Conscience – A Purged Conscience, Part 6

And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (Heb 9:22) 

[Study Aired November 18, 2023]

A body, and particularly the mind, having been purged of physical or spiritual evil, presents a cleansed Temple, illustrating a pure conscience for the Lord to reside as the only master. No greater peace is experienced than there is in not hiding from sin but rather exposing our nakedness before our Lord for His purging of our conscience and the resulting jubilation of a pure conscience.

Amo 3:3  Can two walk together, except they be agreed? [Our body with the stomach and our minds with Christ]

There is not one person among us who hasn’t experienced an ill-fated intestinal purging upon ingesting some dodgy snack; it’s a dreadful experience, especially if ‘both ends’ are in the chorus. If the purge is particularly dire and you are fading in and out of consciousness, death seems a genuinely welcome development.

The only place in scripture where the terms “purged” and “conscience” are used in one sentence is Hebrews 10:2 regarding Christ’s sacrifice, and the only verse to use the expression “purging” is 1 Samuel 3:14 with the Lord informing Samuel that he would not purge the iniquity that his predecessor, Eli, allowed. In that instance, we would normally expect that the Lord always requires a thorough purging of any opposition to his word. Yet, a good purging often requires the idols of our heart to build up a volume of spiritually foul refuse so that when the purge comes, mighty will be its flood, and it always is a most memorable occasion.

Here is the meaning of the root word “Purge”:

Transliteration: Taher
– Phonetic: taw-hare’
– Definition: 

1. to be clean, be pure 
2. (Qal) 
3. to be clean (physically – of disease) 
4. to be clean ceremonially 
5. to purify, be clean morally, made clean 
6. (Piel) 
7. to cleanse, purify 1b 
8. physically 1b 
9. ceremonially 1b 
10. morally 

– Origin: a primitive root
– TWOT entry: 792
– Part(s) of speech: Verb

As with every study on the many nuances of our “conscience”, a powerful reference almost always begins in Eden without directly using a direct reference to the root word.

Undeniably, the spewing out of Adam and Eve from Eden for their sin is associated with evil being purged from what is good, namely access to the Tree of Life.

Gen 3:24  So he [God] drove [H1651] out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Being purged from Eden by the use of the term “drove” means H1641 to expel, drive or cast out as we all have experienced gastrically disagreeable things infecting the temple of our bodies. We shall see that the torture of a good purge of mind and body prepares the Temple which we are to receive the King of Kings to reside in a habitation of purity.

Every man and woman ever to have lived, from Adam to the end of the One-Thousand Year reign with the rod of iron, will bow down and worship Christ ~ the one who was purged of His fleshly existence for mankind to likewise mind the things of the spirit that never need to be purged of impurity.

In Hebrews 9:22 is the caption verse that is immensely foundational to being given eternal life…

Heb 10:1  For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. 

… and subsequently must be purged with blood, first by Christ and then by us daily in spirit. It is not the physical purging of blood that the Lord is requiring, but rather the perfect conscience, knowing that it is purged of all things contrary to His word, that profoundly provides peace through a pure heart. 

Heb 9:22  And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

If our minds are not at peace through a good conscience in accordance with all the Lord’s commandments, there remains no remission. By that criteria, it makes our quest for unity in Christ seemingly impossible. Not so, since once we authentically acknowledge our sins and trust in Christ’s continuance to build His Temple within, our sins are not held against us, and thus we have remission for sin. 

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

Knowing that sinful flesh is indigenous to sin, and once we acknowledge our sin and are forgiven by Christ’s blood, we have a pure conscience from sin. Even though we remain in flesh subject to sin, even the very same sin just forgiven, if we authentically trust in our Lord’s sacrifice and forgiveness, the giants will be utterly driven from our land, leaving us with a purged, and thus, a pure conscience.

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

The old ordinances hammered home to ancient Israel the plan of salvation through the various holy days and feast days and are ‘ensamples’ for us to reflect upon spiritually.

Mat 26:26  And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
Mat 26:27  And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; 
Mat 26:28  For this is my blood of the new testament [the commandments of God now spiritually kept], which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Mat 26:29  But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine [representing his blood], until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom. [… when He will spiritually drink in holy communion in unity with His Wife in the presence of the Father]

1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

The corruption of the inner man, as gastrointestinally typified, needs to be purged to accommodate the new spiritual man.

1Co 15:51  Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
1Co 15:52  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Christ’s “blood of the New Testament” represents keeping all the commandments in spirit and truth; he had to die pouring out his blood to be purged of sinful flesh in preparation to return to his former glory. As Christ exemplified, so too, do we follow him, thankfully mostly spiritually rather than a bloody death, by spiritually keeping His commands being purged of all impurities of the flesh that the Old Covenant could never accomplish.

