Saturday, March 30, 2013

A Good Conscience

Pray for us; for we are confident that we have a good conscience, in all things desiring to live honorably. But I especially urge you to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner. (Hebrews 13:18-19, NKJV).

Read the focus verse again, and considerate it at face value and be amazed!

Speaking in the editorial “we”, the writer of Hebrews, officially anonymous, is confident of his good conscience. While at first this may seem an utterly arrogant statement, given the pervasive sin in the human heart - a heart so universally and desperately wicked (Jer 17:9) that even we ourselves cannot plumb the depths of its darkness - in reality it is a declaration of praise and a tribute to the ultimate superiority of Christ over all else.

The writer's conscience is good, not because of himself, but because the writer has been remade in his Savior's image, adopted into the family of God rather than imprisoned in the family of Adam, and is in all things desiring to live honorably.

These three things are only conceivable in Christ, and should be a tremendous source of joy to all who believe.

We are all made new in Christ. The old things have passed away and we are new creations. We are moment-by-moment being transformed into the image of Christ, and the completed work is guaranteed by God Himself.

We have been rescued from the slavery of sin and made permanently a part of God's family, legally, positionally, and in the end, experientially. All this by faith in His Son.

Now, we desire to do good and eschew evil. This is a supernatural occurrence, something that can only be true in a regenerated spirit. That is not to say that we succeed in that desire, but it is to say that the desire itself is a work of God, an aspect of the sanctifying He does within us after coming to faith.

This last point is irrefutable given Scripture's indictment of the unregenerate man. Note God's view of the unsaved:

As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18, NKJV).

But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6, NKJV).

In contrast, do you see the reason for joy in the writer's statement above? He is not saying anything about himself directly, but is only stating the facts of his redemption through Christ. It is none of his doing and all the Lord's, and because that is so, it is certain “to take”. He is on the road to guaranteed eternal righteousness and therefore destined irrevocably for eternal life, rather than inevitable eternal punishment.

This is the joy of our salvation.

Note too his humble request for prayer, coupled with his longing to be reunited with the recipients of this wondrous epistle, to be restored to them the sooner.

What kind of prayer is he requesting? I suspect ones like these:

that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, (Ephesians 1:17-20, NKJV).

that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19, NKJV).

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11, NKJV).

There is no amount of penance that can cleanse a human conscience; no human act of contrition, no self-sacrifice, no self-inflicted punishment that can undo the guilt of sin, nor take away its stain.

But there is cleansing freely offered in Christ through his substitutionary death on the Cross. Through faith in His sacrifice, our sin is appropriated by Him, while, in return, we receive His righteousness. It is a transaction that could only have been performed by God Himself. Dare we hold onto any guilt in view of His miraculous grace and atonement?

It is sheer blasphemy and human pride to not let go of the guilt of our past. We have been forgiven by the most exorbitant act imaginable: Christ's sacrifice. To believe, feel or think otherwise is to declare that His work is insufficient.

Hence, like the writer of Hebrews, we are confident that we have a good conscience, for:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9, NKJV).

Beloved, do not hold onto the past, nor the guilt of the past, but follow the example of our brother Paul:

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13, 14, NKJV).