“how much more will the blood of the Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14 HCSB).
Much as he has done repeatedly throughout this epistle, the author of Hebrews now returns to a subject he discussed earlier within this letter. In this instance, the subject involves the “dead works” mentioned here in Hebrews 9:14. This passage thus builds upon a foundation that our author previously established: “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God” (Hebrews 6:1 ESV).
These “dead works” serve to identify those religious beliefs, spiritual rituals, acts of piety, and other, similar observances that do nothing to make us acceptable before God. While there may be many who feel as if God will accept them on the basis of such things, Jesus identified a different standard in the following passage from the Gospel of Mark…
“…you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30 ESV).
This represents an impossible benchmark for imperfect human beings. Thus, it illustrates our need for a Savior who can save us from our failure to fulfil this standard. In light of this, we can say that any attempt to relate to God apart from Christ is a “dead work.”
For the original readers of the book of Hebrews, the application was obvious…
“Dead works are the rituals of the Mosaic Law that could not give life (6:1). Placing faith and confidence in what has already served its purpose and has now passed away is useless. It is disobedience. The author of Hebrews commands his audience to free their conscience from regulations of Mosaic Law and instead cling to Christ for cleansing. In doing so, they could truly serve the living God and not dead works.” (1)
In contrast, modern-day audiences might associate a dead work with anything we may seek to do in establishing a relationship with God apart from Christ. No matter how virtuous those acts may seem, they cannot serve to make us right with God. Unfortunately, that did not deter certain individuals in the Old Testament and New Testament eras from making such attempts. We can avoid similar failings by learning from their negative examples.
(1) Earl D. Radmacher, Ronald Barclay Allen, and H. Wayne House, Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary (Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers, 1999), 1649.