-- how much more will the blood of Christ purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God.

From the encyclical letter “Dominum et vivificantem” (On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World) by Pope St. John Paul II (+2005)

The redemptive value of Christ’s sacrifice is expressed in very significant words by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, who after recalling the sacrifices of the Old Covenant in which “the blood of goats and bulls...” purifies in “the flesh,” adds: “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Though we are aware of other possible interpretations, our considerations on the presence of the Holy Spirit in the whole of Christ’s life lead us to see this text as an invitation to reflect on the presence of the same Spirit also in the redemptive sacrifice of the Incarnate Word. The words of the Letter to the Hebrews now explain to us how Christ “offered himself without blemish to God,” and how he did this “with an eternal Spirit.” According to the Letter to the Hebrews, on the way to his “departure” through Gethsemani and Golgotha, the same Christ Jesus in his own humanity opened himself totally to this action of the Spirit-Paraclete, who from suffering enables eternal salvific love to spring forth. Therefore he “was heard for his godly fear. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” In this way this Letter shows how humanity, subjected to sin, in the descendants of the first Adam, in Jesus Christ became perfectly subjected to God and united to him, and at the same time full of compassion towards men. Thus there is a new humanity, which in Jesus Christ through the suffering of the Cross has returned to the love which was betrayed by Adam through sin. This new humanity is discovered precisely in the divine source of the original outpouring of gifts: in the Spirit, who “searches...the depths of God” and is himself love and gift. The Son of God Jesus Christ, as man, in the ardent prayer of his Passion, enabled the Holy Spirit, who had already penetrated the inmost depths of his humanity, to transform that humanity into a perfect sacrifice through the act of his death as the victim of love on the Cross. He made this offering by himself. As the one priest, “he offered himself without blemish to God”: In his humanity he was worthy to become this sacrifice, for he alone was “without blemish.” But he offered it “through the eternal Spirit,” which means that the Holy Spirit acted in a special way in this absolute self-giving of the Son of Man, in order to transform this suffering into redemptive love. Thus the conversion of the human heart, which is an indispensable condition for the forgiveness of sins, is brought about by the influence of the Counselor. Without a true conversion, which implies inner contrition, and without a sincere and firm purpose of amendment, sins remain “unforgiven,” in the words of Jesus, and with him in the Tradition of the Old and New Covenants. For the first words uttered by Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, according to the Gospel of Mark, are these: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel. “ A confirmation of this exhortation is the “convincing concerning sin” that the Holy Spirit undertakes in a new way by virtue of the Redemption accomplished by the Blood of the Son of Man. Hence the Letter to the Hebrews says that this “blood purifies the conscience.” It therefore, so to speak, opens to the Holy Spirit the door into the inmost being of men and women, namely into the sanctuary of human consciences. Precisely with regard to these “unfathomable depths” of the human conscience, the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit is accomplished. The Holy Spirit “comes” by virtue of Christ’s “departure” in the Paschal Mystery: he comes in each concrete case of conversion-forgiveness, by virtue of the sacrifice of the Cross. For in this sacrifice “the blood of Christ...purifies your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Thus there are continuously fulfilled the words about the Holy Spirit as “another Counselor,” the words spoken in the Upper Room to the Apostles and indirectly spoken to everyone: “You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” If we reject the “convincing concerning sin” which comes from the Holy Spirit and which has the power to save, we also reject the “coming” of the Counselor- that “coming” which was accomplished in the Paschal Mystery, in union with the redemptive power of Christ’s Blood: the Blood which “purifies the conscience from dead works.” We know that the result of such a purification is the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, whoever rejects the Spirit and the Blood remains in “dead works,” in sin. Those who are converted, therefore, are led by the Holy Spirit out of the range of the “judgment,” and introduced into that righteousness which is in Christ Jesus, and is in him precisely because he receives it from the Father, as a reflection of the holiness of the Trinity. This is the righteousness of the Gospel and of the Redemption, the righteousness of the Sermon on the Mount and of the Cross, which effects the purifying of the conscience through the Blood of the Lamb. It is the righteousness which the Father gives to the Son and to all those united with him in truth and in love.   

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