Conscience and guilt

BY Argie Simonis

"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 

The most common interpretation of this verse is that it is talking about those acts of sin that cause guilt. But I believe it can also be applied to the religious concept of our good works, that is, the whole idea that if our performance is good and we do good, we will be more loved and accepted by God.

But this is far from the truth. Without being born-again we cannot have a relationship with God. This is what the Lord said to Nicodemus:

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

John 3:3 

In other words, if we put all our trust in our good works, we fall into the trap of dead works.

Notice what it says that it is our consciences that must be cleansed of these dead works. Conscience is a part of us that justifies or accuses us.

"which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another."

Romans 2:15 

Paul here refers to the guilt our conscience produces when we do something wrong or the self-righteousness our conscience produces when we do the right thing.

We need to be cleansed of both these functions of consciousness:

"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

How can we achieve this?

We do this by focusing our attention on Him through prayer, Bible study, and fellowship with other believers. We come before the Lord according to what we are in Christ and not with self-righteousness, that is, with what we achieve with our own strength.

The absolute confidence and assurance in our hearts must be based on what Jesus has done for us and not on what we have done for Him.

We can be as close to Him as we want because it is not God who causes any separation. Every separation comes from our guilty consciences.

Notice that there is no mention of confession of sin or atonement for sin in this passage from Hebrews that I read. Atonement for sin has already been taken care of by Jesus with His sacrifice on the cross.

We have been sanctified and perfected forever:

"By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified."

Hebrews 10:10,14 

There is no more offering for sin:

"Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin."

Hebrews 10:18 

The only obstacle to entering God's presence is our unregenerate mind that does not understand the true magnitude of our redemption and allows an evil conscience to condemn us.

If there is a bad conscience, then there is also a good conscience.

So by renewing our minds with the word of God (Rom. 12:2), the truth about who we are in Christ is revealed to us. So we can shake off the guilt which the devil puts upon us when we do wrong, and by sincerely repenting in our heart, we purge our consciences of dead works, that we may serve the living God.

Amen 🙏

Watch the video with English subs on our YouTube channel: