Wash, cleanse, and pure, and their derivatives are words of deep significance in the Bible.
In Proverbs 30:12 we read these words: “There are those who are pure in their own eyes but are not cleansed of their filth” (RSV), and this describes many of us who bear the name of Christ.
Recently a group of businessmen were talking about a minister who had moved from their town to another assignment. Their chief memory of him was that he had a long string of stories, most of them smutty in their implications.
On the other hand, the comedian Joe E. Brown was once entertaining a group of soldiers. One of the boys said, “Joe, tell us some dirty stories.” Like a flash Brown replied, “I have never told such stories anywhere and I have no idea of starting now.”
Impurity is the consuming curse of America today. Art, literature, and the average movie are increasingly cesspools of rottenness, and men and women, boys and girls are drinking in this filth with untold damage to their souls.
The Gospel message tells of God’s offer of cleansing from sin, but this is often perverted to a system of ethics with the improved relationship of man to his fellowman as the primary objective.
That cleansing is of basic importance is clear from many references in the Bible. For example, our Lord upbraided the Pharisees because of their concern over outward appearances and ceremonial observances without attention to the rottenness within. Are not we guilty of the same perverted standards today? We forget that it is sin which pollutes.
That the unregenerate man needs cleansing is the recurring theme of the Bible, and that this can never be effected by his own endeavor is equally clear. The best of our efforts are as “filthy rags” because our thoughts and our ways are diametrically opposed to God’s.
Little wonder that our Lord proclaimed the necessity of regeneration: “Ye must be born again” is imperative if man is to enter the Kingdom of God, for only by a completely changed nature can we stand in God’s holy presence.
That this change is a supernatural one is also clear. David, guilty of adultery and murder, cried out to God, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10, RSV).
One of the basic objectives of preaching should be that of confronting man with his own uncleanness, and such preaching begins with the preacher. Isaiah, speaking to the preachers and religious workers of his day, cried out: “Depart, depart, go out thence, touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her, purify yourselves, you who bear the vessels of the LORD” (Isa. 52:11, RSV).
As we read the Scriptures and study the repeated references to purity and impurity we are forced to the conclusion that there is nothing we can do about it but accept the cleansing offered so freely in the atoning work of Christ.
Isaiah spoke of this hope in these words: “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isa. 1:18, RSV).
Our Lord speaks of the cleansing effect of his word, while the purity of God’s precepts is affirmed repeatedly in the Psalms.
John makes it plain that a prelude to cleansing is confession of sin: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, RSV).
Just preceding this he indicates the agent of this cleansing: “… and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7, RSV).
Impurity is sin and with sin there is guilt. Jeremiah speaks of God’s offer of forgiveness in these words: “I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me” (Jer. 33:8, RSV).
John, caught up in the spirit, speaks of Christ’s redemptive work: “… Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev. 1:5, AV). Again, “… these are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (7:14, AV).
How far removed from our theology and preaching today! One wonders whether our modern sophistication which eliminates such “crude” references to the cleansing blood of Christ is not in fact a denial of our Lord—nailing him to the cross afresh?
“Who,” the Psalmist asks, “shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart …” (Ps. 24:3, RSV). Should not such allusions make us cry out like the lepers of old, “Unclean, unclean!” By the clear pure light of the Holy Spirit we realize that we are filled with unclean thoughts and guilty of impure acts.
But such realization can be the threshold of redemption, for Christ’s love and sacrifice are sufficient for the vilest sinner. Corny? May God have mercy on those who so regard it!
Naaman the leper was offended by the suggestion that he dip seven times in Jordan. The rivers of his homeland were probably much more attractive than the puny stream of Jordan, but it was in Jordan that he had to be cleansed. So today the rivers of reformation and sophisticated reasoning seem much more attractive than the cleansing offered on Calvary, and many turn from the place where redeeming love and holy justice meet to the broken and empty cisterns of a man-made religion.
Blindness to our own filthiness is a characteristic of the unregenerate. Like the man born blind who washed in the pool of Siloam at our Lord’s command, we too need the cleansing He alone can give, that spiritual blindness may give way to God-given sight.
It is the Word of God through which such insights come so often. As the Psalmist says: “The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the ordinances of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether” (Ps. 19:8, 9, RSV).
The Apostle Paul diagnoses the case and prescribes the cure in these incisive words: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9–11, RSV).
We of this sophisticated century need the same cleansing.
