True Cleanliness

When his wife was away from home, the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne once wrote:

  The washing of dishes does seem to me the most absurd and unsatisfactory business that I ever undertook. If, when once washed, they would remain clean for ever and ever (which they ought in all reason to do, considering how much trouble it is), there would be less occasion to grumble; but no sooner is it done, than it requires to be done again. On the whole, I have come to the resolution not to use more than one dish at each meal.

We can all surely identify with that quote. Even in these days of dishwashers, it seems that we are no sooner finished loading it with the dishes of one meal and putting away the clean plates before we start the same cycle all over again. The same is true of laundry and vacuuming. Can we ever say that these jobs are really done? In our experience, cleanliness is not so much next to godliness as it is next to impossible to maintain, at least without an interminable effort. If someone were to invent a plate that once washed remained clean forever and ever or a suit of clothes that self-cleaned while hanging in your closet, his fortune would be assured. The same is true in the spiritual realm. Spiritual dirt—sin—accumulates constantly without any significant effort on our part. Spiritual cleanliness seems impossible for us to maintain.


DEALING WITH DIRT

How do we deal with that reality in the realm of physical dirt? Well, one way to approach the issue is to redefine the nature of dirt. Does that pair of jeans really need washing, or can it be worn another day? How many dust bunnies does it take to form a quorum sufficiently large to require vacuuming? If we are able to define the acceptable level of dirt upward, then maybe our task in combating it will become manageable. Alternatively, we can try to limit the sources of contamination. Use only one dish per meal, as Hawthorne suggested; tell your children they can only play with one toy car or doll at a time; make everyone take off their shoes before they come into the house. Maybe that will make the impossible job of keeping the house clean and tidy achievable.

Essentially, people tend to adopt the same kinds of strategies when it comes to dealing with spiritual dirt. Many people try to redefine the nature of sin, thereby making obedience more manageable. I know I have to love my neighbor, but if I limit the extent of who my neighbor is, then obedience to the Law seems more achievable. If righteousness is defined merely in terms of external obedience to a set of rules and regulations, then perhaps I can manage to achieve it by carefully writing in enough loophole clauses and exceptions. Alternatively, others try to achieve spiritual cleanliness by limiting the potential sources of contamination. They huddle in their own family and religious group so the world cannot soil them. They don’t watch movies—not even The Sound of Music—or listen to the radio or read secular books for fear of defilement. They try to separate themselves completely from anything and everything that might be a source of impurity.

Neither of these is a Biblical approach to the problem of the pervasiveness of spiritual dirt in our lives. On the one hand, the Bible works very hard to show the searching nature of God’s definition of sin. Just as the Marine Corps drill sergeant performing an inspection is not impressed by attempts to persuade him that a blotch of ketchup does not make your uniform dirty, the Lord is not impressed by our attempts to redefine sin. In fact, the Scriptures are far more searching than any other religious code in their definition of sin. In the Bible, sin is not just failing to keep an external code of rules—it is having a heart that is not right with the Lord. Sometimes I meet people who insist that they keep the Ten Commandments. Immediately I am tempted to ask how they are doing on the first one—“I am the LORD your God.… You shall have no other gods besides me” (Exodus 20:2, 3). Are they really loving the Lord, the God of the Bible, with all of their heart and soul and mind and strength? Are they putting him first in their use of time and money? Do they truly wake up each morning with adoration in their heart toward the Lord and go to sleep with his name on their lips? If they are really achieving this, then I’d like to know how they do it, for I know that I’m not like that. However, if they are not loving the Lord wholeheartedly moment by moment, then they are daily breaking the most fundamental part of God’s Law.

