THE cross of Christ brings the Christian believer into the real possession of that heritage of blessing, which Old Testament prophets and saints could at best but look forward to, and greet from afar.
Of the many blessings Christ's death brings to us, not the least is the relief that it brings to the consciences of believers. The conscience, being man's faculty of moral judgment, is a very important part of his spiritual nature, and exercises great influence in his experience. Its approval or disapproval of himself is that which contributes more than anything else to the happiness or misery of his inward life. Conscience has been called by some the voice of God in man; and by others, God's umpire in the soul. It can make the face of man turn deadly white, and anon blush crimson. A bad or a good conscience will make a coward of the sinner, or a hero of the saint.
The general tendency of the Jewish religion was to bring into activity the conscience of man, resulting in what is called a "conscience of sins" —a conscience enlightened as to the claims of God, and therefore, owing to man's fallen state, burdened with a sense of sin. Not only the moral, but the ceremonial law, even the very sacrifices which were offered, contributed to "the remembrance of sins." This of itself created a state of bondage, from which even a heathen man, his conscience being brutified, would be comparatively free.
Without the law man is in a certain sense alive, but under law his sinful nature revives, and conscience, true to its function, acts only to condemn.
It is deliverance from this condemnation that the cross of Christ brings. The blood of Jesus purges this guilty conscience so perfectly, that there remains "no more conscience of sins." Reader, have you a conscience purged from every stain by the blood of Jesus?
The blood of Christ is efficacious not only for the complete removal of the conscience of sins, but also to purge the conscience from dead works.
When the claims of God and man are pressed borne upon the human conscience, man resorts to various expedients to pacify it. Indeed the activities of men, in their attempts to relieve their own consciences in this unsatisfactory way, contribute a large part of the whole of Church history. From motives of fear, and with a view to merit, they have built churches, gone forth as missionaries, and been engaged in all kinds of religious enterprises. But in the light of the cross such efforts are fruitless. Our bad deeds are not to be atoned for by a corresponding, or even multitudinous, number of good ones. Nay, such efforts at self-justification before God are evil in themselves, and the extreme heinousness of such acts can only be purged from the conscience by the atoning blood of the Son of God. It is only after this cleansing that the conscience is fit to serve the living God. Before being cleansed, the motives are legal rather than Christian.
The conscience of Jewish worshippers was imperfect, because imperfection was stamped upon all the sacrifices that they offered; but it is nothing less than perfection that the blood of Christ brings to the conscience of the Christian. The atoning work of Christ does for the conscience of the believer, that which, even in a divine way, could not be improved upon. Nothing can be added to the perfection of Christ's work. When He said "It is finished," He included in this wonderful expression, the divinely perfect relief which His propitiation brings to the sinner's conscience.
It must not be understood, by perfection here, that perfection of moral character which the Christian will finally enjoy. All the holy and heavenly graces, in all their variety, will ultimately be perfectly produced in us; for we are predestinated to be conformed, morally and bodily, to the image of God's Son. The mistake is, that men often aim after these things before they have settled peace. God does not begin with the character, He begins with the conscience; and in the enjoyment of the peace which Christ has made by the blood of His cross, the babe in Christ grows to Christian manhood and perfection. Nothing but this peace can enable the believer to bear calmly the great responsibilities of Christian life and duty. But the believer in Christ, the instant he believes, is immediately made whiter than the snow, for God's presence and worship, because of the divine efficacy of the blood of Christ.
This perfection abides. The conscience does not need purging by the blood of Christ a second time. For while on the one hand, what Christ has done in dying for the sinner He has done forever, on the other, the new relationship into which the believer is brought can never be broken. As a matter of fact, the Christian in his walk, though true-hearted, is not perfect. He needs the washing of water by the word. But through the blood of Christ, he remains "clean every whit," and "needeth not save to wash his feet.”
It is when one forgets that he has been purged from his old sins (not when he remembers this, and adores God for it) that he is said to be blind, and cannot see afar off; consequently, there is lacking that fruitfulness in his life, which is reasonably becoming in the redeemed.
It is not meant here that no godly Jew enjoyed a good conscience. There were ever individual souls among the people who did what was right in the sight of the Lord, as suited to the condition of things in which they then lived. What, however, was fitting for the conscience of the Jew will not answer for the Christian. The conscience of the Old Testament saint was good, because of his moral condition, and by looking forward to Christ; not from being perfected forever by the offering of the body of Jesus.
The Christian now enjoys the answer of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Can anyone say that any of the patriarchs or prophets had this?
The cross of Christ is divinely adapted to the conscience of the believing man. The enlightened conscience, so quick to judge between right and wrong, and therefore to excuse or accuse its possessor, in view of the death of Christ enters on a new realm of judgment, and is supremely satisfied with the perfect adaptability of the death of Christ to the deepest need of man. In view of that death, it is now as ready to justify the believer, as it was before to condemn him. Can anyone assert that the conscience of man will ever be satisfied with anything else? Is not the cross of Christ the outcome of God's wisdom, to supply that need? Will not the conscience of those who reject it be against them forever, on that account? Will not the stinging, eternal reproach of the rejecter's conscience be, not only that he sinned, but also that he rejected, or neglected, the remedy which God, in infinite love, provided for his sin?
It is this purged conscience which makes the difference in view of death, which is seen to exist between the Old Testament saints and those of New Testament times.
Christ died, that by death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. David and. Hezekiah were all their lifetime subject to bondage through fear of death. This was not so with the apostle Paul. It ought not to be so with any Christian. The apostle was "willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." With the "conscience of sins" gone, even in view of eternity and the immediate presence of God, there is nothing left to fear. Oh, my reader, will you not own that Christ died for your sins, and that you are cleansed by His precious blood "once for all?”