Perfecting the Conscience

The perfection of the conscience is introduced in Hebrews 9:

8 ¶ The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing,
9 which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience,
10 since they relate only to food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until a time of reformation.

One unfortunate shortfall of the Jewish ritual system was that it did not actually cleanse the conscience of the worshipper. The ritual washings could only clean the body, not the mind. Christ’s sacrifice was far superior because his blood actually purges the conscience of the believer:

13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified,
14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God (Hebrews 9:13,14 NRSV)!

Chapter 10 continues to elaborate upon the cleansing of the believer’s conscience:

1 ¶ For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.
2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins?
3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year.

Hebrews is making its point by reference to the Day of Atonement. The cultic worshippers were never really cleansed from their sin. They were reminded each year on the Day of Atonement. And then the cycle started again. The people never really had rest from their sin. It was not purged from their conscience. They knew they would face it again on the DoA

To be perfect is to have no more remembrance or consciousness of of sins, as Hebrews 10:1,2 states. The conscience could not be cleansed like this in the Jewish ritual.

Christ, by one offering, has perfected forever them who are sanctified (Heb.10:14).

Verses 1 and 2 define perfection as having “no more consciousness of sins” Verse 14 tells us that we are perfected forever . The sanctified, according to Hebrews 9:13,14 are those whose conscience has been purged by the blood of Christ. They will never again face their sin, as the Jews did every year on the Day of Atonement.

Hebrews tells us that those whose conscience has been purged or cleansed by the blood of Christ [sanctified] will never again face their sins or call them to remembrance.