Equally, though, the solution to the pervasiveness of spiritual dirt is not for individuals to hide themselves away from the world. The Bible reminds us that sin comes not simply from outside human beings but from within. Like the Pharisees, such people are putting all of their attention on external sources of defilement when the reality is that sin comes from within. Figuratively speaking, they are carefully removing every speck of dirt from the dish before filling it with sewage-contaminated food and then wondering why they still become ill (see Matthew 15:1–20). The truth is that even if we were stranded on a desert island, we wouldn’t lack for opportunities to sin. The reason is simple: our sinful nature would be right there with us. Sometimes when we are caught in some sin, we blurt out, “I don’t know what happened. It’s not like me to do that!” The sad reality, though, is that sin is exactly like us. We bear the seeds of every possible sin within our hearts; all it takes is the right external environment to bring it out. As the book of James reminds us, “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:14, 15).

In the absence of a suitable external encouragement, the depth of our sinfulness may remain concealed, even to ourselves, but it nonetheless remains present.


THE NEED FOR CLEANSING

If what the Bible says is true, and we are deeply sinful people at the core level of our existence, then what we need is a comprehensive and regular cleaning. Just as we have a plan for removing physical dirt from our homes on a regular basis, so also we need regular provision for our spiritual dirt to be removed and our hearts cleansed. This is not something we can do for ourselves, any more than Lady Macbeth could cleanse her own hands through repeated washings. It is something that the Lord needs to do for us.

This concept of spiritual dirt and the need for regular cleansing is the principle that underlies Numbers 19. The ritual system of Israel was not an arbitrary set of rules and regulations that would have provided them a means of earning righteousness before God. Rather, it reflected in a profound way the values that the Lord was laying down for Israelite society. It was a simplified model of reality designed to help Israel understand the nature of the world in which she lived and the relationship she was required to have with the Lord. In that model, impurity could be contracted in a number of ways in ancient Israel, as we saw in an earlier study (see Numbers 5, considered in Chapter 6 of this book). Essentially, however, these diverse sources of contamination all reflected one central cause: contact with the realm of death. The purpose of the prohibition of touching a corpse in Numbers 19 was not mere superstition or the fear of contracting disease. Rather, it flowed out of the close connection between death and sin. The Lord is the God of life, and those who would approach him need to reflect that life. The Israelites were being taught that death has no place in his presence, nor does anyone who has had contact with the realm of death. Like matter and antimatter, the Lord and death cannot peaceably coexist: the Lord will ultimately vanquish death (1 Corinthians 15:26), and thus even traces of death adhering to a person made him or her unfit to enter the Lord’s presence.

The sharp separation that the Lord imposed between his people and death was designed to impress on the Israelites the defiling power of sin, which similarly contaminates us and makes us unfit for the Lord’s presence, even in the least quantities. Yet the commandment to remain separate from death and sin could never be enough by itself. In their present context the entire community had recently come into contact with death because of Korah’s rebellion and its aftermath. As a result, no one was free from death’s contamination, and all needed to be made clean. Numbers 19 thus fittingly concludes the central portion of the book (11–19), where death has been such a prominent feature. Everyone needed the cleansing that the Lord provided for them in this chapter, which itself was a profound picture of the ultimate cleansing the Lord would provide for the sins of his people. Through the regular application of the water of cleansing, the Lord promised to purify all those who had become contaminated by contact with death.


THE PROVISION OF CLEANSING

How was this powerful cleansing detergent that would wash away their contamination to be made? First, the priest was to take a perfect, red cow5 that had never been worked (19:2). The red-brown color highlighted the importance of blood as the key cleansing element. Two of the other key ingredients involved in the sacrifice, cedar and scarlet wool (v. 6), also share a reddish hue with the cow. The answer to the scarlet stain of our sin is thus a blood-colored sacrifice.

Once selected, the cow was to be taken outside the camp and slaughtered (v. 3). Some of its blood was then sprinkled seven times toward the entrance to the tent of meeting (v. 4). This ritual is reminiscent of the normal procedure for a purification offering (often called a sin offering), with the appropriate modifications necessary due to the fact that the slaughter was taking place outside the camp (see Leviticus 4:6). After the sprinkling, the entire animal was burned, including the blood (v. 5). This was the only sacrifice in the Old Testament where the blood was burned rather than poured out at the base of the altar. The reason for this change is simple. Since the cleansing power of this sacrifice resided in the blood, the blood too had to be rendered into ashes. The other ingredient put into the fire, along with the cow, the cedar, and the scarlet wool, was hyssop (v. 6), an herb traditionally used to sprinkle the cleansing blood on objects and people. Everything in this procedure thus focuses our attention on the blood.

