Reminders and Remembrance

Under the Law of Moses, the sacrificial system reminded devout Israelites of their sins, failures and shortcomings year after year. In this respect, it was much like a nagging mother: you know she’s right, but you wish she’d please stop talking. As the writer to the Hebrews puts it, “It is impossible for the blood for bulls and goats to take away sins.”

If that’s what Israel was looking for, it went home disappointed. The fix was only temporary.

The Problem of Conscience

Concerning the law, Hebrews says:

“It can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?”

So then, the law could never make the worshiper perfect. That was not its intended purpose.

We may forgive a new Christian reading Hebrews for the first time if he asks us an impertinent question, one that comes to mind if he is realistic about the operation of his conscience. That is “How is my new situation any different from that of the devout Israelite under the law? I am still deeply conscious of my sins, even though Hebrews says Christ’s sacrifice was once for all. What am I doing wrong?” Perhaps he has been reading Romans 7, and can hear the words of the apostle Paul resonating: “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

By a Single Offering

It may help him to know that the writer to the Hebrews never promised him Christ’s sacrifice would make Christians feel good about sin or make it easier for us to ignore when we commit one. That is not the argument he is making in Hebrews 10. His task was to explain to Jews steeped in the Law of Moses why the shadows and symbols of their religious practices had been forever eclipsed and were in the process of being discarded. Something better had come.

In fact, I will always be conscious of my own sin so long as I live in a fallen world. If the explicit revelation of the person and work of the Lord Jesus on the cross does not make me more conscious of my sins than the Israelite trekking back and forth to Jerusalem with his doomed livestock, viewing the work of Messiah only in symbol, allegory and obscure prophetic references, then I have not rightly understood it. The Christian conscience, operating under the direction of the Holy Spirit of God indwelling the believer, is the most finely tuned sin-detection mechanism in human history. When I go amiss, believe me, I know it.

Nothing and Everything

So then, in one sense the cross changed nothing about the conscience: men and women still feel guilt and shame when they sin, and many feel it more acutely than ever. In another sense, everything changed. What’s different is this: my enjoyment of my relationship with God requires nothing of me beyond my one-time acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice on my behalf. No animals have to be picked out of the flock or herd, no treks to the temple have to be made, no rivers of useless blood have to flow. “By a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” This remains true even when my conscience works less than perfectly and my daily washing of confession and repentance for sin has been less-than-scrupulous. These are not what save me. These are not what perfected me for all time in the eyes of a thrice-holy God.

So then, legally and positionally I am sanctified already, set apart to God for all time by the work of Christ accepted on my behalf. Practically, however, my sanctification remains an ongoing project until the return of the Lord.

Perfected for All Time

But what a difference the cross makes! Where the sacrifices under the Law of Moses obliged the sinner to stare unblinkingly at his sin, heave a great sigh of “Not again!” and begin the long trudge to the altar to watch yet another life be taken on his behalf, I have only to look at Christ to be reminded that he has already perfected me for all time. No further sacrifice is required. There will be no more death on my behalf. Thanks to that one perfect sacrifice, God has promised to complete the work of transforming me into the likeness of his perfect Son, and he will most certainly make good on his promise.

The Israelite under the law had sacrifice as a reminder [anamnēsis] of sin. I have bread and wine among the redeemed in remembrance [anamnēsis] of Christ. Where the thought “What must I do now?” plagued the Israelite conscience, I can say, “Look at what Christ has done.”

For the Christian, the answer to a troubled conscience is not to look within, but to look at Christ.