The pressures of secularism can mean that even Christians place more value on earthly things than heavenly, as if heaven was an afterthought in our lives and the really important things are to do with the here and now. This is entirely back to front, as James Durham realised and endeavoured to remind his hearers — Christians of all people should live in a heavenly way. Durham preached a sermon on the words, “Our conversation is in heaven …” (Philippians 3:20). When it was first published it was titled “A Very Heavenly Sermon.” The following updated extract explains what is meant by heavenliness, and explains why as Christians we should pursue heavenliness.

The word “conversation” or “citizenship” implies both entitlement to the privileges which belong to a certain township, and a distinctive manner of living and behaving according to the customs of that city. For Christians, it signifies a joint interest with the saints (as they are fellow citizens with the saints; Eph. 2:19), and assumes a way, walk, and lifestyle like heaven — having a nature, inclinations, desires, designs, and qualifications that are distinctively suitable to heaven.

There is a sort of heavenliness which all Christians without exception should pursue, and which is indeed their duty.

Through grace, heavenliness is in a great measure attainable. Paul and other believers attained it. It means a suitableness in respect of qualification, conformity and likeness, in so far as is incumbent to sojourners who are walking towards heaven.

It marks out the serious and suitably exercised Christian in a unique and contradistinguishing way from all others in the world. That Christian’s “conversation” is in heaven, while that of others is not.

Yet it’s not an ordinary and common thing among professing Christians, to have this heavenliness. “Many” (says the apostle) “walk, of whom I have told you, and now tell you weeping, that they are enemies to the cross of Christ: but I and a few others have our conversation in heaven.” The “many” that he speaks of here, I take to be those of whom he speaks in the chapter 1, who preached Christ, but out of envy, and exhorted people to holiness, likely with more than ordinary fervour, yet they did not have this heavenliness.

What is heavenliness?

Prizing heaven

Heavenliness is when we set heaven in our sights as our own great aim and purpose, next to the glory of God. Just as having an “earthly” conversation means that you mind earthly things, and you keep inclining towards them, and are wholly or mostly taken up about the things of the world, so to be heavenly is to have your mind taken up about heaven, prizing, affecting and seeking after heaven and heavenly things. “Seek after, or set your affections on, those things that are above” (Col. 3:1).

Actively making for heaven

Heavenliness includes taking the way that leads to the end — using all means and duties that lead to heaven. Paul indicates the earnestness and ardency of affections that Christians ought to have towards heavenly things, and how very much they should, with holy care and solicitude, be busy in using all means, and practicing all duties, which will further and promote heavenliness. It’s the counterpoint of how the worldly are taken up and exercised with carking cares, leaving no stone unmoved to promote and attain their earthly goals.

Acting like we will in heaven

Heavenliness means walking like those who are in heaven. Instead of being conformed to the world, or like the men of the world, we are to be like the angels and glorified saints in heaven, according to our capacity. As we are taught to pray, ‘Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven.’ It’s to be one of a kind with and have a natural suitableness and proportionableness to those who are glorified in heaven.

Visiting heaven often

Heavenliness means we are often in heaven as to our thoughts and affections, and our desires and delights. Although we live on the earth, we should have, as it were, more than our one half in heaven. David says, “Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul” (Psa. 25:1). We should make frequent visits to heaven — we should have much to do there, have much to-and-fro, commerce, correspondence and interactions in and with heaven. We should converse more where we love, than where we live. Scripture calls this walking with God, having fellowship with Him, following hard after Him, and so on.

Why should the Christian pursue heavenliness?

In verse 17, the apostle exhorted the Philippians to be followers of him, and here he tells them that his conversation is in heaven. He proposes himself as our pattern in this, and the Spirit of God by him presses it on us as our duty to imitate him in this thing. It is not so singular a practice that he alone has the monopoly on heavenliness. It was common to him and other serious Christians according to their measure, which is why he doesn’t say “my conversation” but, “our conversation.”

A Christian’s “conversation” or “citizenship” should be heavenly because all that a Christian has is from and in heaven, and is some way heavenly.

Look, first, at the Christian’s nature. It’s from heaven; he is partaker of the divine nature, he is born of God, he is of the new Jerusalem, his Father is heavenly (as he is taught to pray, “Our Father, which art in heaven,” or, “Our heavenly Father”)

Where is the elder Brother? In the heavenly places. The Christian’s treasure is in heaven; his hope is in heaven; heaven is the city, the mansion, the rest, to which he is travelling.

Look, secondly, at the believer’s calling and his obligation. He is partaker of the heavenly calling (Heb. 2:1). Separated from the rest of the world, the Christian ought not to live as the world lives. He has a heavenly law to walk by. He has heavenly promises to feed on and live on, and to comfort himself in. His happiness is heavenly. All the duties that he is called to are heavenly.

Are not his prayers and praises heavenly? and can a believer possibly pray and praise rightly and not be heavenly?

To be translated from darkness to light, to be a partaker of the sanctifying Spirit of God, to be a new creature, to have the spirit of adoption, to have boldness of access to God, to be an heir and a joint-heir with Christ, &c. — are these not heavenly?