After the sacrificial heifer and the other ingredients had been burned completely, the ashes were to be gathered up and stored in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp until they were required (v. 9). The ashes were thus, if you like, a kind of “instant purification offering.” Just as we have instant tea or instant soup, to which we simply add water and they are ready to serve, so these ashes were reconstituted by the addition of water to make them ready for cleansing use (v. 17).

In addition to the centrality of blood in this ritual, the other remarkable, even paradoxical feature of this sacrifice was its power to defile the ones preparing and administering it. At the same time as the ashes made the defiled person clean, they also made the ceremonially clean person defiled.8 From the priest who administered the ritual (v. 7), to the man who burned the animal (v. 8), to the man who gathered the ashes (vv. 9, 10), to the man who sprinkled the water (v. 21), every clean person who touched the ashes was defiled by them. Whoever or whatever they touched in the cleansing process became unclean because of the contagious power of defilement (v. 22). The ashes had to be stored outside the camp so they would not defile the camp by their very presence. It is as if the ashes were a kind of ritual detergent that cleansed the impure person by absorbing their impurity. In the process, though, they themselves became both defiled and defiling.

This is not a hard concept for us to grasp in the modern world. When I worked in the oil industry, we had a number of electrical transformers filled with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). As part of the regular maintenance procedures, we wanted to change the oil in these transformers, but because PCBs are hazardous to the environment, we couldn’t simply replace the old oil with new oil. Instead we contracted with a company to fill the transformers with fresh insulating oil, knowing that it would immediately become contaminated itself by the residue of PCBs. Then they removed this newly contaminated oil, along with the PCBs it now contained, leaving a cleansed transformer that could once again be returned to service. The cleansing process required the contamination of the clean as a condition for the cleansing of the contaminated.

Through the sacrifice of the red cow, cleansing was made easily available to all in the community, both native-born and alien alike (v. 10). The cost of the cleansing was kept low to the ones being cleansed. Yet the cost for the ones who made the offering on their behalf was substantial. It was not simply that the community had to bear the financial cost of sacrificing the cow. The one making the offering also had to temporarily sacrifice his own state of ritual cleanliness in order to let those who had become defiled enter in.

Once made, the ashes of cleansing had to be applied. As long as they remained stored away in a jar, they were of no benefit to anyone. The ashes had to be mixed with fresh (literally, “living”) water (v. 17). Then hyssop was dipped into the mixture and was sprinkled on anyone and anything that had been contaminated by contact with death. This sprinkling was not an instantaneous cure, however. It was not a magic ritual that removed the need for the normal cleansing process, as if contamination could be simply removed with a wish and a pinch of magic dust. The water and ashes needed to be applied twice, on the third and the seventh day of defilement, and the person also needed to wash himself and his clothes (v. 19). Only then would the purification process be complete. Anyone who failed to follow this procedure remained defiled and would be a cause of defilement to the whole camp. Such a person would necessarily be cut off from the community (v. 20).


OUR MODERN NEED FOR CLEANSING

What does all this have to do with us and our deep need of cleansing? The answer is that this comprehensive ritual shows us both our need of cleansing and God’s answer for it. In the first place, the ritual shows us our need of cleansing. Like the ancient Israelites, we are inevitably contaminated in our daily walk through this world. Just as they inevitably came into contact with death in their culture, so too we inevitably come into contact with sin. Some of their contact with death was deliberate, while other encounters were accidental, but it was virtually impossible for them perpetually to avoid such contact. They didn’t have mortuaries and funeral directors and all of the means that we have developed in our society to avoid facing the ugly reality of death. Sometimes, therefore, they had no choice but to come into contact with death. At other times their contact with death was the result of carelessness or thoughtlessness. Either way, contact with death defiled them.

