Conscience, Part 2
7th June 2012
As we saw last time, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews explained that the sacrifices offered by the Old Testament priests were only external and didn't change the state of anybody's heart.
Hebrews 9v13-14
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.
And he compared this to the sacrifice made by Jesus Christ on the cross:
Hebrews 9v13-14
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.
The Old Testament sacrifices couldn't change our consciences, they couldn't stop us feeling guilty about what we've done, but Jesus's sacrifice can! Hebrews goes on to say:
Hebrews 9v28a
... Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people
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."
Jesus Christ died to take away the sins of many people. We have been cleansed once for all. As a result, we no longer need to feel guilty for those sins! And therefore:
Hebrews 10:22
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.
Sadly, some Christians continue to feel guilty about things they did years ago. Some even seem to think of going to church on Sundays as a way of paying, over and over again, for their sins. While it's true that every Christian sins every week, and needs to confess every week (at least!) God wants us to know the joy that comes from faith that Jesus died and:
Hebrews 10:10b
we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Any sacrifice we can make to God will be no more effective than the sacrifices made by those Old Testament priests. And no further sacrifice is necessary. Jesus has already paid for all our sins. Do you still doubt this? Perhaps a few more Bible passages will help you to believe it.
For those of us who still feel guilty about what happened before we were saved:
2 Corinthians 5:17
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.
1 Corinthians 6:11
but you were washed (cleansed), you were sanctified (made holy), you were justified (pronounced innocent) in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
For those who feel guilty about what we've done after being saved:
1 John 1:8
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify (cleanse) us from all unrighteousness.
We might think of ourselves as permanently stained by our sins, but the Bible clearly teaches that, whether those sins were committed before or after we came to faith in Jesus, the stains have been washed away. God sees us as perfectly sinless. It might be of value to study the doctrine of justification by faith, as set out in Romans chapter 4. Part of that passage says:
Romans 4:3-8
What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."
Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.
However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as
righteousness.
David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness
apart from works:
"Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."
Of course, our enemy would love us to feel all dirty and condemned. Revelation 12:10 calls Satan "the accuser of our brothers" and of course he feeds lies into us at every opportunity. But God wants not only to forgive our sins but also to set us free from the guilt we feel about them. I love this quote from the prophet Micah:
Micah 7:18-19
Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You
do not stay angry for ever but delight to show mercy.
You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the
depths of the sea.
That's what Jesus did on the cross. He hurl[ed] all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. All of them. All of them. All of them. Including the one you're thinking about right now.
As a friend of mine says, he hurled all our iniquities into the depths of the sea, and then he put up a sign saying "no fishing".
I'll share a few more thoughts on this next time.