Sin Conscience Makes us Sensitive

People used to make me mad.

I was so riven on the inside, worried about saying or doing the wrong things. When you are focused on yourself, you are easily hurt.

Someone very close to me, who was knee-deep in this program, lived that life. She was constantly thinking about herself, even though she would feel bad because she was thinking about herself all the time.

That's what ends up happening in this program. We cannot deliver ourselves from ourselves. We need life, and that more abundantly. We need to identify with Him whom God the Father has sent for us (John 6: 29)

But this issue of sin conscience is crucial to our peace and our prosperity as believers.

What am I talking about? Let's take a look in the Book of Hebrews:

"Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. 7But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people: 8The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: 9Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; 10Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation." (Hebrews 9: 6-10)

The Jews in the Old Testament never had a perfect or a clear conscience forever because the blood of bulls and goats could never wash away sin, only atone or cover for it. So, every day, every year when they sinned, or when the High Priest would go into the Holy of Holies to atone for the people, they would enjoy a respite for their wrongdoing, but over time, they would sin and do wrong, and thus a sense of wrongdoing would creep up once again.

Now, Jesus Christ is the final sacrifice, the one who fulfills the Old Covenant once and for all,thus perfecting our conscience by giving us a never-ending source of righteousness, for His Blood atones once and for all and forever.

"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)

Imagine that! No more sacrifices! And in the event that a person feels guilty or upset in some way, all we have to do is rest on the Finished Work, send away every sin, every hurt, every resentment, every reproach to the Body of Christ, we has made us righteous and give us this righteousness as a gift, not something that we have to work for our atone.

In the next chapter, the writer of Hebrews reminds his Jewish audience that the sacrifices of bulls and goats never worked:

"For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins." (Hebrews 10: 2)

The purging of our sins through animals was just not good enough!

"3But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. 4For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." (Hebrews 10: 3-4)

Imagine that! In sacrificing animals, there is still a remembrace of sins!

In the same way, when we take our inventory, when we go over all the bad things that we have done, we do not break free from sin, but we find instead that sin breaks us even more! For the concept of confessing one's sins is part of this old covenant of temporary atonement!

But Jesus has come down as our final sin offering, the Lamb who takes [present tense!] the sins of the world:

"14For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified."

This perfection does not deal with behavior, for believers still walk around in fallen bodies in a fallen world with a fallen enemy. Yet even the Old Testament provides comfort:

"For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief." (Proverbs 24: 16)

"Just" means "righteous", and we are the righteousness of God in Christ -- there is no falling down for us that will last forever. In Christ, we fall up, for where sin abounds, grace does more abound (Romans 3:23) Of course, the born-again believer does not sin on purpose, for fear of taking in death in our bodies, but God takes our failures and turns them into successes.

For years, I struggled with fears and resentments, convinced that I had to do something about them. In Christ, I receive the rich and never-ending reward that I can never be brought into condemnation every again.

The sense of sin, of wrongdoing, of fear of reprisal or punishment is forever taken away in all that Christ Jesus has done at the Cross.

Yet in AA, the sin conscience is perpetuated in taking our inventories over and over.

What's worse, people today do not have animal sacrifices that they can make, yet they are not informed of  the truth in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that in Him all our sins are taken away forever.

No wonder so many believers struggle and fail in Twelve Step Programs. They believe in a Savior who died for all their sins, yet at the same time they are told that they must confess their sins in order to be set free from condemnation.

There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus, none! That is the Gospel!

Sin conscience makes us sensitive, a sense of sin and wrongdoing that must be punished in us. That conscience is taken away in Christ. No need to fight with resentments and fears.