Hebrews 10:21-22

In Hebrews 10:22, the NIV and other versions imply a reference to a guilty (feeling of shame) in respect to “conscience”.  I propose a better solution.

We Christians affirm that God made the human race.  We hold that he created within each of us an ability to know others and God.  We ‘know’ through the facility that we call “our mind”.  God also created in us an ability to know ourselves.  We call that ability “our soul”, “our selfness” or “our innermost being”.  It is a part of our humanness.

We Christians affirm that every person has these abilities from the moment of conception.  (Even fetuses know that events are happening around their mother.  They sense vibrations and feel adrenalin from their mother.)  After we are born, we can increase our ability to know ourselves, others and God, as we grow and as we interact with other people.

We recognize that part of our human skill in “knowing” is that we intuitively evaluate that some actions are “good, beneficial, desirable” and some actions are “bad, damaging, undesirable”.  We know this differentiation between “good” and “bad” in our own actions and the actions of others.  Most people evaluate God’s actions in the same way that they evaluate the actions of people.

Those deep feelings that we feel within ourselves we commonly call “conscience”.  Initially, for ourselves, we are inclined to choose to do actions that are “good” and to turn away from those that are “bad”.  For others, we desire that they do “good” actions and that they refuse to do “bad” actions.  For God, initially, we Christians are inclined to assume that God always intends to do “good”.  We are trusting toward ourselves, toward others and toward God.

As we develop physically and spiritually, there are changes.

The culture of each person’s family and clan can increase the inclination to do good

The mothers are usually the persons who influence most deeply the inner character of their children.  They shape each child’s innermost both by modeling and direct teaching.  Since mothers are influencing the children while they are formative, a mother’s guidance affects very deeply.

In many societies, children learn from their fathers (also grandfathers and uncles) by observing their behavior, though some direct teaching may be instilled at the time of rites of passage.  Unfortunately, much of the direct teaching is focused on maintaining the continuance of the culture, not on building good character.

Unfortunately, some cultures can diminish a person’s inclination to do good or allow neglect of his or her doing good:

Some cultures diminish their peoples to incline to do “good” actions.

Some cultures incline their peoples to expect “bad” actions from others, not only diminishing their expecting “good” actions by others.

Very unfortunately, some cultures diminish their people’s expecting that God wants to do “good” toward them.

There is a parable told among Native Americans that there are wolves (or dogs) within each person—a white one and a black one.  They are constantly fighting.  The one who is strongest on any day is the one that the person has fed.

It seems to me that the teaching of the Apostles might be visualized in a different way.  Perhaps we might think of our conscience as pot filled with honey.  When we are born, the honey begins to ooze out of a small hole designed for its coming out.  Our conscience is delightful to us and to others.  As we develop as children, juveniles and adults, something gets mixed in from another source, something like dark molasses.  It is sweet, though we know it is not the same.  In a person who has been strongly influenced by his culture, it will seem “sweet” to revenge kill a person of another tribe, or to abandon female babies in the forest.  Gays and lesbians taste the sweetness of their holding each other.

The Apostles communicated about our ability to recognize the difference between “good” and “bad”.  Our personal “conscience” urges us to do good actions and to avoid doing what we know we should not do.  If we do an action that we later recognize as wrong, our conscience helps us repent.

Paul referred to the mixing of the honey with dark molasses as a “corrupted conscience”.  Humans generally develop this as they learn from their parents and from their culture.  He can correctly call it “corrupted” because it is a condition different from their condition as small children.  The culture has influenced the people’s attitudes and thus it has shaped their feelings about what actions they approve and what actions they disapprove.

Titus 1:15: To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure.  In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.

1 Corinthians 8:7: But not everyone knows this.  Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food, they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is (still) defiled.  (Paul referred to a condition that existed before the person believed, implying that the expected change was yet incomplete.)

The Apostles affirmed to us that Jesus changed things.  They affirm that the Holy Spirit changes people.

John reported that God engendered new life in believers: “…children…born of God.”

Paul referred to the newness: “…he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

The author of the sermon we call “Hebrews” affirmed that the undesirable condition of us humans was not resolved by rituals, writing: “…Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience… (Hebrews 9:9, NASB)     
He affirmed that the Israelite rituals did not change the perspectives of the worshippers toward an intended goal.  He wanted the people to recognize that such a change was possible and expected.

Thus, it seems that author of “Hebrews” implied that Jesus, in his capacity as Supreme Priest, has accomplished the goal that that the old sacrificial rituals did not accomplish. The believers are changed so that they recover the innocent consciences that they had as children.

…how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:14, NASB)

The communicator used “the blood of Christ” to refer to Jesus ritually placing his blood in heaven.  The author wanted the believers to recognize that Jesus’ act of placing his blood before God resulted that we who believe are changed inside us so that we regain our ability to choose right actions in the manner a new person knows how to do good (“serve the living God”).

The Greek verb means “to purify, to make pure something that had been impure”.  Here it seems to refer to the REMOVAL of our inclination as humans to do wrong actions.  There is a change of condition.  When the change is completed, we will be avoiding the cultural habits and attitudes that otherwise would cause God to condemn us.

Could we not visualize this as the removal of the dark molasses that has been mixing with the honey that God started flowing in us as children?

The preacher continued to teach:

…let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:22, NASB)

He referred to an “evil (corrupt)” conscience.  He did not mean “guilty (feeling shame)” conscience.  He referred to the CHANGING of our consciences, from an “evil conscience” to the conscience of a new person.

The concept “sprinkled (to become) clean” is linked with “our hearts” and with the “washing of our bodies”.  It refers to a ritual related to people.  Thus, it seems to allude to the ritual in which Moses (and the elders) sprinkled bloody water on every Israelite when they promised to obey God.  That ritual momentarily purified the people and made them God’s people.

For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people…  (Hebrews 9:19, NASB.   See also Exodus 24:4-8.)

The sprinkling ritual of long ago changed the people into God’s people by their agreement.  It seems that the author of Hebrews implied that Jesus’ sprinkling his blood accomplished the propitiation of sins AND that ritual changed his followers (both those who were living at that moment and all of us of the future) to make us covenant people of God.

Is the imaging of honey and molasses flowing in us helpful to you?