Or if, thirdly, we look at the believer’s company, is it not heavenly? We are come (says the apostle, Heb. 12) to God the judge of all, to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, to the new Jerusalem (which refers to all the saints in heaven and the saints on earth), to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly of the first born, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.

In a word, whatever we look to, whether to the believer’s nature, or to his end, or to the rule of his walk, or to the promises, or to his work and way wherein he is to go, it is all heavenly.

How can we be convinced to pursue heavenliness?

We should understand from all this what a high level of holiness we are called to. Many have clearly never walked under the conviction that holiness is necessary as a duty; otherwise it would not be possible that so many men and women, who are called Christians and profess a hope of heaven, could or would dare to live as they do — some in profanity, riotousness and gluttony, some in mere respectability and morality, and others in formality and hypocrisy at best.

Let me ask you in all earnestness, are you not convinced that this is a duty? or do you think that Paul was joking, or flattering, when he exhorts us to follow him in this? Or that it’s possible to enjoy so many heavenly privileges, or be to any purpose performing heavenly duties, if you are not heavenly? Don’t get the wrong idea about Christianity, as if when you are exhorted to be Christians, you are only invited not to be profane, or only to go about the externals of religion, or only to have a sort of mere sincerity in it. Indeed these things are good in themselves and we do not, we dare not, reject them, but rather commend them. But you are called to more, to much more!

I know some are so profane, and others are so misbelievingly discouraged, that when they hear such doctrine as this, they will be ready, the one sort to say, “Well, we can’t all be saints!” and the other, “Sadly, whoever is going to be a saint, it won’t be me!” But let all such mouths be stopped. We are called and obliged indispensably to be saints. If we are not saints here, we shall never be saints hereafter.

There are also some who have such distempered attitudes that they either put off all or most duties, or at least go about them very heartlessly, because they cannot attain perfection in them. But it’s clear from the Scriptures that there is a kind of perfection that can be attained here in this life, which is this holiness and heavenliness. When you shall be called to a reckoning, God will not ask you so much whether you did not get drunk, whore, swear, lie, cheat, steal, or the like, as whether you were heavenly in your way of life? Holiness is not to be limited to some few particular duties, but is the requisite qualification of a Christian in all duties and in all actions. Whether Christians are praying, practising, hearing, reading, buying, selling, eating, drinking, or whatever it may be, they are to be heavenly in it all

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Once someone’s conscience perceives the glaring mismatch between what God requires from us and what we are really like, it can stir up an alarming storm of self-accusations and self-recriminations as well as anxieties about what we justly deserve for our sins. It can feel like being in a storm with billowing waves about to overwhelm us at any point. But Jesus throws us a lifeline. He is able to pacify both the demands of justice and the turmoils of conscience because by His death He has dealt with His people’s sins. As James Durham explains in a sermon on “the blood of sprinkling,” Jesus’ blood is enough to shelter us and pull us safely out of the storm of wrath and convictions. In the following updated extract, Durham helps us to admire the power and preciousness of the blood of Christ from a number of angles.

How we ought to commend the bargain of free grace! and to hold out the excellency of the blood of sprinkling! This should also mightily encourage the believer to step forward.

The excellence of Christ’s blood

It produces such noble effects

Noble and notable effects come by it, i.e., all the great things contained in the promises – pardon of sin, grace to subdue sin, friendship and peace with God, fellowship with Him, conformity to Him, the hope of heaven and glory, the sweet serenity, tranquillity and peace of the conscience. The blood of Christ is a “hiding place from the wind and rain, and a covert from the storm,” just like “the shadow of a great rock in the midst of a weary land.” When the soul sorely beaten with a storm of accusations and apprehensions of wrath comes under the shadow and shelter of this blood, the soul presently finds ease and repose. What shall I say? what can I say? words here may be swallowed up! From the blood of Christ proceeds all the glorious privileges of the people of God – possessed and expected, in hand and in hope.

It procures these things for sinners

The blood of Christ has procured these things to sinners – to those who had an unclean and polluted conscience. Who is it, may I ask, that may draw near to God with full assurance of faith? Not those who never had an evil conscience, but those who do have an evil conscience, that flee to Christ’s blood, and get their conscience sprinkled with it. Those who had their consciences defiled with dead works, who come to the blood, get their consciences purged from dead works.

It is Christ Himself who provides these blessings

The excellency and efficacy of the blood of sprinkling shines forth in the tenderness of the person who applies the remedy to such a loathsome sickness. This disease is utterly incurable if the attempt is made by any hand other than Christ’s. “Having (says the apostle) such an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near.” The physician is Jesus Christ Himself. His blood is the cure, and He is also the one who applies the cure, and O! how very tender, dexterous and sympathizing He is! He even excels in such cures to admiration. He is a high priest who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and higher than the heavens. He is holy and harmless Himself, He loves these qualities, and He is able and willing to work them in those who come to Him. And such a high priest became us. He is “one that hath compassion on the ignorant, and such as are out of the way; who was in all points tempted as we, yet without sin,” so that from His own experience He may the more kindly and strongly sympathize with His people, and succour them in all their temptations. He is a high priest who is “touched with the feeling of their infirmities.” The aching of the least finger or toe in His mystical body throbs up, as it were, to His very heart.

