A Clean Conscience

Introduction

Good morning please open in your Bible to Hebrews 9:1-14 that is Hebrews 9:1-14. If you are using a Bible scattered through out the chairs that is on page 945. It was the day after halloween and Zack Rule and I were in the 5th grade. We had caught wind that all of our friends had really good tee-ping stories ready to tell on Monday at school, but neither of us went out the night before. So, not to out done by our peers we devised a plan to do some light vandalism in broad daylight. We selected our house, did the deed, and then ran straight back to my house. We turned of all of the lights, went down into the basement and hid in the very back room meant for storage. Why? Why hide with the lights off so far away from anyone… If they saw us run into the house we were caught. Because we knew we had done something wrong. And there is something about hiding in the dark that makes us feel like we are safe from the consequences of our bad choices. Our conscience bore witness against us. As I hid in the basement the adrenaline rush of halloween antics faded and I started to worry. What if someone saw us, what if my parents find out… I started to get a stomach ache.

Not long later a loud knock came from the front door. There was no more hiding, a police office stood outside. Thankfully, for my “permanent record” the neighbor was understanding. We just had to clean up the mess, get scolded by a cop, and worst of all… we had to call our parents. The stress of that phone haunts me to this day. I had to admit to my dad that I vandalized the neighbor’s house. I couldn’t look at the neighbor for years. I was so ashamed of what I had done. Years later she needed help mowing her yard and still feeling guilty I would do it free of charge. A clean conscience is hard to obtain. But what we see if our passage this morning is that in Christ we can be made clean. Our consciences can be purified once and for all through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is RHC’s Easter gift to you. It is the knowledge that only in Christ can our conscience be purified. Read Hebrews 9:1-14.

Description of the Temple v. 1-5

Ch. 8 Jesus offered sacrifices in a heavenly tent, the true tent. The author explains that the tabernacle of the Old Testament, the place of worship for the Jews, was a copy or a shadow of the true heavenly temple. This true temple is where Jesus as the best high priest offered his perfect sacrifice of himself for our sins. But our author still wants to drive home the fact that Jesus is superior to the Old Testament sacrificial system. He is a better high priest that offers a better sacrifice in a better tabernacle. And his sacrifice accomplishes something better. The purifying not just of the external of the internal. The purifying of our conscience. However, before making this point he reminds his readers of the Old tabernacle.

Two sections- The holy place and the The most holy place. 1st section, the holy place- contained the lampstand, the table, and the bread of presence. The lampstand lit the inside of tabernacle and the table was used to present sacrifices and hold various items for their ceremonies. The Bread of presence reminded the people of God’s continual provision and would be replaced each Sabbath day.

The second section was separated from the first section by a large curtain or veil. Just outside of it was the golden altar of incense. Though it was outside of the second section it is mentioned here with it because it was necessary for the high priest to take coals from the altar in a censer into the Most holy place. Leviticus 16:12–13 “And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil and put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony, so that he does not die.” Without the coals from this altar of incense he would die. God would strike him dead, it was part of the process to make him clean.

Inside of the second section, the Most Holy place, was the ark of the covenant. It was a box plated in gold and inside of it was a golden urn that held manna. A bread like substance that fell from heaven to feed the Israelites while they wondered through the wilderness on their way to the promised land. A staff that once belonged to Aaron the first high priest. On one occasion Aaron’s priesthood was challenged. God had Aaron and his challengers place their staffs before the ark of the covenant and said whoever’s staff has buds come out of the end it, this is who I have chosen to be my priest. Aaron’s staff budded. This staff was kept as a reminder who the rightful priests wear. And the ark also contained the tablets of stone that had the 10 commandments written on them. These were the covenant between God and man in which God would be their God so long as they worshiped him alone and kept his commandments.

Above the ark were the cherubim, golden sculpture of angles who were set up to guard the ark and the mercy seat. The lid for the ark and where the priest would sprinkle blood when once a year he made atonement for the people’s sin.

T/S- These are reminders of the importance of this Most Holy place. The author is building the Most Holy place up because in a sense he is getting ready to tear it down. But he does so in order to show us something better that has taken its place. So, what I want us to see this morning, if we desire a clean conscience. Is that we must be willing tear down our old means of justification.

