The Conscience of the Believer

Introductory thoughts:

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what a conscience is. One bumper sticker say, “Your conscience is Jesus talking to you.” This is simply not the case, but what is the conscience? Who has a conscience? What is the function of our conscience?

A book I would recommend for your own personal study is entitled “Conscience: What it is, How to train it, and loving those who differ” by Andrew Naselli and J.D. Crowley”. In their book they point out:

1. Conscience is God’s gift to each individual.

2. Conscience is the moral aspect of God’s image - unlike animals

3. The conscience is your consciousness of what you believe is right and wrong.

Two additional principles that we want to set forth:

(1) You can damage your conscience in 2 ways: you can make your conscience to be insensitive or overly sensitive.

(2) You should obey your conscience, even if the very act is not a sin because to doubt something you are doing is to do something not of faith - and that is sin. and .

All men are guilty before God because of the witness of their conscience.

Show the guilt and accountability that we have because of the witness of our conscience.

Because of this reality - not just the testimony of the conscience but because of the reality of the guilt of mankind, God provided a means to foreshadow how actual cleansing would one day take place. The Lord put in place a sacrificial system that was external. See . This is simply a shadow and not the actual. This included:

The law

The sacrifices

Annual observances (rituals)

Limited cleansing

As the writer of Hebrews sets forth the case for Jesus Christ, he will show that Jesus Christ is what all of these shadows were reflecting. Jesus Christ brings an end to that system, but greater still, Jesus Christ does what those sacrifices could never do. Because those sacrifices were so limited, they had to be performed daily, weekly, monthly, annually because of the guilt that men had in their own consciences before God. When Jesus Christ came, He became the one-time sacrifice that could not only pay God in full; but He could bring men to a place where they no longer live under the conscience of guilt for their sin before God.

Proposition:

It is no less true today that if we will cease from dead works to try to pacify our consciences before God, we must fully accept Who Christ is and what Christ has accomplished. This is the only way to have our consciences sprinkled with his blood.

In deed, it is this very truth that the believer needs to continually affirm, if he or she will confidently come before God.

What understanding must we have about this matter?

(1) Who has a conscience? Worshippers -

Here the author is drawing back on the Jewish system. The worshippers are the children of Israel who were bringing their sacrifices to the Tabernacle according to the law.

This particular word is also translated as “serve” and is used to identify someone who submits themselves to worship or serve someone else. Jesus Christ used this word in his response to Satan in . This same writer uses the word in to establish the fact that the earthly was an image of the heavenly.

The scriptures make it abundantly clear that man in general is a worshipper. As one of our missionaries has said, “Man is a worshipper without an off-switch.” When the Apostle Paul was writing about men, he used one word in particular to identify their worship out of fear in . They showed reverence to the creation and robbed God of what they owed God.

So, we do not simply want to understand that only Jewish people under a Jewish system are worshippers, though in this passage that is who he is referring to historically. We want to understand that all men are worshippers. You and I cannot help this fact.

Principle:

All men are worshippers.

This being the case, notice the kind of worship that is demanded. . Note the reason that men have this desire or propensity. Note that God is not looking for external service. Paul, attacking the legal approach of men understood this in .

Illustration:

Outside of our home we have at least 3 birds nests. One of these I get the privilege to see regularly. From the time the mother lays the eggs to the time I see the little heads popping up for food. Each time the mother returns to the side of the next, the heads begin bobbing up and down. It is natural. In like manner, within the nature of man it is found to worship.

Application:

(1) Know and believe that everyone you run into daily is a worshipper.

(2) Know and believe that you are a worshipper

(3) Know and believe that your conscience is what causes you to look for meaning in an object of worship.

(4)

(2) What does the conscience need? Purging

Because of how man is created by God, man has a need to worship something or someone. Man has a need to live up to a certain accountability to his conscience. He may not understand this; but he will do so no matter what.

This means that unless something changes, man will constantly be looking for ways to either silence his conscience or appease his conscience. It makes him aware of God. When you factor in the fact that there are specific practices put in place that make them even more aware of God, the guilt can be overwhelming. You ask me, “What do you mean?” Take the conscience of man and put a sacrificial system in place that is bloody and marked by death. This declares some very important truths:

(1) God is the Creator who has been offended

(2) Sin is costly and leaves man in a position of insurmountable debt

(3) Man must make an offering perpetually so that God is paid and man is temporarily at ease with his self-condemning, God-acknowledging conscience.

When did all of this begin? It actually began just outside of the garden. . There we are made once again reminded that the Creator was offended by man, and an offering is owed.

