Conscience, Part 1

1^st June 2012

Much of the letter to the Hebrews is taken up with comparing the sacrifices mandated by the Old Testament with the perfect sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ. It includes this passage (I've used underline to distinguish the teaching on the sacrifice of Jesus from teaching on Old Testament sacrifices):

Hebrews 9v9b-14
the gifts and offerings being offered [by Old Testament priests] were not able to clear the conscience of the worshipper. They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings - external regulations applying until the time of the new order.
When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once and for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.
The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death (NRSV "dead works"), so that we may serve the living God.

There's a lot of doctrine in this passage. It tells us many things, including:

The Old Testament sacrifices were only external - they didn't change anybody's heart.
Christ offered himself for our sins. He chose to die for us.
It's the blood of Christ that cleanses us. As Hebrews 9v22b says, "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness".
Christ offered himself through the eternal Spirit. Although He was and is God, he emptied himself and came in the form of a man (Philippians 2v6-8). Thus he relied on the Holy Spirit just as we must - to empower and guide him and also to strengthen him.
The blood of Christ cleanse[s] our consciences from dead works.

I'd like to concentrate on the last of these ideas. I think it means at least two things:

Firstly - God intends to undo the flaws in our consciences

All our consciences are damaged: by our own sin; by trauma caused by the sin of others; and by receiving bad teaching.

Our schoolteachers, parents, peers and church leaders may teach us that wrong is right and right is wrong. Ephesians 4v18-19 says of non-Christian Gentiles:

They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

1 Timothy 4v1-2 says of some church people:

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron"

Our understanding of right and wrong is imperfect. The blood of Christ enables us to be born again and to receive the Holy Spirit, who then begins the work of mending our broken understanding. Our cleansed conscience then helps us to sin less, as we have a better understanding of what is good and what is sin, and we have an increasing love for goodness and an increasing disgust with sin (although we still sin sometimes).

Secondly - we need no longer feel guilty about sins that we committed in the past and have confessed

Our conscience is not just our awareness of good and bad; it's also a sense of guilt over what we've done wrong. Through the blood of Christ, we're cleansed from that sense of guilt. Our sins are forgiven and, if we've confessed our sins to God, we no longer need to feel bad about having committed them. That doesn't mean that they weren't sins; it does mean that we can move on without the guilt feelings attached to them:

Hebrews 10v1-2
The Law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming - not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshippers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins."

But, due to the superior nature of Christ's sacrifice, we no longer need to feel guilty for our sins! As a result, the writer can say later in his letter:

Hebrews 10v22
let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience.