart he violated the canons of spirituality, integrity, purity, and sanctification. He wrote to the Christians in Corinth, "I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified," (I Cor. 9:27). The sincerity of this confession of Paul's inner struggle to be consistent in what he taught and what he practiced is evidence of his good conscience. One's conscience is a product of his moral and ethical education. It acts as an inner judge that approves of one's behavior if it conforms to his moral code, and it condemns his behavior if it violates that code. To violate one's conscience in and of itself is an offense against his own soul; i.e., it constitutes a sin against his own self, (Rom. 14:23; Jas. 4:17). A fundamental principle of a blameless life, therefore, is living in harmony with your own conscience.
It is a serious matter to violate your conscience. When you do, you experience emotional pain that we refer to as a "guilty conscience" that is "hurting you." In time, however, that pain will pass if you choose to ignore it. But the result is a scarred, less sensitive conscience. After multiple instances of such treatment one's conscience becomes callused and totally unresponsive to unethical and immoral behavior. In I Tim. 4:3 Paul refers to liars who, by means of hypocrisy, "seared their own consciences as with a branding iron." A pained conscience is a spiritual warning that your behavior has strayed from the guidelines of your ethical and moral training. It is important that you never disregard such an alert, but act at once to correct the situation while there is still time and opportunity. Thus Jesus teaches in Mat. 5:23-24, "If you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering." In other words, to rectify a situation your conscience is disapproving is more urgent than the need to worship, since worship from a guilty conscience being ignored is not acceptable to God.
