What moved Joseph to view adultery as a sin against God?

9. Why did Joseph reject adultery as a “sin against God”?

⁹ He did not respond that way because of a written law of God forbidding adultery, such as only later appeared in the Ten Commandments. (Ex. 20:14) And here was Joseph in Egypt, far from any family pressure or patriarchal rules. Clearly Joseph’s conscience was involved. Adultery violated his moral sense. He likely could “feel” that it was wrong to take what did not belong to him, another man’s wife. And this feeling could have been strengthened by his having reflected on the fact that a man and his wife are “one flesh,” a fact with which Adam was well acquainted. (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:4, 5) Also, he would have heard of the experiences of Abraham and Isaac, which did not show approval of adultery. (Gen. 20:1-18; 26:7-11) Hence, even without a law against adultery Joseph’s conscience could move him to reject it.

10. What evidence is there that other peoples, too, inherited the faculty of conscience?

¹⁰ But if Adam passed on to his descendants a measure of conscience, should not Potiphar’s wife, too, have sensed that adultery was wrong? Yes, though obviously she let passion control her. The Egyptians, along with people earth wide, realized that adultery was a grave moral offense. Their oldest religious texts associated the Last Judgment with the weighing of the “heart.” And over what was one judged? The ancient Egyptian “Book of the Dead” depicts the deceased as declaring his innocence, saying, ‘I have not robbed. I have not killed men. I have not lied. I have not defiled any man’s wife.’ So, it must be that conscience led them to sense the wrongness of adultery. Bringing conscience into the picture, historian Josephus later wrote of Joseph’s urging Potiphar’s wife to shun a lust that would bring remorse and suffering, but to be faithful to her husband and enjoy “a good conscience.”

11. How do both Biblical and non-Biblical sources illustrate a functioning conscience?

¹¹ Additionally, we find both Biblical and non-Biblical descriptions that illustrate a functioning conscience. On one occasion King David of Israel had a census of the nation taken. The Bible describes David’s reaction when he realized that he had sinned. Showing the operation of conscience, the Bible says that “David’s heart began to beat him.” (2 Sam. 24:1-10) A similar effect of a smitten conscience is mentioned in an ancient cuneiform tablet that gives the prayer of a Babylonian who had sinned. He implored his god to listen “on account of his breast, which complains like a resounding flute.”

12. (a) So, what can correctly be concluded about the faculty of conscience, as pointed out by the apostle Paul? (b) Is conscience manifested by all people?

¹² All of this shows that we have a conscience because of inheriting intelligence and a moral sense from Adam. Thus, even nations that knew nothing of the Mosaic law, given by God, forbade things such as stealing, lying, incest, murder and adultery. Yes, though they “do not have law,” they “do by nature the things of the law.” The apostle Paul highlighted the basis for their moral standards, saying, “their conscience [Greek, syneiʹdesis] is bearing witness with them and, between their own thoughts, they are being accused or even excused.” (Rom. 2:14, 15) So universal is the God-given faculty of conscience that one encyclopedia states: “No culture has yet been found in which conscience is not recognized as a fact.” And regarding individuals who seem to “have no conscience,” Dr. Geoffrey Stephenson wrote: “It was, and still is by some, regarded as a genuine form of insanity or psychosis.”​—Compare Titus 1:15.

16. How else can and should your conscience function?

¹⁶ The other function of conscience is its operation ahead of time in guiding and advising one who needs to make a moral choice or decision. Lecturer Eric D’Arcy observed: “In the pagan writers conscience did not appear on the scene until after the action was performed, and its role was purely judicial; but in [the Bible], conscience is credited with a legislative function.” It was this aspect of conscience that enabled Joseph to sense beforehand that he must not commit adultery. He followed his conscience in rejecting a course that was against his moral sense. Has your conscience functioned in this way? Is it aiding you as it should?