“Conscience of Sins”

WordSword

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The goal of the Father for believers concerning sanctification is that they would have “no more conscience of sins” (Heb 10:2). Saints need not to contemplate their sins since they have been completely and permanently cleared of all the guilt of all their sins—“once for all” (Heb 10:10, 12, 14; 9:12, 28)!

“Because the worshippers, once purged, would have had no more conscience of sins” intends the design that we are not to allow a guilty conscience because of our sins (unless one thinks Christ’s expiation was insufficient to procure all sin), to manifest the impact of being always forgiven, and thus never needing to wallow in the mire of guilt! We can be aware of our sins only enough to identify them and remember the Lord’s expiation for them. There can be a short season of guilt in a babe-in-Christ, but maturity affords the believer growth in Christ (Eph 4:15); and if we maintain any guilt concerning anything at all, we have yet to learn fully God’s forgiveness in Christ.

It is not humility that may keep one thoughtful of one’s sins, but ignorance of the truth that the believer in Christ is in unbroken forgiveness with God when living a life of confession and repentance of sins; and know, it isn’t our obedience, which shows our love for God (Jhn 14:21, 23) that forgiveness is secured, but forgiveness is established by faith in the expiation of Christ’s Cross.

This answers to the fact that we are to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us” in order that we might not be “troubled” and “overtaken” in much sadness of heart (Gen 4:13; Gal 6:1; Jhn 14:1, 27). Our sins be as they may, God has provided—through faith in Christ, confession and repentance—“a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it” (1Co 10:13); and all is accounted for concerning all our sins and His all-forging love.
NC



“Because the worshippers, once purged, would have had no more conscience of sins”; there are external and internal worshippers; the latter are such who worship God in Spirit and in truth: but here ceremonial worshippers are meant, who, if they had been really purged from sin by legal sacrifices, and purifications, would have had no more conscience of sins, and so have had no need to have repeated them; as such spiritual worshippers, who are once purged from sin by the Blood and sacrifice of Christ; not that they have no sin, or no sense of sin, or that their consciences are seared, or that they never accuse for sin, or that they are to make no confession and acknowledgment of sin; but that they are discharged from the guilt of sin, and are not liable to condemnation for it; and through the application of the Blood of Christ to them, have peace with God, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”

—John Gill
 

Jonaitis

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"For since the Law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins."
- Hebrews 10:1-4
The Old Covenant provided a ceremonial system as a way to atone/cleanse its members for specific violations against the covenant, but it had no actual power to remove the guilt and shame of sin itself. This is an important distinction, because this shows a discontinuity between the two covenants. The New Covenant provided what the Old Covenant could not do. The ceremonial system left the worshipper reminded that, though they were able to be temporally forgiven for specific violations against the covenant of their fathers, it did not, nor could, grant them forgiveness from the spiritual filth of their sin before God and his holiness. Christ comes as the perfect sacrifice that removes our guilt completely before God, and this in turn cleanses our conscience entirely. As these men you have quoted have said, we should be reminded of what Christ did on our behalf daily to purge our conscience when we feel unworthy before him.
 
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WordSword

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The Old Covenant provided a ceremonial system as a way to atone/cleanse its members for specific violations against the covenant, but it had no actual power to remove the guilt and shame of sin itself. This is an important distinction, because this shows a discontinuity between the two covenants. The New Covenant provided what the Old Covenant could not do. The ceremonial system left the worshipper reminded that, though they were able to be temporally forgiven for specific violations against the covenant of their fathers, it did not, nor could, grant them forgiveness from the spiritual filth of their sin before God and his holiness. Christ comes as the perfect sacrifice that removes our guilt completely before God, and this in turn cleanses our conscience entirely. As these men you have quoted have said, we should be reminded of what Christ did on our behalf daily to purge our conscience when we feel unworthy before him.
Hi, and thanks for your reply. It was the performance of the High priest that established forgiveness but only for unintentional sins, which cleared the people of guilt, until the next time for him to offer the sin sacrifice. Without forgiveness they would have nothing to be in union with God (e.g. Num 15:25; 30).
 
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Clare73

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The Old Covenant provided a ceremonial system as a way to atone/cleanse its members for specific violations against the covenant, but it had no actual power to remove the guilt and shame of sin itself. This is an important distinction, because this shows a discontinuity between the two covenants. The New Covenant provided what the Old Covenant could not do. The ceremonial system left the worshipper reminded that, though they were able to be temporally forgiven for specific violations against the covenant of their fathers, it did not, nor could, grant them forgiveness from the spiritual filth of their sin before God and his holiness.

The shed blood of the sacrifices and the cleansing ceremonies are presented in the OT as doing just that.
It is only in the light of the NT that we learn they only covered sin, they did not remit sin.

Christ comes as the perfect sacrifice that removes our guilt completely before God, and this in turn cleanses our conscience entirely. As these men you have quoted have said, we should be reminded of what Christ did on our behalf daily to purge our conscience when we feel unworthy before him.
 
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WordSword

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The shed blood of the sacrifices and the cleansing ceremonies are presented in the OT as doing just that.
It is only in the light of the NT that we learn they only covered sin, they did not remit sin.
Hi, and thanks for the reply! In Num 15:25 and 30 we see that the Law established forgiveness for those who did not sin intentionally. The phrase "take away sins" means removal of the guilt of sins, but not the source of sins (old man or sin nature). It is the objective of the Blood of Christ not to only forgive sin, but nullify its "dominion" over the believer; and this the Law could not do.
 
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