It is so freely applied

The excellency and efficacy of the blood is made apparent in the exceeding great freeness of how He applies the cure. No more is required but to come and receive it – to come, however unclean, and be sprinkled with His blood – to confess the debt of guilt, and get the certificate that it has been paid off, by virtue of how He has paid it. If there is any pollution in the conscience, any challenge, or sore, whatever it may be, He supplies the remedy and cure freely and frankly.

The urgent necessity of Christ’s blood

If the blood of sprinkling is so virtuous and efficacious, for one thing, it gives an encouragement to the guilty to flee to this blood. For another thing, it shows the necessity of making use of it. This is a very pressing and vehemently urgent necessity.

As it was not possible for the manslayer to stand before the avenger of blood outside of the city of refuge, so neither can the guilty sinner stand before his own conscience, far less the tribunal of God, till he has fled to this blood, and had his conscience sprinkled with it.

You have a conscience, and a guilty conscience, with many sins on your score. Your conscience may be asleep for now, but it will most certainly awake eventually, and it will turn into a hot and hard pursuer far beyond what ever any avenger of blood was. The longer it sleeps, in fact, the harder it will pursue. But Christ Jesus is like the city of refuge, and you may now flee to Him and be safe! Seeing all this, o consider! Consider these words of the apostle, which we, in the name of the Lord, say over again to you: “Be it known unto you, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things …” (Acts 13:38–39).

It is the great end and design of the gospel to proclaim the market of grace, and to make this offer to you sinners freely. Taking all this together, O! accept and be humbled under the sense of your guilt, from which you cannot possibly be delivered any other way, and come forward and make use of this offer! And think it over with yourself seriously, I beseech you, if you keep on putting off this day of salvation, and despising this offer of grace, your conscience will certainly wake up on you eventually, and expend itself on you most terribly, and you will never get it quieted.

But if you will now in time embrace and make use of the offer, I dare confidently say, to the commendation of God’s grace and the efficacy of the precious blood of Jesus Christ, that you can never lay that sin before Christ, with whatever aggravations, or that disease, however filthy and loathsome, but the blood of Christ applied by faith can abundantly satisfy God’s justice for it, and pacify and purge the conscience from the guilt and defilement of it.

The strong consolation from Christ’s blood

The blood of sprinkling gives strong consolation in three ways to those who believe in Christ.

When conscience accuses you, the consolation is that there is a city of refuge to run to, a mediator for sinners, a shield to ward off the deadly wound of such a dart.

When you flee as a sinner to this city, the strong consolation is that you shall be made welcome. Therefore the believer doesn’t need to be afraid to make use of Christ, or to come to the blood of sprinkling, for He waits for employment, and it’s all the more to the praise of His exquisite skill, the more He cleanses and cures through its virtue. You may therefore come, and not only so, but come with full assurance of faith of attaining whatever you need and want to have. Come, therefore, believers, boldly to the throne of grace, that ye may find mercy, and obtain grace to help in time of need.

When you have fled to the blood, you may quiet yourself. You are at peace with God, and with your own conscience. Your peace is as sure as God’s covenant, that which cannot be annulled or altered. It is as sure as Christ’s purchase is of worth and efficacy. If the covenant of grace is firm and sure, and if the blood of sprinkling has value and efficacy, then you certainly have solid grounds of peace and consolation.

Therefore I exhort those who believe in Christ on all occasions to flee to Him, to renew your applications by faith to Jesus Christ, and after every defilement to besprinkle your conscience with His blood, and then comfort yourself in it, and bless God, who allows such large and strong consolation on you, and bless the Mediator, who has purchased it for you, by this His own most precious blood.

Finding consolation in the blood is not presumption

But some tender and exercised soul will likely say, “Is it not presumption for me to comfort myself under challenges for sin?” No. Accepting the truth of the accusation, and being humbled for the sin, and betaking yourself to the blood of sprinkling for pardon and purging, [is not presumption]. The apostle commands you to comfort yourself, and surely he doesn’t command anyone to presume. When conscience through guilt accuses us, we are called to flee to the blood, and when we have sprinkled the conscience with it, we have warrant to draw near, and it is not presumption to do so.

Indeed, if we are resting on Christ and comforting ourselves in Him when we have accusations we have to plead guilty to, this suggests that we actually have strong faith, something which Christ is very pleased with, and by which He is much glorified. Presumption will never stand before an evil conscience. Nor will it credit Christ, when conscience sharply accuses. It is not presumption to lean to Christ, but it is presumption to lean to any other thing. It takes no great skill to calm the conscience when there is no storm. But when there are many waves and billows of accusations and discouragements rising and swelling high in the way – it needs skill to go over all these, and grip hard to the rope He throws out, and confidently, though humbly, and in fear to make use of the remedy which He graciously proposes. He will never account it presumption when souls to take to themselves what God allows to them. But it will very readily be accounted presumption to disdain His allowance.

The deadly danger of despising Christ’s blood

If you are not a believer, but lie still in unbelief, and slight our blessed Lord Jesus, O! what a dreadful disadvantage and liability you fall under! This is the great harm you do to yourself – you leave yourself open to the fierce wrath of the Almighty God, and to the tormenting accusations of your own evil conscience, which will be more terrible to you than if hills and mountains fell on you.

In that day it will be clear that an evil conscience really is a dreadfully evil thing, plus you will have this aggravation of your guilt, that you despised the Redeemer, and the costly price of His precious blood paid for the ransom of sinners. You despised the physician who offered at His own cost to cure you perfectly. You despised the guarantor who offered freely and frankly to pay your debt.

Therefore let me in the name of the Lord (who is in earnest with you, and we desire according to our measure to be in earnest with you) – let me warn you to flee from the wrath to come! There is no other foundation on which you can safely base the eternal salvation of your immortal souls but the righteousness of Christ. Nothing can possibly purge and pacify, cleanse and calm the conscience but coming to and washing at the fountain of the blood of Christ. O! then come! If you cannot wash yourself, get Him to do it. Cry like David, “Wash me, cleanse me, purge me, wash me throughly from mine iniquities!” It will be no excuse, I assure you, to claim that you could not do it, since He offered Himself as a fountain to wash at.

Let me therefore once more earnestly beseech you in the name of the Lord, by the love you profess to bear to your own immortal soul, to admit your sin, and to flee, and to flee speedily, to the city of refuge set open before you!

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The sorrow that we feel when a believer dies is not a hopeless kind of sorrow, because we know they are now happy with the Lord. But heaven can seem very misty and distant to us as we trudge on in our own beleaguered lives. Even when we believe in Jesus and are washed from our sins in the blood of Christ, we do not always take the comfort that is available from all the implications and consequences of this. In the Bible, however, the amount of information Jesus gives us about heaven shows that if we can sharpen our focus and get a clearer grasp of where we are heading, then some of the happiness of heaven can infuse our lives here. James Durham’s commentary on the Book of Revelation includes his analysis of the various “steps” of happiness in heaven from Revelation 7. As the following updated extract shows, not only is heaven a happy place, but it can give us happiness on earth too.

Those who are in heaven have come out of great tribulation (Revelation 7:14). But the means of surviving to reach heaven is not their own innocence (for they needed washing), nor their own sufferings or works (for what made them white was “the blood of the Lamb”). It was by taking themselves only to Christ’s satisfaction that they attained this righteousness and the blessedness of heaven. Christ’s red blood can make blood-guilty souls white, it has such excellent virtue. While the rest of the world were worshipping idols, or following self-righteousness, these folk fled to Jesus Christ for refuge, and by His righteousness and satisfaction alone they are made white, pardoned of sin, and brought to heaven.

Their happiness in heaven is set out in these circumstances, or steps.

A happy place

They are “before the throne of God” and “in His temple” (verse 15). They begin to be in this place in His Church on earth, by fellowship in His ordinances. But their position there is completed in heaven this is completed, when they are presented before God’s throne in glory.

A happy activity

Their service and work, and the uninterruptedness of it, are happy. “They serve Him night and day” (verse 15), and have their place among the angels that stand by (Zechariah 3), freed from selfishness and the body of death. They are not doing this service by fits and starts, but constantly, like the priests who took turns to spend night and day in the temple (Psalm 134:1). This is a special part of their happiness – that the enmity which is in them now against the service of God, is then taken away, and their delight in His service is not marred. What a privilege they have! They need no priest, nor any intervening means to help them serve. What constancy they have! There is no intermission in their service, no whoring from God, but they do the will of God cheerfully and delightsomely.

A happy company

A third step of their happy condition is that they enjoy God’s company. “He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them” (verse 15). They are not at a distance from God, nor is He at a distance from them. He makes Himself familiarly known to them, and there is no intermission of their sense and joy in His presence. They do not have communion with God on and off, but He shall constantly and fully manifest Himself as dwelling in the same house with them, and they are in His company for ever.

A happy freedom

Another step of their happiness is that they have freedom from all crosses and natural defects and infirmities, and attacks from others. There is neither hunger nor thirst, nor scorching heat of the sun. That means no persecution, if we take it figuratively (as Matthew 13), or if we take it literally, no disturbance of the air or bad weather or anything hurtful to the body. Not only are there no sinful defects in heaven – there are no sinless defects either. Hunger, cold, weariness – there is nothing of that sort in heaven, nothing to temper their happiness or impair their blessedness, not the least upset from their natural infirmity internally, nor anything externally by annoyance of even the weather.

A happy receiving of the care of the Lamb

The main step of their happiness, which is the great reason for all the rest, and serves to confirm it all, is, “the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them …” (verse 17). The Lamb, Jesus Christ Himself, who is God on the throne, equal to the Father – His care over them will have no lack, but will supply all good.

For one thing, He shall feed them. This includes all the care over them and tenderness to them that is in Him. It also takes in all provision needful for their well-being, in providing for them, and feasting them, and keeping an eye on them so that they will come to no hurt, like a shepherd does with his flock (Psalm 23). He Himself will take them in His special guiding, without any ordinances or any ministers intervening.

For another thing, He shall feed them in the most excellent pastures, not puddles or streams, and not just any fountain, but “living fountains of waters,” which never dry up, and are able to quench all thirst, and cool all heat. Earthly consolations are only static cisterns, or streams at best, but at His right hand is fullness of joy, and pleasures for ever more (Psalm 16). They are fountains full of diversity and abundance of consolations, and they are inexhaustible.

