The work of Christ on the cross brings the Christian believer into the real possession of that heritage of blessing to which Old Testament saints could only look forward. Of the many blessings Christ’s death brings to believers, not the least is the relief that it brings to their consciences. The conscience, being man’s faculty of moral judgment, is a very important part of his spiritual nature, and it exercises great influence in his experience. Its approval or disapproval of himself is that which contributes more than anything else to the happiness or misery of his inward life. Conscience has been called by some the voice of God in man, and by others, God’s umpire in the soul. It can make the face of man turn deadly white, and also blush crimson. A bad or a good conscience will make a coward of the sinner or a hero of the saint.
The general tendency of the Jewish religion was to bring into activity the conscience of man, resulting in what is called a “conscience of sins” —a conscience enlightened as to the claims of God, and therefore, owing to man’s fallen state, burdened with a sense of sin. Not only the moral, but the ceremonial law, and even the very sacrifices which were offered, contributed to “the remembrance of sins.” This of itself created a state of bondage, from which even a heathen man would be comparatively free. Without the law, man is in a certain sense alive, but under law his sinful nature revives, and conscience, true to its function, acts only to condemn.
Deliverance
It is deliverance from this condemnation that the cross of Christ brings. The blood of Jesus purges this guilty conscience so perfectly that there remains “no more conscience of sins” (Heb. 10:22For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. (Hebrews 10:2)). The blood of Christ is efficacious not only for the complete removal of the conscience of sins, but also to purge the conscience from dead works.
When the claims of God and man are pressed home upon the human conscience, man resorts to various expedients to pacify it. Indeed the activities of men, in their attempts to relieve their own consciences in this unsatisfactory way, contribute a large part of the whole of church history. From motives of fear and with a view to merit, they have built churches, gone forth as missionaries, and been engaged in all kinds of religious enterprises. But in the light of the cross such efforts are fruitless. Our bad deeds are not to be atoned for by a corresponding number of good ones. Such efforts at self-justification before God are evil in themselves, and the extreme heinousness of such acts can only be purged from the conscience by the atoning blood of the Son of God. It is only after this cleansing that the conscience is fit to serve the living God. Before being cleansed, the motives are legal rather than Christian.
Imperfect Conscience
The conscience of Jewish worshippers was imperfect, because imperfection was stamped upon all the sacrifices that they offered, but it is nothing less than perfection that the blood of Christ brings to the conscience of the Christian. What the atoning work of Christ does for the conscience of the believer could not be improved upon, for nothing can be added to the perfection of Christ’s work. When He said, “It is finished,” He included in this wonderful expression the divinely perfect relief which His propitiation brings to the sinner’s conscience.
We know that all the holy and heavenly graces, in all their variety, will ultimately be perfectly produced in us, for we are predestinated to be conformed, morally and bodily, to the image of God’s Son. The mistake is that men often aim after these things before they have settled peace. God does not begin with the character; He begins with the conscience, and in the enjoyment of the peace which Christ has made by the blood of His cross, the babe in Christ grows to Christian manhood and perfection. Nothing but this peace can enable the believer to bear calmly the great responsibilities of Christian life and duty. But the believer in Christ, the instant he believes, is immediately made whiter than the snow, for God’s presence and worship, because of the divine efficacy of the blood of Christ.
Clean Every Whit
This perfection abides. The conscience does not need purging by the blood of Christ a second time, for while on the one hand, what Christ has done in dying for the sinner He has done forever, on the other, the new relationship into which the believer is brought can never be broken. As a matter of fact, the Christian in his walk, though true-hearted, is not perfect. He needs the washing of water by the Word. But through the blood of Christ, he remains “clean every whit” and “needeth not save to wash his feet” (John 13:1010Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. (John 13:10)). It is when one forgets that he has been purged from his old sins (not when he remembers this and adores God for it) that he is said to be “blind, and cannot see afar off” (2 Peter 1:99But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. (2 Peter 1:9)); consequently, there is lack of fruitfulness in his life.
It is not meant here that no godly Jew enjoyed a good conscience. There were ever individual souls among the people who did what was right in the sight of the Lord, as suited to the condition of things in which they then lived. What, however, was fitting for the conscience of the Jew will not answer for the Christian. The conscience of the Old Testament saint was good because of his moral condition and by looking forward to Christ, not from being perfected forever by the offering of the body of Jesus. The Christian now enjoys the answer of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; none of the patriarchs or prophets had this.
Enlightened Conscience
The cross of Christ is divinely adapted to the conscience of the believing man. The enlightened conscience, in view of the death of Christ, enters on a new realm of judgment and is supremely satisfied with the perfect adaptability of the death of Christ to the deepest need of man. In view of that death, it is now as ready to justify the believer as it was before to condemn him. The conscience of man will never be satisfied with anything else, for the cross of Christ is the outcome of God’s wisdom, to supply that need. Conversely, the eternal reproach of the rejecter’s conscience will be, not only that he sinned, but also that he rejected the remedy which God provided for his sin. It is this purged conscience which makes the difference in view of death, the difference which exists between the Old Testament saints and those of New Testament times.
Christ died, that by death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Godly men like David and Hezekiah were all their lifetime subject to bondage through fear of death; this was not so with the Apostle Paul. It ought not to be so with any Christian. The apostle was “willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” With the “conscience of sins” gone, even in view of eternity and the immediate presence of God, there is nothing left to fear. Christ has died for our sins, and we are cleansed by His precious blood “once for all.”
Gospel Gleanings, Vol. 1 (adapted)