Tear Down Our Old Means of Justification v. 6-10

The author continues on in verses 6-10. As he explains that once these preparations were made, the items set in the first and second section that the priests would go regularly into the first section to perform their rituals. But the Most holy place was only entered once a year by the high priest. And first he had to offer a sacrifice of blood for himself. Then he could offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people. The unintentional sins refer to the sins committed by the people that they were not even aware. A good reminder for us that sin is not simply about intention. You can sin even if you don’t mean to. Sin is anytime we break God’s law. If you forget to set the cruise control and accidentally go over the speed limit. You still break the law. God’s law in similar, you can sin even if you are not aware. And just like sin not being contingent upon intention, so is true religion not judged solely by sincerity of belief. We cannot hope to please God apart from faith, but we must have faith in the right thing as well. We must have sincere faith in Jesus, the Son of God. Sincere faith in a false god does not stand against God’s law. So, we must be forgiven even of our intentional sins through our faith in the one true God, Jesus Christ.

The high priest would enter into the Most holy place once a year to sacrifice for the sins of the people of Israel, but he would have to do this year after year. This ritual would never be enough to cleanse them forever. So, the reoccurring nature of this annual sacrifice is the Holy Spirit indicating that Most holy place, the real one, not just the copy is no open until the first section has been tore down. So long as the Old Covenant sacrificial system remained the new covenant was established and not effective to perfect the conscience. The Old system could only deal with outside things like food, drink, and various washings. It could make one ceremonially and temporarily clean, the High Priest when he brought in the coals from the altar of incense. Without the coals he would die. They did do something. This system did have an effect. But it only cleansed ceremonially so he could offer the sacrifice. It did not perfect his conscience nor the conscience of the people. And what it did, it still only did temporarily. The next year, he better not forget those coals… he would die if he did.

But what we learned on Friday was that the veil between the holy place and the most holy place had be torn in two. Matthew 27:50–51 “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. …” At the death of Jesus the veil was torn. The first section was no longer separate from the second. This is an earthly sign of a heavenly reality. God is no longer hidden behind the veil. Through Christ he can dwell inside of us by the Holy Spirt. In living with the presence of God we are given a purified conscience.

But we cannot skip ahead. If we wish to live with a pure conscience today then we must tear down whatever we used to justify ourselves before we came to know Christ. For these Jews it was the OT sacrificial system. In the NT Jews could still eat Kosher if they chose to, they could worship on Saturday, the Sabbath, if they chose to, they could celebrate feasts if they chose to… But they could not continue to offer sacrifices, even if they knew the didn’t have to. This is what the author is arguing. By offering sacrifices of animals they would be declaring that the death of Jesus was not enough. And we do the same thing when we run to old ways of dealing with sin and shame.

We use comparison, blame shifting, loopholes (just a little bit), legalism (create our own laws to keep us safe or faith in the means not in the Savior), license (ignore sin or just say it isn’t sin), shame is just a social construct, or you are like 5th grade me and you think you can just hide and wait it out. What these means of false justification have in common is they have no category for grace. Grace is unmerited favor. Grace acknowledges our sin and doesn’t sugar coat the offense. But grace says someone else paid the price and though you do not deserve it, you are forgiven. If you are a Christian living with a guilty conscience can I ask? Is there some other means of justification that we are utilizing? You have high priest you can sympathize with your weakness. That means you can bring your sin out into the light, and with His help through His people you can put it to death. You can have a perfected conscience.

T/S- finally this morning we need to see that we must trust Jesus to Justify and Purify us.

