THE CONSCIENCE OF MAN:

The conscience of man is defined as an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior. The inner sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action. To have a seared conscience means that the person can do whatever wrong or immoral act thinkable and feel no remorse or sense of wrong or guilt.

A person who is not saved, (born again), has a conscience that is corrupted and separated from God and the things of God. The lost mans' conscience is formed by culture, society, parental influence, peer pressure, education, and religious influence. All of these things together make up the moral standards or the lack of moral standards of a lost person.

Two brothers in the same family could have completely different “moral standards” based on the different influences within their lives, such as having different friends, reading different types of books, or different media input. How many times have you heard about someone who is on drugs or in trouble with the law state that they got into the “wrong crowd”?

But mankind did not start out with a moral conscience. When God created Adam and Eve they had a righteous conscience or God-conscience. What is the difference? A righteous conscience is typified by having “GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS” and is “SELFLESS”. But a moral conscience is typified by having a “SELF CONSCIOUSNESS” and is “SELFISH”.

EXAMPLE: Adam was unclothed before he was naked. When he walked in the righteous God-conscience he was unclothed and was selfless in his thinking. When he sinned his unclothed state became nakedness and he moved into self-consciousness which is selfishness. How do we know this to be true. Read Genesis 3 and you will find that Adam and Eve who were husband and wife hid from one another when they sinned and lost righteousness or God-consciousness.  
A “God-Consciousness” among men is a Theocracy or the rule of God over everything. This is where man is consumed with the praise and worship of God the Father. A “Self Consciousness” among men is a democracy (or other forms of man’s political rule), which is the rule of man over everything. In this man is consumed with the worship of himself, (or humanism).

God, though our Lord Jesus Christ and the work of the cross, desires to bring us back to the state of God consciousness by robing us in His righteousness.