I read in Hebrews 10:1-2 that if the sacrifices anciently offered year by year had been able to make comers thereunto perfect, they would have ceased to be offered, "because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins." What relation to sin does that indicate on the part of them who are born again? Does it mean that they will no more be tempted?
We can very easily settle this matter by the Scriptures, especially those passages which speak particularly of the experience of Christ; and when we have learned what the Bible teaches on this subject, we shall have grasped the most comforting fact in the infinite possibilities opened up to us by the Gospel. It will involve a brief study of the last ten verses of the tenth chapter of Hebrews, one of the richest portions of the Bible, which we can no more than begin upon in the short half-hour allowed us here.
The Only Remedy for Sin
It needs no proof to show that: "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin." (Hebrews 10:4)
Sin is in man, and can be put away only by the death of the sinner. "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? ... He that is dead is freed from sin." (Romans 6:2,7)
Death is the only remedy for sin; for: "Without shedding of blood is no remission." (Hebrews 9:22)
But a lamb or a goat or a bull has not sinned, and if it had, its death would have no effect upon us. No other person's death, even though it were our own firstborn, could remove sin from us. (See Micah 6:6-8) Sin can be purged only by taking the life of the person whose life is sinful.
One Death for All
"You ask how it can then be that Christ "by himself purged our sins," (Hebrews 1:3) and how His blood can "purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God." (Hebrews 9:14)
It is simply because He is the life, and: "In Him all things consist." (Colossians 1:17)
It is His life that we use when we transgress the law of God, so that we weary Him with our sins, and make Him to serve with our iniquities. (Isaiah 43:24) He has "tasted death for every man," (Hebrews 2:9) and in that He died for all, all are dead. (2 Corinthians 5:14) His life is the life of all creatures, so that: "Now once in the end of the world has He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." (Hebrews 9:26)
All men are reconciled to God by the death of Christ, (Romans 5:9-10) for: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." (2 Corinthians 5:19)
This being so, whoever truly acknowledges, and abides in the same confession, that he is crucified with Christ, and that he lives only as Christ lives in Him, must be as free from sin as Christ himself.
Christ "Knew No Sin"
Now of Christ it is said that: "[He] knew no sin," (2 Corinthians 5:21) yet in the very same breath it is declared that He was made to be sin for us. (2 Corinthians 5:21) The sins of the whole world were upon Him, yet so effectually did He bear them away, that no eye ever saw a trace of sin upon Him. He was "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)
It was real temptation, too, for: "He ... suffered being tempted." (Hebrews 2:18)
It is evident that if Christ could suffer in the flesh, through the fierce temptations that assailed Him, and still not know sin, it is possible for those who arm themselves with the same mind (1 Peter 4:1) to have the same experience. It is not only possible for them to have the same experience, but it cannot be otherwise. The worshipers once purged can have no more conscience of sins. (Hebrews 10:2)
The word here rendered "conscience" is uniformly so rendered in the New Testament, yet in classical usage it means all that is conveyed by the word "consciousness," and it is so rendered in the Danish and Norwegian versions.
Of course the idea is not that the worshipers will not know the difference between right and wrong, nor even that they will never be tempted; but, as we well know from the reference to Christ, they will be free from sin, so that it will be no part of their nature or their thought. The flesh will still be mortal and sinful, but the new mind will so control the flesh that it will have no power to assert itself. It will be as amenable to the mind of the Spirit as though it were already spiritual.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
In Christ we have perfect redemption from the curse. The curse came through sin, and the first sin--the sin that included all sin--was the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Our first parents knew good, and that was enough; all that is necessary, in order that one be not led astray by evil, is that he know and cleave to the good. They had access to the tree of life, even as we have, for wisdom is "a tree of life to them that lay hold on it," (Proverbs 3:18) and Christ, who is our life is the wisdom of God, and so the tree of life to us. But in Him we learn no evil; He imparts only the knowledge of good, and that is all that God wishes us to know; it is all that God himself knows.
