Consciences That Condemn: When Moral Thermostats Go on the Blink

In this article, Gary Nebeker and Norman Thiesen argue that the hypersensitive conscience lives with constant self-criticism and self-reproach that robs people of joy and any sense of progress in their growth into Christlikeness. Nebeker and Thiesen examine 1 John 3:19-24 and show how it presents: the Christian’s confidence in God’s love (we “know”), the operations of the self-condemning heart, and on how to silence the condemning conscience through true self-examination and a focus on God’s truth. They conclude that our self-condemnation puts us in a position of adjudication that belongs to God alone.