Indeed, “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (verse 17). God will put an end to all their misery. There shall be neither sigh nor tear there, nor cause of tears. Though in their life they were never without tears on their cheeks, yet no sooner shall they enter heaven, but God’s presence and a glimpse of His favour shall wipe them away so that they will never stick there any more, or be seen there again. There is nobody in the happy company in heaven who either actually weeps or has reason to weep or sorrow for ever.

How can this make us happy on earth?

God’s people, especially in difficult times, should be acquainting themselves with the happiness of glory. This is why the Lord goes to such pains to make it known, and reveal it, and put it on display. The Lord stirs up John, and other believers, to look at it and to believe it and to comfort themselves by it. Believing it will prevent us from fainting, insofar as heaven will make an end of all our difficulties. Believing it will help us to submit to what comes our way here, because that time of happiness is coming. And believing it will make our lives lively and comfortable. We can go empty-handed for the time being, when we can comfort ourselves with the happiness of heaven ahead of us.

If those who are in heaven are those who have “come out of tribulation,” then we can reason that tribulations, and even great tribulations, are the way to glory even for those whom God loves most. Jesus Christ Himself drank of the brook by the way (Psalm 110:7), and was made low before He was exalted. His members follow their Head in a conformity of suffering (Romans 8:28–29; Acts 14:22). Suffering would not seem so grim and terrible-like if we had a better realisation of what comes on the back of it. Let none of us think the worse of glory, or think that the happiness of God’s people is of less worth, because tribulations are in the way to it. Neither let anyone prize an easy life in this world with God’s curse.

Those who are in heaven have “washed their garments in the blood of the Lamb who came through tribulation.” Those who are most righteous, whether in active obedience (keeping the law) or in passive obedience (yielding their bodies to be burnt), have need of Christ’s satisfaction to make them white. These worthies kept themselves free from the pollutions of their time and shunned no suffering, but that was not the basis on which they appeared before God. Holiness is good, but when we seek to appear before God, we must seek to be found in Christ (Philippians 3:9). No merit of ours can bring us through either temporal or spiritual judgments. We get through by the washing of our garments in Christ’s blood.

What can we do to bring the happiness of heaven into our lives now?

• Labour to reach clarity on your right and your part to the happiness of heaven (that is, through Christ, by faith), and long to experience it.
• Back up your longings with endeavours to reach it. I fear sometimes that many of us, when we breathe our last, will realise that we mostly looked on heaven as if it was just a story.
• Mortify your members which are upon the earth (Colossians 3:5). What are all your idols when laid in the balance against the happiness of heaven? What happiness can be compared with enjoying God?
• Use the expectation of this future happiness to comfort yourself, if you have fled to Christ for refuge. Supposing you are in tribulation now, there is a time coming when you will get out of it. Supposing a body of death troubles you now, and needs, oppression, poverty, hunger, nakedness, etc., disadvantage you, yet when you come to heaven you will be troubled with none of these things. None are poor there, all are rich. None are naked, all are clothed with white robes. None are hungry, all are feasted and well fed.
• Seeing all this happiness comes through being washed in the Lamb’s blood, think much of believing! Make that knot sure, because that is what heaven hangs on. Loose that knot, and heaven will fall away from you. Make sure your calling and election, and seek to know that it is sure and beyond question.

Seeing this happiness is ahead, aim to make a good beginning in in it now. How can we do this?

1. By serving God, and by holiness ceasing from sin. Those who serve God most uninterruptedly here have the closest resemblance to heaven.
2. By enjoying God’s company. We can’t do this un-mediatedly, like they do in heaven, but we can do it by faith in Him, and by His Spirit in us, and by having our life lifted up to Him (Colossians 3:1–2).
3. By being in Christ’s flock, under His care and tuition, fed by Him, and led by Him, and feeding on Him, and yielding ourselves up to Him.
4. By having a contentedness with our situation in the world, as He is pleased to carve it out to us, learning in every state to be content (Philippians 4) in the enjoying of God and Christ’s care of us.
5. By being weaned in our affections away from carnal and worldly pleasures, not indulging in these or thirsting for them.
6. In a word, by striving to reach a greater length of holiness, and endeavouring to have fuller communion with God.

Lord, make us serious in seeking these things!

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The New Testament gives us a picture of believers as people who have the kind of relationship with the Lord where they can freely go to Him, still with an awareness of their sin, but with the freeness and confidence that comes from a clear awareness of the power of the blood of Christ to wash their sin away. How can we come to share that freedom and confidence? What can be done about our guiltiness, and our sense of guilt? It’s all about the conscience. A clear, calm conscience comes from not simply registering our sins but also registering the effects of Christ’s atoning, justifying blood for us. James Durham preached a sermon on Hebrews 10:22, “Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” In the following updated extract he explains the nature of this privilege of being able to draw near to God in full assurance of faith, as well as how and when we can (and should) do so.

The conscience of a person un-reconciled to God is mighty and fearsome, a terrible pursuer, ready to seize on him. It is a dreadful thing to be exposed to God’s wrath, and to the challenges, accusations, throes and pangs of a conscience that has a quarrel against you, when you have nothing with which to answer its accusations.