Purged by the Life
Note the statement that: "The worshipers once purged should have no more conscience [consciousness] of sins." (Hebrews 10:2)
It is because they are purged. Sin has been removed from them by the pure life of Christ, which fills them, and they become as innocent before God, "As newborn babes." (1 Peter 2:2)
How often we have wished that we had never known certain things-that we had never heard of them; well the Gospel of Jesus Christ provides complete deliverance from the load, so that we shall forget our sins and iniquities, even as God himself does.
We shall never forget that we have been sinners, and that Christ has rescued us from that horrible pit of corruption; but we may be so completely emancipated from sin that we shall no more think of the evil than we did before we ever heard of it. What a wondrous relief this is!
Doing the Will of God
How can this be? Because: "It is God which works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)
This takes us to the next verses in the tenth chapter of Hebrews. When Christ, in coming into the world, said, "Sacrifice and offering You would not," (Hebrews 10:5) because they could not take sin away, He added, ... but a body have You prepared me." (Hebrews 10:5)
For what purpose was this body prepared for Him? For sacrifice, that in it He might do the will of God; for in the same connection He says, "Lo, I come to do your will, O God," (Hebrews 10:9) and further, "yea, your law is within my heart." (Psalm 40:8)
The law of God is His will. (Romans 2:17-18) Remember now that the same Spirit by which Christ offered himself is given us to put God's law in our mind, and write it in our hearts, (Hebrews 8:10) and that when the law is in the mind, the thought will be only the righteousness of the law. "His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law does he meditate day and night." (Psalm 1:2)
The Body Prepared for Christ
Remember also that a body has been prepared for Jesus, in which to do the will of God. Where is that body? It is wherever there is a human being. Our bodies are made to be the temples of God; our flesh was created for the indwelling of the Word. The body of Jesus of Nazareth, in which the will of God was so fully done, was but a sample of what all bodies may and ought to be. If we yield ourselves to Him, "as those that are alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God," (Romans 6:13) the will of God will be as perfectly performed in us as it was in Jesus, or as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)
The Gospel provides for just this perfect identification of the Holy Spirit with even our mortal bodies. Jesus promised to send the Comforter, "Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees Him not, neither knows Him;" (John 14:17) but to His disciples He said, "but you know Him; for He dwells with you, and shall be in you." (John 14:17)
And again we read: "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you." (Romans 8:11)
The possibility and the reality of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is shown to us by the air that vitalizes our bodies. "The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty has given me understanding." (Job 33:4)
It is only by the Spirit of God that any person has life. If we fully yield our bodies as the rightful agents of the Spirit, then the Spirit of God will think with our brains, and not through our members. The Spirit is to permeate us, animating us, so that His work is really our work, because our only life is one life of the Spirit of God.
We live, yet not we, but Christ lives in us by the Spirit. So the righteousness manifest in our sinful bodies will be our own righteousness, and at the same time God's righteousness; for: "this is His name whereby He shall be called: The Lord Our Righteousness." (Jeremiah 23:6)
The Spirit will so control the sinful flesh, that the sin will not merely be held in abeyance, but will be purged. "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, ... the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)
The Will of God
"He takes away the first, that He may establish the second." (Hebrews 10:9)
What is this "first" and "second"? The next verse makes it clear, for it continues without break, "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ." (Hebrews 10:10)
"The second" is the will of God by which we are sanctified. This is what Christ establishes in every human body that He is allowed to control. "The first," then is evidently "the will of the flesh," (John 1:13) which is yielded up to Him, that He may take it away, and which must necessarily be removed from those who become sons of God through receiving Christ. With the mind and will of God established in us by the indwelling of Christ through the eternal Spirit, it is evident that one's consciousness will be all of God's presence, and not at all of sin.
That is the right way of losing the consciousness of sin. The wrong way, which is by far the most common, is to persist in sin, to refuse to confess that we are sinners, until the conscience becomes "seared with a hot iron," (1 Timothy 4:2) so that it cannot feel the presence of sin, and evil seems the same as good. The person in that condition says with Lucifer fallen, "Evil, be my good."
This state of things is hopeless, but it is certain to be the final result with everyone who does not regard his body as a thing prepared solely as a sacrifice unto God, that He may do His own will in it. "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:1-2)--Present Truth, February 21, 1901.