The Cleansing of the Conscience – Hebrews 9:11-14

He mentions the respect of these dead works unto conscience in particular, because it is conscience which is concerned in peace with God and confidence of approach unto him. Sin variously affects all the faculties of the soul, and there is in it a peculiar defilement of conscience, Tit. 1:15. But that wherein conscience in the first place is concerned, and wherein it is alone concerned, is a sense of guilt. This brings along with it fear and dread; whence the sinner dares not approach into the presence of God. It was conscience which reduced Adam unto the condition of hiding himself from God, his eyes being opened by a sense of the guilt of sin. So he that was unclean by the touching of a dead body was excluded from all approach unto God in his worship. Hereunto the apostle alludes in the following words, “That we may serve the living God;” As he who was unclean by a dead body might not approach unto the worship of God until he was purified; so a guilty sinner, whose conscience is affected with a sense of the guilt of sin, dares not to draw nigh unto or appear in the presence of God. It is by the working of conscience that sin deprives the soul of peace with God, of boldness or confidence before him, of all right to draw nigh unto him. Until this relation of sin unto the conscience be taken away, until there be “no more conscience of sin,” as the apostle speaks, Heb. 10:2,—that is, conscience absolutely judging and condemning the person of the sinner in the sight of God,—there is no right, no liberty of access unto God in his service, nor any acceptance to be obtained with him. – John Owen