Yet the efficacy of Christ’s blood is such that it is able to purge the conscience of whoever flees to it, and to fence and guard him against the wrath of God, and the challenges and accusations of his own conscience, God’s deputy. Once conscience has no just ground to pursue, so it cannot, and it will not, pursue him as God’s enemy. There is an efficacy in the blood of Jesus Christ to purge and pacify the conscience of the person who in good earnest has believing recourse to it – that is, I say, when he actually makes recourse to that blood, and when it is actually applied and made use of, by faith.

What can we expect for our conscience when we go to the blood of Christ?

What can a conscience-troubled sinner expect, by fleeing to the blood of Christ? God’s rich and liberal allowance to that person is, you can draw near to Him with full assurance of faith. You may come to Him with confidence and boldness, as a Father, in all your worship and appeals.

The meaning is not that the sinner fleeing to this blood has no reason for humility, or repentance for sin, and no accusations of conscience. Nor does drawing near with full assurance of faith remove the holy awe and filial reverence which is due to God, and which is not only fully consistent with this full assurance of faith, but inseparable from it.

It does, however, mean that as believers whose consciences have been sprinkled with the blood of Christ, we can expect these things.

• We may boldly go to God in prayer, as if our friendship with Him in Adam had never been broken (v19). The blood of the covenant makes our relationship to Him as our Father as near, intimate, kindly, firm, and sure as Adam’s was pre-Fall, with considerable added advantages.
• We may make use of the promises (– pardon of sin, sanctification, support in affliction, quickening, peace, comfort, etc.) according to need, with confidence. The believer may draw near with full assurance of the faith of God’s faithfulness to perform them, in His own measure, manner and time.
• Heaven, eternal life, and glory, and indeed all things contained in the promises.
• Full and thorough publication of pardon and justification before the tribunal of God at the day of judgement. ‘Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifies, who is he that condemneth?’

How can we obtain this privilege?

How may we attain this unspeakably excellent privilege of ‘drawing near with full assurance of faith,’ with holy boldness and confidence to obtain all these great things? The answer is in the words a little before, ‘… by the blood of Jesus …’ This assumes that we are fleeing to Christ for the satisfying of divine justice, and that we are applying to Him for purging, pacifying and satisfying the conscience.

Whatever is necessary and requisite in the application of Christ’s righteousness for making our peace with God, the same is needful to attain calmness, tranquillity and peace in the conscience. What is that? See Romans 4:5: ‘To him that worketh not, but believeth on him who justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.’

When you join this with the words in the text, it tells us that the way to peace and calmness of conscience is as follows. First, you are not to evade or refuse your debt, but to acknowledge it. Second, you are to renounce and disclaim all possibility of satisfying divine justice yourself. And thirdly, you are to flee to Jesus Christ, and through virtue of His satisfaction and blood, and the covenant of His grace, to rest on Him for pardon. You are ‘to believe on Him (although you are in some way ungodly) who justifieth the ungodly.’ This is the basis for peace with God, and should quiet the conscience.

But when the sinner has done this, if the conscience is still not quieted and calmed, three further things are necessary.

Actually renewing your application to Christ

This is not so much to get a new pardon, as a new extract of the same pardon which you received in your first fleeing to Christ. When someone has fled to Christ, and is at peace with God, if they do not have peace in their conscience, they are to take a renewed look at the promise, and to act faith anew on Christ’s blood – to display it to their conscience, acknowledging their sin, yet holding still by it the fact that they have fled to Christ, and on that ground making use of the promise for the renewed pardon of sin through His blood.

In this sense faith is called a ‘shield’ (Eph. 6:16). When the accusation is thrown in on the conscience, it burns like a fiery or poisoned dart. But faith goes to the fountain of Christ’s blood – to the covenant and promises – and out of these wells of salvation draws bucketfuls to quench the fiery dart. Faith makes the believer say, ‘I cannot make satisfaction for this sin, but here is a promise of pardon to those who have fled (as I have) to Christ and to the blood of sprinkling.’

Reasoning from solid gospel truths

Yet accusations are not soon or easily removed, nor the conscience calmed, and so there is need of continuing in the fight, and of drawing conclusions from solid and undeniable premises.

This is what Paul does. Someone might have said, “You’ve been complaining of a body of death, and saying that with your flesh you serve the law of sin. Is not that a grievous accusation against you?” “It is true,” he would reply. “But there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1–2). That is making use of the shield of faith! To put the matter beyond doubt, he goes on and draws the conclusion, “I, by faith, have fled to Christ for refuge, and therefore there is no condemnation to me.”

Indeed, whenever challenges come in from sense and/or conscience, and are fanned by temptation, it is needful to reason from the grounds of faith, to ward off the blow and quiet the conscience. This is a reflex act of faith. It does not justify, yet it serves to reason the conscience into peace and calmness.

Bringing comfort to yourself by believing

Reasoning from solid gospel truths will ward off the force and bitterness of challenges, but that is not enough to thoroughly calm and settle the soul. It is also needful that the soul actively draws in peace and consolation to itself by believing. This, as Paul says, “is able to guard the heart and mind through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4). In Psalm 51, David is not labouring only to get his conscience calmed, but for it to be actually filled with consolation. The promises themselves are often somewhat insipid and tasteless (if I may put it like that) when they are not seasoned and enlivened by God’s voice going along with them, and putting flavour and life in them. This is “the voice of joy and gladness” which David is so eager to hear.