(3)

All of this leaves us asking, what does the conscience of man need so that he does not have to continually try and appease a debt? points out that it needs to be purged. This word means “to purify, cleanse, make clean.”

Principle:

The conscience of man must be cleansed, but it’s impossible for him to do so.

The conscience of men needs to be purged and there are no religious deeds that are sufficient. This is an internal cleansing that is beyond the reach of man. All man can do is merely: (a) show that he has an itch by the behaviors he has (b) vainly attempt to unsuccessfully scratch it.

Illustration:

This is the spot on your back that you cannot reach to scratch.

This is the itch in the back of your throat that you cannot reach.

Application:

#1. Note that every false religion is evidence that man has a God-aware conscience. Those religions are man’s attempts to pacify his moral consciousness.

#2. Note also that men and women who go to churches may also be suffering from the same vain attempts to unwittingly satisfy their consciences of eternal guilt before God.

(3) How is the conscience purged? Blood

(*v. 23 uses purified)

The scriptures plainly teach that the life of the flesh is in the blood. The purging by blood points to the death of Jesus Christ and not to his life. Secondly, it clearly points to the fact of sacrificial death. Ought this not to reminds us of the tremendous price that was paid for the redemption of mankind. See .

Jesus said in the upper room that the cup was the new covenant in blood. He left this upper room and entered a garden that literally was named to mean “Olive Press.” In this “Olive Press” garden, he was pressed to the point of sweating great drops of blood. As if the sweat pours were not enough, Jesus was seized in the garden and gaping wounds were ultimately opened all over his body and Jesus was bled. From there He was hung upon a cross to be suffocated in his own blood. [IRONY OF IRONIES, THE HIGH PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS LEADERS ARE MOCKING THE ONE THAT ALL OF THEIR SACRIFICES WERE POINTING TO....IRONY OF IRONY, THEY ARE MOCKING THE ONE WHO GAVE THEM THE ENTIRE SACRIFICIAL SYSTEM.]

So, what the writer in Hebrews is making clear is that you do have guilt in your conscience before God; but the blood of the eternal Lamb of God can remove this consciousness of guilt — this means that we are free in our conscience from doing works to try to pay God or make God satisfied and we are free to serve with a clear and pure conscience.

Quote:

Christ, then, offered himself in sacrifice, the aim being to “cleanse our consciences.” It is important to be clear that Christ’s saving work operates on quite a different level from that of the Levitical sacrifices. These were but external and material, as the author repeatedly emphasizes. But Christ was concerned with the sins that trouble the consciences of men. So his sacrifice was directed to the cleansing of conscience, something the sacrifices under the law could never do (10:2).

Morris, L. (1981). Hebrews. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews through Revelation (Vol. 12, p. 87). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

Principle:

The blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ is the only cleansing agent that can bring you freedom from a continual conscience of guilt.

Illustration:

When we had our first child, this introduced a whole new manner of dishes into our home. One of those was bottles, and those of you know that if you leave milk in a bottle for closed for a long time, it can become quite smelly; but washing the bottles was a pain too. You could not get your hands down in there to get all of the grit and grime out. It was then that I located a bottle brush that was just the right shape and size to clean out the bottle. It makes things quite easy. Ultimately, there is nothing else that can cleans our lives. Nothing else was quite the fit or the right size for our consciences. Only the blood of Christ could satisfy.

Application:

For the unbeliever, there is not freedom apart from faith fully in the blood of Jesus Christ.

(4) What does this blood-purge allow? Access

The believer is in view in .

What a marvelous truth he tells these believers with a Jewish upbringing. Now that your conscience has been purged and you don’t need to feel guilty about doing enough because the blood of Christ is where you faith rests, you can come near.

Quote:

First, we are to draw near to God “with a sincere heart.” The “heart” stands for the whole of the inner life of man, and it is important that as God’s people approach him, they be right inwardly. It is the “pure in heart” who see God (). In view of what Christ has done for us, we should approach God in deep sincerity. The “full assurance of faith” stresses that it is only by trust in Christ, who has performed for us the high priestly work that gives access to God, that we can draw near at all.

Morris, L. (1981). Hebrews. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews through Revelation (Vol. 12, p. 104). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

Application:

(1) We are deeply sure that the payment made was absolutely sufficient.

(2) We are deeply sure that our inner most being has been cleansed.

(3) We are deeply secure that the eternal wrath of God has been removed.

(4) Because of all of this, we should want to draw near in full assurance.

Would you say that your drawing near is evidence of the great price that was paid so you could have access?

Illustration: