This deeply precious truth, observe, does not mean that there is no more _consciousness_ of sins. Far from it. Or that we may not get a bad conscience through failure; or that we need not be exercised "to have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man." Not at all. It simply means that Christ, by the one, perfect, finished sacrifice of Himself, has forever put away all our sins--root and branch. And having been led to know and believe this, how can there be sins on the conscience? Christ has put them all away. The precious blood of our once-offered and accepted Sacrifice has cleansed us from every spot and stain of sin. There may be the deepest sense of indwelling sin, and of many sins and shortcomings in our every-day life, and the painful confession of them all to God; still there is the full assurance that Christ died for our sins, put them all away, and that not one of them can ever be laid to our charge. This is indeed a most wonderful truth; but it is the great, the needed truth for a worshiper. How could we stand in God's presence, where all is perfection, if we were not as clean as He would have us to be? We must be clean enough for the eye of Infinite Holiness. But, blessed be God, all who believe in Jesus, and rest on His finished sacrifice, are forgiven and justified; they have eternal life, righteousness, and peace. The first cry for mercy of the guilty sinner is answered by the blood of the Sacrifice. It penetrates to the deepest depths of his need; it raises him to the highest heights of heaven, and fits him to be there, a happy worshiper, in the immediate presence of the throne of God.--"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."--"For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!" (1 Peter iii. 18; Heb. ix. 13, 14.)