When should we use this freedom?

What are the times or situations when the believer may and ought in a special manner to make use of his liberty and boldness to “draw near with full assurance of faith”? Undoubtedly, there is no situation where a believer may not aim at this. But more especially we should, in situations like the following.

When you have fallen into more gross guilt, as David had (Psalm 51).

When that gross guilt and grievous sinning is accompanied with great aggravations. In Psalm 51, David’s sin was aggravated mightily and yet he makes application to Christ over all that guilt and all these aggravations of his guilt.

When through folly you have relapsed in sin. I don’t say this to give a liberty to sin, God forbid, but to the commendation of God’s free grace, and of the worth and efficacy of Christ’s blood, and for the encouragement of lost sinners who would love to reach through to Christ for pardon and peace. As long as the blood of Christ has efficacy and worth, and as far as the promise extends itself, so long and so far the believer’s faith may reach to come with boldness and confidence.

When accusations are lively and very sharp – indeed, when they are sharpest and most piercing. Supposing these accusations were like so many troops of horsemen rushing in on him, and the conscience was like a lion rampant, standing with its claws ready to tear, the believer may and should (humbly acknowledging guilt) step forward confidently, and apply the blood of sprinkling. When did David made his most earnest and humbly-confident request to God for the joy of his salvation? When blood-guiltiness was staring him in the face, and when his very bones were broken, and when to his own sense, his grace was very much gone, and when he had (as is were) forfeited his right to consolation. That’s when he comes forward and draws near to God, on the grounds of grace.

When you find, to the great grief of your soul, you are exceedingly indisposed to duty – when your praying, repenting, hearing, etc., are not what you would like them to be. David prays not only for consolation but also for the lively exercise of grace, “Create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit within me, and uphold me with thy free Spirit.” It is without doubt a very damaging mistake for troubled sinners to think that first they must have a good spiritual frame and lively grace before they venture to draw near to God with confidence. I grant these are very desirable, and the desire for them is very commendable, yet if David had stuck at that in Psalm 51, he might have remained unwashed all his days. But, knowing the way of God’s grace, David steps humbly yet confidently forward in the exercise of faith over the sense of guiltiness and all its aggravations, over relapsing in sin, over indisposition, and over many sharp accusations (all granted, and lamented over) and makes all these together just so many reasons to go to God.

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Our sense that we’ve done something wrong (or indeed something virtuous) is the voice of conscience. An uneasy conscience is a very troubling thing. Whatever else is going well for us, when our conscience niggles and prickles, we cannot be at peace. The epistle to the Hebrews tackles the problem that we have an ‘evil conscience’ (Hebrews 10:22) and that our conscience needs to be ‘purged’ (Hebrews 9:14). The gospel has a solution to a defiled and accusing conscience. Peace of conscience is one of the key benefits that Jesus Christ can give us. However, in a sermon on these two verses in Hebrews, James Durham takes the time to identify four ways that people can temporarily buy themselves some suppression of the voice of conscience. He shows in the following updated extract that a conscience that goes quiet – but not because it’s been purged by the atoning blood of Christ – is a very dangerous thing.

In Hebrews 9 and 10, the apostle’s purpose is to commend the transcendent worth and matchless excellency of Jesus Christ, and the incomparable efficacy of his most precious blood. He does this on the basis of this noble, notable, and unique effect of it, i.e., that when nothing else can allay the storm of an evil conscience, nor purge it from defilement, this blood can do it effectually, when applied by faith.

There is nothing that Christians should more aim at, and endeavour more to practice, than to follow the way by which they may get their consciences purged. All the more so for those who have had their consciences defiled all over again, after they were previously purged.

Observe from Hebrews 10:22 that a conscience which is not purged by the blood of Christ is a very evil thing.

The unpurged conscience is either awakened or asleep, and this is bad both ways. If it is awakened, and the terrors of God are freshly felt by it, who can express the terribleness of this? A wrath-wounded spirit, or a bad conscience roused by the terrors of the Almighty God, who can bear? But if an unpurged conscience is silent and asleep, it is in some respect worse, for it has this dreadful awakening ahead of it. The longer it sleeps, all the more terrible will be the awakening. No one can fully represent to you the exceeding terribleness of the terror of an evil conscience, when awakened by the wrath of God pursuing a quarrel with the soul. Do not allow yourselves to be so deluded as to think that a silent and stupid conscience is a good conscience, in no danger!

Observe too that though all are by nature have an unpurged conscience, yet in the covenant of grace, God has laid down a way how sinners may get their consciences purged.

The apostle’s argument here is that when the blood of Jesus is applied to the conscience, it successfully gives the conscience a real purging from sin, just as really and successfully as those who were ceremonially unclean were given access to ceremonial church-privileges by the ceremonial sacrifices and washings. Legally, as to the removing of the guilt of sin (and as to having peace with God and in your own conscience), the conscience is purged in such a way that sin cannot stand in the way of you expecting God’s favour. Though you are a debtor, yet there is a way laid down in the Gospel covenant to declare you free from the debt. If it is said, “How can you, how dare you come to God with such confidence, when you have an evil conscience through so much sin?” The apostle answers, “Let us come, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.” As to a confident approaching to God, and application of Christ’s righteousness, those who have made application of the blood of sprinkling may come to God with as much holy and humble boldness as if their conscience had never been defiled and polluted.

