An Approving Conscience Devotion 5 of 11

"For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:14). "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water" (Hebrews 10:22)

THE FUTILITY OF THE LAW

The Law, with all of its arduous activity, was powerless to produce a good, or cleansed, conscience. Those imagining that acceptance with God is based upon adhering to a strict set of rules do well to consider the Word of the Lord on this point. Extensive teaching is provided by the Spirit on this subject--primarily because remains a very troublesome area for many believers. "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year" (Heb. 10:1-3). The Law, the first and old covenant, required man himself to provide a basis for divine acceptance. Precision of outward conduct was never more evident than in the sacrificial system. Precise people, times, places, and methods were specified by the Lord. Certain animals were selected with certain qualities, and no substitutes were permitted. The sacrificial system pointed to Christ, and had little immediate effect upon those involved in it. This is the point of the passage in Hebrews ten. As a "shadow of good things to come," those sacrifices were instructive. However, as shadows, they also were ineffectual to accomplish the remission of sin. They were not "the very image of the things" they prefigured. Although they were offered "year by year continually," those that approached God in this manner (the "comers") were not made "perfect" by them. The perfection referenced in this passage is not moral perfection. Rather, it is a perfect, or cleansed, conscience. This is the point of Hebrews 9:9. "(The tabernacle) Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as PERTAINING TO THE CONSCIENCE." Those fulfilling all of the meticulous requirements of the Law came away from their activities REMEMBERING their sins. "But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year" (Heb. 10:3). This is the Scriptural way of saying their conscience was not made pure, or cleansed. It remained defiled, contaminated with a lively awareness that they were not what they ought to be. The more they became involved in the ceremonies of the Law, the more acutely they were of their personally defiled condition. Truly, "the Law made nothing (or noone) perfect . . . " (Heb 7:19). It remained for a "better sacrifice" to be instituted by the Lord Jesus -- one that would not only removed the awareness of our sins from God Himself, but from ourselves. Because of Christ's superior and effective sacrifice, God has declared of all who receive it, "their iniquities will I remember no more" (Heb 8:12; 10:17). Not only that, the blood of Christ is able to "purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Heb 9:14). The Law, with all of its precision, could effect neither of those indispensabilities!

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