The critical point is that God designed physical sacrifices powerless to take away sins; how could a physical and decaying thing be more powerful than His Spirit. Christ had to come in sinful flesh that didn’t sin to exemplify the path to our purging daily of the flesh elements contrary to His Commands to make way for the growing perfection in and by Him.

Continuing in Hebrews 10…

Heb 10:5  Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
Heb 10:6  In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. [How can an inferior physical thing have greater glory over the image that casts its shadow?]
Heb 10:7  Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. 
Heb 10:8  Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; [Without the law we would have no knowledge for the difference between good and evil and the higher honour of transitioning to the perfect good in Christ and the Father]
Heb 10:9  Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
Heb 10:10  By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. [Christ’s death and life is the path for humanity to follow by us all being purged of the flesh to facilitate a pure conscience]
Heb 10:11  And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:

“The same sacrifices” terminology indicates the impossibility for the remission of sins by physical sacrifices. Even by the power of Christ within, we still battle the wretchedness of flesh internally, momentarily returning to Egypt. 

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Heb 10:12  But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; 
Heb 10:13  From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. [“expecting” ~ knowing that our flesh is very likely to produce the same sin until it exists no more]

The blood of all the Saints is under the altar that Christ is; we are His footstool. (Rev 6:9  And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar [Christ] the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:)

Heb 10:14  For by one offering he hath perfected for ever [even while in sinful flesh] them that are sanctified [set apart].
Heb 10:15  Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, 
Heb 10:16  This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
Heb 10:17  And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. [Having been purged of loving the pleasures of the flesh more than God]
Heb 10:18  Now where remission of these is, [Release from bondage or imprisonment ~ a body purged of the letter of the law] there is no more offering for sin [because it is purged leaving only a pure conscience].

By the process of being purged of all reliance on amplifying the desires of the flesh and doctrines contrary to Christ’s commands, our minds become exponentially capable of receiving the spirit. The Elect of God are first to receive the greater portion of God’s spirit by being purged daily of an evil conscience and thus please the holy spirit for a peaceable conscience.

Eph 4:30  And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

1Th 5:19  Quench not the spirit. 

No greater sense of purging was there than was instituted in the Laws of Moses with the Days of Unleavened Bread covertly instituted before Israel left Egypt, inclusive of the shedding of each household’s lamb’s blood to signify the much later shedding of Christ’s blood. The death of the Egyptian’s firstborn parallels the Lord’s Elect’s daily death of the firstborn of their symbolically sinful children within. The Elect being first to be purged paves the way by this study’s caption verse and Psalm 68:31 denoting the Lord’s Elect coming out of Egypt, Babylon and Ethiopia, pointing to them saving their brothers and sisters of the world.

Heb 9:22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

Psa 68:31  Princes [ambassadors] shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God [in the Resurrection to Judgment].

Upon Israel leaving Egypt, Exodus says,

Exo 12:33  And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We be all dead men.
Exo 12:34  And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneadingtroughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders.

The Egyptians’ haste for Israel to leave their land highlights that good cannot coexist with evil; we cannot serve two spiritual masters. 

Israel departed in the night by the light of a full moon, the budding Church she was becoming and was utter darkness to the Egyptians.

Mat 6:21  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also [In Egypt, Babylon, Old Jerusalem or Christ?].
Mat 6:22  The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
Mat 6:23  But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
Mat 6:24  No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon [riches of Egypt].

We are urgent in this late stage to Christ’s outward return for us to likewise be exceedingly joyful to have left Babylon with lessening regard to retaining her bloated (leavened) doctrines as we look forward to Christ rebuilding the unleavened Temple of the New Jerusalem within.

1Co 5:6  Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
1Co 5:7  Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
1Co 5:8  Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

The Lord can choose an eight-year-old to humbly lead a nation if He so chooses, as He did with Josiah for Israel. No doubt, Josiah had respect for the guidance of his elders and mentors, who, too, must have been mostly righteous. Nonetheless, all young Josiah had to do was reflect upon the simplicity of his father, King David’s largely righteous rule and mimic his judgments in the land of Israel. The following scriptures chronicle Josiah’s foundational steps to recreating honor, respect and fear in Israel for their Lord’s commands. So, too, is this process to be spiritually replicated in the Temple of God today within us.

Interestingly, Josiah was eight years old upon becoming King of Israel, which signifies our, and lastly, the world’s complete judgment being purged of all falsehoods, completing the perfection of the spirit within on the Eighth Day following the Feast of Tabernacles.

2Ch 34:1  Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years.

That is 39 years in total – 30+9 being the spiritual progression for the completion of judgment and the beginning of all creation in the new spiritual ‘man’ in Christ.

2Ch 34:2  And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left.
2Ch 34:3  For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.
2Ch 34:4  And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. 
2Ch 34:5  And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
2Ch 34:6  And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks [Sword; knife] round about. 
2Ch 34:7  And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem [… all denoting a good purging].