Trust Jesus to Justify and Purify Us v. 11-14

Read Hebrews 9:11-12. The Holy Spirit indicated by the reoccurring nature of the annual sacrifice of atonement that the old system and old holy place would be torn down. Therefore, a new covenant would need to take it’s place. And this is why Jesus would come as a high priest of the good things that have come. The good things being a perfected conscience through faith in his life death and resurrection. Jesus offered his sacrifice, himself, as high priest through the greater and more perfect tent. The heavenly temple that was not made with human hands and is not a part of this creation. It is an eternal temple, the true tent. Therefore, his sacrifice was once and for all. He did not enter by the blood of goats and calves but by the means of his own perfect blood. Therefore, his cleansing is not just ceremonial or temporal. It is not just external like the sacrifices and rituals of the old covenant. Instead his sacrifice of his own blood, in the true heavenly tent, presented by the perfect high priest secures for us an eternal redemption. A redemption that was once and for all. It is eternal in that no more sacrifice is required. And it is eternal in its scope, meaning there is nothing left in you or I that still needs redeemed if we are in Christ. The forgiveness of Jesus is complete, perfect. When we come to know Christ we are totally and completely justified by his grace.

There are some that will argue that the Old Testament has no concept of the truth that Jesus was our substitute. They claim that such a notion is western and just a product of people like me reading our guilt/innocence culture into the biblical text. That we overplay justification by faith. That Jesus came to get rid of chaos and evil, and his death is just a victory over those eternal forces. That evil is in us and needs repelled out of us, but that we aren’t really what is bad. They argue we must begin with the OT to understand the NT, and that the OT doesn’t frame humans and being evil or sinful themselves. So, we misinterpret Paul when we claim that he preached a Gospel of justification by faith. It’s often a very intellectually driven argument, and honestly uses a strategy I call hiding absurdity in the weeds of complexity.

I only mention this in an attempt to making something really clear to us. Christ died in our place, he was our substitute. And that idea is an OT idea. The high priest entered the Most holy place on the day of atonement. The only way he could enter is if something else died in his place. A bull, that was killed for his sins. He then went on to take two goats and kill one goat and sprinkle its blood on the altar and the mercy seat. The lid of the ark of the covenant guarded by cherubim to represent the earthly throne of God. It contained items that reminded us of his law and his promises to his people. The story of the Bible is so clear. Something must die, if we are to live. Something must take our place if we are to be justified once and for all. A perfect sacrifice, offered by a perfect priest, in a perfect temple. This is what Jesus did. He died in our place, a substitutionary death.1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,” And in that death he secured for us an eternal redemption. He bought us back Colossians 2:13–14 “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” And your debt is nailed to that cross to never come off of it. You are free from sin, forever.

And in redeeming us from our sin, in justifying us by faith in Christ, he also purifies our conscience. Read Hebrews 9:13-14. He argues hear from the lesser to the greater. If these Old Testament rituals like sacrifices of goats and bulls and using their blood to purify a priest or using water of cleansing, a solution made from water and the ashes of a red heifer, could purify the flesh, or the external (ceremonially and temporally) then how much more can the blood of Jesus who offered himself through the eternal Spirit purify our conscience.

And he purifies our conscience from dead works, that is works that amount to nothing like these continual sacrifices. Or like the old means of justification that you and I might use to try and deal with our sin. Our hiding, our comparing, our loopholes, or legalism, our license they all amount to nothing they are dead works. But you are free from them so that you might serve the living God. If we still cling to dead works our conscience will never be clear. Paul Martin says this about the conscience “Conscience is an expression of the moral image of God and ultimately is not satisfied by anything less than what satifies God’s own moral character. And thus is judges whether the atonement offered for sin is adequate in God’s eyes.” Your conscience is a gift from God to help us know right from wrong. We all have one because we are made in the image of God. When the conscience is dirty we either do not see sin clearly or we cannot see that there is grace for sinners. Jesus purifies our conscience and therefore we are free from our dead works which will amount to nothing. We are able to see the futility in trusting in the old ways of dealing with shame and guilt. Instead, we see Christ our perfect high priest who has made perfect atonement for our sin. And therefore we can behold him, believe him, and be free to serve our living God.

Conclusion

We have talked a lot about the death of Jesus this morning. We have seen that through it we are forgiven our sin because Jesus died for us. We are eternally redeemed because of the perfect nature of his sacrifice. He completely satisfied the wrath of God and there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But this is only true because of the last four words of our text this morning. That we… serve the living God. The great high priest did not stay dead. He has an indestructible life. He died, but he also raised from the dead. You don’t serve a dead God. Your God raised himself from the dead and now sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He continues to live and minister on our behalf. He is risen, he is risen indeed. Let’s pray.