THE term, “a cleansed conscience,” implies that the conscience so cleansed was once defiled. Once there lay upon it the sense of sin unforgiven, unremoved, and the result was a continuous effort to become right with God; but with the knowledge of forgiveness of sins, a mighty change took place: the conscience rested, and God was served with gladness of heart.
Religion is often engaged in because the conscience is not at rest. Man feels that he wants something to satisfy himself; he knows he has sinned, and he performs religious duties in order to quiet his conscience. The heathen will do this, and it is common in most religious circles in Christendom―indeed, most earnest persons have so labored. But when the conscience is enlightened by the knowledge of Scripture concerning the holiness of God and His requirements from man, the round of religious duties do not satisfy, for we then know in our conscience that God requires perfect righteousness and perfect holiness. We are quite aware that at the best our religion will not change our pass lives, or undo the sins we have done, and we know that the sins we have committed stain against us before God.
Let us look into the Scripture teaching upon a cleansed conscience. Having spokes of the cleansing of the flesh of the Jewish worshipper effected by the blood of the ancient sacrifices, the apostle adds, “Howe much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:1414How 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))
The Jew of old brought his trespass-offering to God as a sacrifice for the wrong he had committed, and by so doing he obtained purification of the flesh, but there was no sacrifice under the law which could cleanse a man’s sins away and give him perfect rest of conscience in the light of God’s presence, At the present time there is no sacrifice which can be offered to God on earth that can put away sins. We cannot slay the lamb of bullock and offer its blood to God, and without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. (Heb. 9:2222And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22).) If we offer God our works, there is in them no life taken or yielded up, no shedding of blood, and, therefore, remission of sins by such means is impossible. And more, we are expressly told in Scripture that our works will not avail for our justification; while to offer a victim to God, and shed its blood, as do the Jews, is in effect saying to Him, His Son’s death and blood-shedding is of no value.
But Christ’s blood, when we trust in it, brings us rest before God about our sins; we know that by the sacrifice of the Lord Himself, once offered upon the cross, our sins are atoned for, and thus our conscience is cleansed. We are not trying to cleanse it but it is cleansed by Christ’s blood. We are not saying how will it fare with us at the day of judgment, but as we look our sins in the face we can look up to God in His holiness and righteousness, and be at peace.
The one offering of Christ once offered is the only power by which guilty man can obtain a cleansed conscience before God. And this is an absolutely personal and individual question. Emphatically our conscience is our own. It belongs to no one but ourselves; to no one dare we surrender it. And if we come to hand it over to a church nor a man, so that we might be satisfied, neither the church nor the man could cleanse it, and give us the assurance that all is well with us in the presence of a holy and a righteous God.
Some have gone so far down in the ways of sin as to have acquired a “seared conscience,” as not to feel the pains that in their more sensitive years they endured when they had sinned. But the day of reckoning must come, and such disastrous ease must terminate, and well indeed it is for the Christian who, by virtue of the blood of Christ, possesses a cleansed conscience.