By Pastor Yomi OGUNTUWASE
(yomioguntuase@gmail.com, +447946506659)
God sent the Holy Spirit to comfort us because the conscience can never give peace. It only tells you when you’re wrong. The bible calls it an ‘evil conscience’ because it bears the knowledge of sin.
Hebrews 10:22 ESV
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
You can’t draw near to God with an evil conscience. Because of an evil conscience, most people don’t have full/complete assurance and cannot draw near to God.
“Pure water” here is the blood of Jesus which washes us from an evil conscience .
For example, a bank that does not give full assurance of the safety of your money, if you won’t make a deposit.
Your conscience needs to be controlled under the guidance of the HolySpirit because if not, it will drive you away from God. This is why it’s called an evil conscience.
Hebrews 10:22 NIV
let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water
This is the subjective effect of the blood of Jesus. When the conscience is cleansed by the blood of Jesus there is a removal of guilt.
The conscience knows the knowledge of good and bad. It can never comfort you or give full assurance of salvation. When the conscience isn’t cleansed, one can never have full assurance of salvation.
Hebrews 9:14 KJV
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?
When the conscience is always under condemnation it doesn’t show humility but rather it is a despising of the finished work of Christ
Hebrews 9:14
Since this is true, how much more is accomplished by the blood of Christ! Through the eternal Spirit, he offered himself as a perfect sacrifice to God. His blood will purify our consciences from useless rituals, so that we may serve the living God.
Without the blood of Jesus cleansing our conscience, a believer can never truly serve God.
Only the blood of Jesus cleanses our conscience allowing us to serve God( not dead works i.e. legal obedience)
Hebrews 10:2 NLT
If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.
The blood of Jesus purified the conscience once for all time. Now one can have peace with God .
Hebrews 10:2
Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?
Hebrews 10:3 NLT
But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year.
People perform sacrifices to appease their conscience so they can serve God but it is dead works and can never purify their conscience.
Hebrews 10:19
And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus.
Hebrews 10:18
And when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices.
When your sin is forgiven there is no longer need for sacrificing.
Hebrews 10:18
Now where there is [absolute] forgiveness and complete cancellation of the penalty of these things, there is no longer any offering [to be made to atone] for sin.
Hebrews 10:17
Then he says, “I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.
There is no need to have a guilty conscience because God no longer counts your sin against you.
*Oguntuase, a nutritionist and a reflexologist, is a Pastor of Christ in Me Ministry, Windsor UK.
