“When he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” “The worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.” (Heb. 1:3; 10:2.)
It is a marvelous fact that the Son of God has purged our sins. In this work He was perfectly alone. He did it by Himself. No one else could have done it; no one throughout God’s universe was either competent to do it, or willing to do it. But, blessed be His name, He willingly and lovingly came to seek and to save that which was lost. It was the divine will that sins should be purged, that sinners should be saved; and Jesus said, “Lo I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, Ο God.” This necessitated the cross on Calvary. Not a sinner could be in the glory, unless his sins were righteously judged, and divine justice was perfectly satisfied about them. This is why God sent forth His Son. This is why He was made a little lower than the angels. This is why He, by whom the worlds were made, became flesh, and dwelt among us. He was made of a woman, and born of a woman, that, by the suffering of death for our sins, He might glorify God and redeem us.
It was necessary then that He should be the Sin-bearer, and suffer that judgment; of God which we deserved in order that our sins should be purged. It was the most solemn hour in the whole period of time within the compass of God’s universe. The Son of God was found here in the likeness of sinful flesh. Man verily, perfect man, as well as most truly God; this sent One was in due time delivered up for us all, so that we are instructed in the scriptures that He was delivered for our offenses, that He actually bore our sins, suffered for sins, died for sins, and in this way purged our sins. Thus our sins were so righteously judged, so fully dealt with according to unsparing holiness, that when He bowed His head in death upon the cross, He said “ It is finished.” He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; yea, it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him, and so to put Him to grief and to forsake Him as bearing our sins, that in unutterable agony He cried out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It is then the astounding fact of the Son of God having had our iniquity laid upon Him, and suffering in consequence all the righteous vengeance of God due to our sins, that they are purged, so that as a prophet said, “with his stripes we are healed.” And not only did He drink up and drain to the dregs the cup of infinite indignation and judgment which we deserved because of our sins, but it is also most profoundly and blessedly true that in all the unspeakable distress, brokenness of heart, desertion, and agony which it brought upon Him that He fully honored and glorified God. On that cross of unequaled pain and shame, His perfect love to the Father and to us, His entire surrender of Himself, His delight in the will of God, His unwavering faith, and obedience unto death even the death of the cross, were most pleasing to God, and for His eternal praise and glory. How truly then could the holy Sufferer say when under the shadow of the cross, and yet in spirit beyond it, “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, Ο Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” (John 17:4, 5.) In the grave question of our sins being purged (the most solemn and momentous exercise which ever occupied a soul on earth), we see how fully the marvelous work has been wrought without the least compromise of one of the divine attributes, or the least omission as to meeting our deep need. For not only did the Son of God in death upon the cross magnify the love, holiness, grace, justice, truth, and faithfulness of God, but our sins were so strictly and unsparingly judged, that the Holy Ghost points to Him risen and ascended, and tells us that “after he had purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” There never was a sacrifice offered before that purged sins forever from the eye of God. Not all the blood of bulls, and lambs, and goats which were ever sacrificed could do this. We read that “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins” but that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Is it any wonder then that we are told of the Son, who made all things, and upholds all things, that after “he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high?”
The purification of our sins then took place on the cross more than eighteen hundred years ago, and there will never be another such work. “There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins;” forgiveness of sins is now known when we believe, and we see the One who did it now in heaven on the right hand of God “crowned with glory and honor.” Blessed resting-place for the soul that can look up to heaven and say, “There’s the One that purged my sins!” How truly when looking back on His death on the cross we can say—
“Thy thirst for our salvation,
This made Thee come to die;
Ο love beyond all measure,
Wherewith thou didst embrace
The victims of the pressure
Of sin and its disgrace.”
It is when the efficacy of the death of the Son of God is believed, being brought home to the sin-convicted soul by the Holy Spirit, that the conscience realizes its peace-giving power. It is clear that in ordinary business a man might be greatly distressed at meeting a creditor to whom he owed a large sum of money and had no means of paying it. It is equally clear that supposing a kind friend had interfered and paid the debt for him, and he knew it not, it would not be the least relief to him; he would still have the same fear and dread of meeting his creditor. But, on the other hand, when he heard the good news that another person had, in the truest love and compassion, freely paid his debt and also shown him the lawful receipt for all demands, what relief would it give, what rest and peace would it impart to his sin-burdened soul! Would he then be afraid to meet his former creditor? Would he not boldly hold intercourse with him as if nothing had ever been between them? And if he heard the very one to whom he had been so heavily indebted say, “I have nothing against you, all is cleared away, all has been justly settled, and I have moreover given you a share of my large possessions,” what a marvelous change would it produce in his feelings, purposes, and prospects! But all this relief of conscience, and all the kindness of the former creditor, fail to illustrate the way in which the conscience of the believer is purged, or to set forth the fellowship into which we are called with the very One we had so dreaded, and only thought of as an angry Judge.
