“A Good Conscience”

 

Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.” Hebrews 13:18

 

A good conscience is something everyone wants, but few possess. Do you have a good conscience? Do I? Does the Word of God have anything to say about the conscience? Indeed, it does. There are numerous references to the conscience in Holy Scripture. The Word of God talks about…

 

“A Good Conscience”                                        “A Conscience Void of Offence

An Accusing Conscience                  An Excusing Conscience

“A Weak Conscience”                        “A Pure Conscience

“A Defiled Conscience”                     “A Seared Conscience”

“An Evil Conscience”                                         A Purged Conscience

 

        What kind of conscience do you have? What kind of conscience do I have? What do our consciences tell us about ourselves? We all want a good conscience, a quiet, peaceful conscience. What would you not give to have a good conscience? — A conscience that will let you sleep at night? — A conscience that would let you draw near to God with full assurance? — A conscience that gives you ease, real ease and peace of heart and mind in the prospect of death, judgment, and eternity?

 

        All the religion and religious practices, ceremonies, and sacrifices in the world cannot obtain a good conscience. All the gifts, works of charity and philanthropy imaginable cannot buy a good conscience. Good works of moral reformation and religious devotion, no matter how earnest and sincere, can never earn you a good conscience.

 

Demands

 

Our consciences demand what we cannot give. Your conscience and mine demands and can only be satisfied with perfection. As I said before, the conscience echoes God’s holy law. Echoing the law, the conscience demands the same thing God’s law demands. Our consciences demand perfection. Our consciences demand and will only accept perfect atonement for sin. Our consciences demand and will only accept perfect righteousness. That perfect atonement and perfect righteousness is found only in Christ’s obedience and death as our Substitute (Heb. 10:1-22). Horatius Bonar wrote, “In another's righteousness we stand, and by another's righteousness we are justified. All accusations against us, founded upon our unrighteousness, we answer by pointing to the perfection of the righteousness, which covers us from head to foot, in virtue of which we are unassailable by law as well as shielded from wrath.

 

Thy work alone, O Christ, can ease this weight of sin;

Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God, can give me peace within.

Thy love to me, O God, not mine, O Lord, to Thee,

Can rid me of this dark unrest, and set my spirit free.”

 

Blood Sprinkling

 

The only way we can ever obtain a good conscience is by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ upon our hearts by the Spirit of God (Heb. 10:22).

 

        In the Old Testament, the law required that if anyone so much as touched a dead body, he was ceremonially unclean. If one person died in the tent, all the family and the tent itself were ceremonially defiled and unclean. That is a picture of our sin and uncleanness in our father Adam.

 

        When Adam sinned against God, we all sinned. When he died, we all died in him (Romans 5:12). From the moment of Adam’s fall, the conscience of man (The ability to know God in truth) has been defiled. By Adam's disobedience, all human kind was plunged into darkness. Men are totally incapable of knowing God, truth, or good, unless and until God himself purifies the conscience (Ephesians 4:18-19).

 

        The sprinkling of blood in the Old Testament was ordained of God to make defiled things ceremonially clean. This was a type of the true cleansing of the hearts and souls of sinners by the blood of the Lord Jesus. "The blood of Christ" is a phrase that refers to his atoning sacrifice for the sins of God's elect (Hebrews 10:10). It is his perfect obedience to God’s holy law, his suffering and death that cleanses condemned sinners whom God the Father chose by his eternal grace in Christ (2 Timothy 1:9). The blood of Christ alone answers all the demands of Gods holy law. And the blood of Christ alone answers all the demands of the conscience. “Without shedding of blood is no remission!”

 

Peace

 

God the Father ordained peace by the blood. God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ obtained peace, by the shedding of his blood. God the Holy Spirit gives the sinner peace, speaking peace to the conscience, by sprinkling our hearts with the blood of Christ. —Faith receives peace by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. I have peace with God because my heart, my conscience, looking on the shed blood of Christ echoes what the holy law of God says about the blood – Enough!”

 

When Christ revealed Himself to me, I looked, and I believed;

And trusting Him alone I have salvation now received!

My conscience now is free and clear, and it condemns me not!

The precious blood of Jesus Christ my sin has blotted out!

 

My sins are gone! My sins are gone! Christ washed them all away!

He satisfied my awful debt, there's nothing left to pay!

Now this is all my hope and peace, and my security:

Christ Jesus lived in righteousness and shed His blood for me!