Observe thirdly that the only way to have a defiled conscience cleansed is by the blood of Christ. There is no other way.

It is not the blood of bulls, or of calves, or any one, or all of those ceremonial sacrifices or washings that can do the business. God appointed many means of ceremonial purgation, yet they could never have cleansed the conscience. It’s only the blood of Jesus that has this effect. Nothing but the blood of Christ can satisfy God’s justice, and remove the quarrel betwixt Him and the guilty sinner. Till God is satisfied, the conscience cannot be quiet; seeing then that nothing can satisfy God’s justice but Christ’s blood, nothing can purge and satisfy the conscience but Christ’s blood. If it is said, “Who will lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” the conscience will answer, “I have many things to lay to their charge!” until that sweet word is spoken, “It is Christ who shed his blood.” Never till then will conscience be quiet.

There are four ways that people take, for cleansing and purging the conscience, which are all (if there be no more) ineffectual for achieving the real purging and solid satisfaction of the conscience, which you should be aware of.

1. Diversion

Some endeavour to divert their conscience, and to seek a suspension of its pursuing the quarrel against them, claiming some other absorbing business. When Felix found himself beginning to tremble at the apostle’s searching and powerful discourse, he sought a suspension from it for a time, saying to the apostle (and to his conscience), “Go thy way for this time, and I will call for thee when I have a convenient season” (Acts 24).

Similarly, when some have some fit of conscience, they go to some light-hearted friend, or to some game to drive it away, or possibly they drink it down. Their friend helps them to laugh it off, and banish that depressive fit, and so to bring the person to get rid of this trouble of his conscience as a silly fancy, and as if it were for their good to do so. Very frequently, when people cannot endure to converse with their disquieted conscience, they labour to quash and quench any exercise that begins in it.

2. Resolutions

Another way is also too common, and that is by seeking quieten conscience by something other than the blood of Christ. Some under terrible convictions will promise and vow that, if they drank excessively before, they will do so no more, and they will not go to this tavern or spend time in that company for such and such long time. Some will vow not to eat meat on a certain day of the week throughout their whole life; they will, it may be, vow to be more religious. But all along, they are still the same old carnal people they always were, because they did not aim single-mindedly at peace with God through Christ’s blood, but only for the time being to pacify their conscience.

3. Compensation

Some seek to compensate the conscience. They will do some penance. Or they will pray, and try to weep tears in prayer. They will force themselves to mourn, they will give something regular donations to the poor, they will set themselves to amend things for the future. Yet the defilement of conscience lies there still unremoved, because they never betook themselves to the right fountain to wash. I do not condemn you or dissuade you from doing these duties, which are good in themselves, because commanded by God, but you must not rest on them. You must put a difference between founding your peace on them, and founding your peace on the blood of Christ applied to the conscience by faith. Please do not seek to bribe your conscience like this!

4. Discussion

Some people go and discuss their situation with exercised Christians, describing their situation to them to get some ease in their conscience. Now, this is good and commendable in itself, and when it is done rightly. Discussing things with godly believers may through God’s blessing do good, if it helps us to go to the fountain of Christ’s blood and wash there. But we are at fault when we try to get our consciences quieted by what people say, while we are not making recourse to the blood of Christ by faith. We must not use Christian discussion as the way to peace when we are doing nothing about how the justice of God can be satisfied. If we have a sense of sin and guilt in our conscience, our first work should be to take ourselves to Christ and the blood of sprinkling. Unless we are actually fleeing to Christ and to His blood, then words of comfort and advice spoken to us, either in public or private, are null and void as far as bringing us any advantage.

Conclusion

So we see that when nothing can pacify an evil and defiled conscience, nor purge it from dead works, yet the application of the blood of Christ by faith can and will purge that conscience, and give it such peace and quietness with holy and humble confidence and boldness in coming and drawing near to God, as if in some respect it had never been defiled by these dead works of sin.

The apostle insists on these two things.

The sufficiency of Christ’s blood as the price that satisfies God’s justice and quiets the conscience. When the conscience gets this blood applied to it by faith, it has no ground to seek any further satisfaction, as if something was left owing. Christ’s blood, as a full and condign price, satisfies for all the debt. “The blood of Christ shall purge your conscience from dead works.”

And the resulting confidence a believer has for going to God. Someone who has fled to Jesus Christ after committing sin, and has actually applied His blood to their conscience, may have quietness of conscience and may go to God with boldness and confidence. This is one of the rarest pearls and richest jewels of the gospel – one of the most excellent privileges of a believer – and one of the noblest and most notable epxressions and evidences of the grace of God – and indeed the great proof of the reality and efficacy of the satisfaction of our blessed Lord Jesus. When the conscience of the poor believer is confounded, and put on the rack with so many accusations about their sin, they may apply Christ’s blood, and on that basis have sweet peace and tranquillity of soul.

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