The distress of a sin-convicted soul no one knows but those who have had to do with God, and hold themselves accountable to Him who is holy, and of purer eyes than to behold evil. The consciousness of being exposed to the wrath of God, of justly deserving at His hands everlasting indignation and anguish for having sinned against Him, and seeing no way of escape, is connected with such heartfelt misery as no human language can describe. Such have indeed an evil and an accusing conscience, which no dead works or ordinances of any kind can cleanse. But when such learn on the authority of God’s word, by the Spirit’s teaching, that Christ Jesus has made purification of sins by His own death and blood-shedding on the cross for every on^ chat believeth, then the first ray of hope rises on the desponding soul; and when he ponders the work of the cross, and the perfections and glory of the Person who did it—when he hears and receives the testimony of God as to its sin-atoning and sin-cleansing virtues, then he sets to his seal that God is true, and realizes as a precious fact that he himself is cleansed from all sin.
What a moment of indescribable peace and comfort the soul then knows I Having learned that God in righteousness must condemn sin, and having welcomed the precious truth that He gave His own Son to bear our sins, and the judgment due to them, in order that we might be without sin and whiter than snow in His presence; having believed the divine testimony, that Christ was thus “delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification,” he soon finds himself in the very presence of God reconciled and cleansed by His most precious blood. Now, like the poor debtor, he rejoices that another, in pure mercy, paid all his debts for him, and though he be a poor trembling believer, he knows that he is by Christ justified from all things.
He has now a purged conscience. By the precious blood of Christ, brought home to his soul by the Holy Ghost, and received in faith in its all-cleansing efficacy, on the authority of the word of God, his heart is sprinkled from an evil conscience. This is much more than a quiet conscience, he has a purged conscience, for he is wholly set free from guilt in the very presence of God. Many, we fear, are lulled by false religiousness, in various deceptive forms, into a quiet state of mind, but a conscience purged by the blood of Christ is a very different thing. Before this is known, many are going on practicing dead works, vainly promising themselves to make, as they say, “a good end at last.” They are always hoping to be right, which proves they are not. They perform “dead works” to save themselves. But when the cleansing efficacy of the blood of Christ is known on the conscience, they are delivered from “dead works” and delight to praise and honor Him who has washed us from our sins in His own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God and His Father. Hence we read, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” (Heb. 9:14.) So truly is the conscience cleansed, that such “have no more conscience of sins.” Having had the conscience “once purged,” they never know again, as they did before, the intolerable load of a sinner’s guilt before God. Troubled in conscience as saints they may be on account of falls and failures which have been dishonoring to God our Father, and so having lost communion with Him. But if such confess their sins, He is faithful and just to forgive them their sins, and thus give them restoration to communion again. The truth is that those who believe in the Son of God are no longer looked at by God as rebellious sinners in their sins, but are justified persons, children of God, objects of the Father’s changeless and eternal love. So infinite is the efficacy of the blood of Christ on the conscience, that we are told that by one offering we are “sanctified” (or set apart for God), and “perfected forever.” (Heb. 10:10-14.)
Thus we are brought into the very presence of God, to find every question as to our title to be there forever settled, and to have “no more conscience of sins.” Then we know that the One who “purged our sins” went into heaven itself by His own blood, and this bows our hearts with adoring worship and thanksgiving. Being “purged worshippers,” we can offer unto God, by Christ, the sacrifice of praise continually, giving thanks to His name. There we can “rejoice in the Lord always,” and worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Happy are those who so simply receive the testimony of God as to the work of His Son, as to know that they are “worshippers once purged,” and have “no more conscience of sins.”
What unspeakable blessedness we are brought into through the blood of Christ! Sins judged, and dealt with in divine righteousness, according to the holiness of God, in the person of His Son instead of us! The conscience, too, so purged as to be before God—in the light as He is, in the light—in perfect peace. Not a question remains unanswered, not a doubt that has not been fully removed, not a fear that has not been completely cast out, God also giving us His own testimony to the value of the blood of His Son that it “cleanses us from all sin;” that where remission of these is there remaineth no more offering for sin, that by one offering He hath “perfected forever them that are sanctified,” and their sins and iniquities He will remember no more. What liberty also to be now inside the veil in the holiest of all by the blood of Jesus, where He always appears before the face of God for us! —Η. H. S,