Skipping to 2Ch 34:33 and 2Ch 35:18-19:

2Ch 34:33  And Josiah took away [purged] all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the LORD their God. And all his days they departed not from following the LORD, the God of their fathers.

2Ch 35:17  And the children of Israel that were present kept the passover at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven days.
2Ch 35:18  And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
2Ch 35:19  In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah was this passover kept [again, judgment with a witness of two – 2×9=18].

Purging is outwardly and mostly typified by vomit and excrement, of which we all are too aware and go to great lengths of cleanliness to avoid its origins. Spiritual purging for the Elect of God is highly profitable and desirable to achieve spiritual cleanliness. Our Lord commands us to enthusiastically give him our whole heart, as do all young marrieds to each other. At first, Israel in the wilderness likewise committed her heart to her Lord, and like most marriages without the holy spirit, the wife, representing a church, grows weary of intimacies inherently independent of a righteous husband. A wife’s indifference to her Lord’s kisses invariably causes him bitterness, and she effectively assumes the distasteful term the ‘hated wife’ which Old Israel became (Deu 21:15-17).

Rev 3:15  I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 
Rev 3:16  So then because thou [kisses] art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue [purge] thee out of my mouth.
Rev 3:17  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing [least of all her Lord’s kisses, his word]; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 
Rev 3:18  I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
Rev 3:19  As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

The concept of purging is rudimentary to any budding elect on the milk of the word. By the time we have examined all seventeen aspects of our conscience, its repetitive and closely associated terms will have established in our hearts a powerful reminder for every thought and utterance, hopefully resulting in a pure conscience on all occasions.

We have seen that the word “purge” is mentioned 792 times in scripture; however, there are possibly thousands of subtle, nuanced references. Merely go to any biblical conception (even a single verse), and you will almost always see a spiritually discerned reference to some form of conscience. Following is one of such randomised darts:

Rev 22:7  Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.

A person cannot keep all of Christ’s commandments without a pure conscience, since preceding that God-given status he has to be given the choice of good or evil. Being given to choose an awful lot of evil in our lifetime, with the subsequent painful trials, builds spiritual fortitude to consistently choose righteously.

Being given the Lord’s spirit to discern His spirit is, in type, the best poetry; after all, Christ conceptualised poetry requires listening for the still, small voice behind us that electrifies our understanding.

As an exercise, go ahead and choose any scriptural abstraction, and for the spiritual mind, the not-so-subtle shade of residing conscience will immediately stand out.

T.S. Eliot is a brilliant bard whose works demand deciphering with a form of spiritual insight. Here is a typical example:

“It is a test (a positive test; I do not assert that it is always valid negatively) that genuine poetry [for us, the Bible!] can communicate before it is understood.” T. S. Eliot.

Now, we know that in reading poetry, there are many undertones of insight for the individual’s delight, just as there is in spiritually understanding the Bible. As an example, understanding the Song of Solomon can cause one’s mind to run riot, and if its code indirectly amplifies and glorifies Christ for the individual’s uplifting, it is a heavenly moment.

Regarding Eliot’s accompanying verse, we are drawn to ‘a positive test’ of understanding Eliot’s style of poetry. On the surface, it communicates the assumed obvious but is only understood by listening to the still, small voice behind what the individual receives. The difference between man’s poetry and our Lord’s is that Christ’s poetry will always require His Elect to understand spiritually, no matter how many sub-roots of possible accord, even its always corresponding negative reflections to His people, become a positive understanding. As Eliot says, “… genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood”, and that statement is dynamically true to our former selves when in Babylon, believing that the Bible is to be understood physically. 

Joh 9:39  And Jesus said, I have come into this world for judgment, that they who do not see might see, and that they who see might be made blind.
Joh 9:40  And those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, Are we also blind? 
Joh 9:41  Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say, We see. Therefore your sin remains.

What I get from Eliot’s statement is that negative reflections on good poetry are numerous, like the many nuances of our conscience. There is only one positive form of conscience (as God only exists in the purity of one mind), that is an eternal state of a pure conscience, but there are legions of evil versions of our conscience that cause a Gentile Christian to throw up his hands in Babylonian confusion since he is not given to rightly divide the truth spiritually.

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

It is undeniable that to attain a pure conscience requires an incredible amount of purging of the 200,000,000 locusts of lies, and that often takes painful purging since the Lord’s work within His remnant is to be a relatively short one.

Rom 9:28  For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.

May the Lord bless us all with purgings, most excellent to attain purity in conscience as He and our Father unconsciously exist (… God doesn’t contend an evil conscience, and thus He doesn’t need to be conscious of evil [Heb 8:12] or decaying flesh Rev 20:14, 21:27).

Rev 22:20  He who testifies these things says, Yes, I am coming quickly, Amen. Yes, come, Lord Jesus. 
Rev 22:21  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you. Amen.