So too for us. Some of our sins are deliberate, while others are the result of carelessness and thoughtlessness on our part. Some sin, such as failing to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and all our souls as we should, is virtually inevitable due to our weakness as fallen human beings. We are pervasively contaminated people on every level of our beings. Instead of redefining sin so that it no longer covers the things that we do, or pretending that sin doesn’t exist in our carefully sheltered world, it is far better to recognize the inevitable reality of our contact with sin and let that realization drive us back to God and to the cleansing he has provided.

In our society some churches are reluctant even to use the word sin anymore. They feel it is a negative word that will keep seekers away from God. Unfortunately, that refusal short-circuits the whole cleansing process: refusing to talk about sin is actually what keeps seekers away from God and not vice versa. Our natural tendency is to try to wash ourselves, substituting our own cleaning fluid for the living water and ashes. Just as ancient Israel insisted repeatedly on drinking from her own cracked and broken cisterns instead of looking to the Lord for living water (Jeremiah 2:13), so too we often substitute moral reformation—turning over a new leaf—for the Lord’s cleansing water. We are easily persuaded that going to church, developing healthy relationships, and a good self-image are sufficient to pass muster with God. We will never be cleansed by the waters of cleansing, however, unless we first recognize the depth of our need and name it as what it is, sin. Until we recognize the hand of death in our lives in the form of sin, we cannot bring it to the Lord and receive the cleansing that he has provided for us.


ONGOING CLEANSING

Moreover, the cleansing that we need is not simply a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Now, there is a once-in-a-lifetime experience of cleansing from sin, symbolized by baptism. That sacrament cannot be repeated, for it represents and communicates the completeness and sufficiency of our cleansing in Christ. What Jesus did on the cross is a once-and-for-all event that cannot be, and does not need to be, repeated. When we come to Christ by faith, at that moment our sins are washed away once and for all. Yet having been baptized does not in and of itself do away with our need for ongoing cleansing. Jesus pointed that out when he washed the disciples’ feet. Peter (typically!) wanted not simply his feet washed but his whole body (John 13:9). Yet Jesus responded, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet” (v. 10). In other words, there is a once-and-for-all washing that does not need to be repeated, but there is also an ongoing, repeated washing.9 As Christians, there are specific sins that we are conscious of having committed, along with the general grime that we acquire in the regular course of living in this fallen world. Both of these things need to be regularly washed away.

This is why the practice of confessing our sins to one another is so important. John reminds his hearers in 1 John 1:8, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” To refuse to recognize our sins puts us in the category of the person who refused the cleansing waters in Numbers 19. Such a person must be cut off from the community of faith because he or she has refused the means that the Lord has provided to deal with his or her defilement. Being a Christian doesn’t mean never having to talk about sin, any more than being in love means never having to say, “Sorry!” On the contrary, the reality is that it is those who are truly in love who are most likely to be found saying, “Sorry.” For the same reason, true Christians are the most likely to be saying, “I have sinned.” They don’t live in denial, proudly pretending there is nothing amiss in their life. Rather, they recognize that when they sin they have offended someone they love deeply, and they are confident that the Lord will extend his mercy and forgiveness to wash them clean.

In our church we regularly confess our sins to the Lord as part of our worship service precisely as an encouragement to each of us to be honest about who we are and how much we still need the gospel, even as believers in Christ. It is an opportunity to go before Almighty God and recognize publicly that we all individually need the waters of cleansing applied to our hearts and lives. After we confess our sins, the minister then announces afresh to us from the Scriptures the assurance of the gospel, that in Christ there is cleansing and forgiveness for all who come to God by faith in him. We say to God, “Lord, I’m filthy inside and out. I’m sorry. This is who I am by nature.” God in turn responds, “Here is the living water of cleansing that flows from the cross. Jesus died to make you acceptable to me just as you are, and I have sent my Holy Spirit to indwell you, to remake you ultimately as a new person.”

What stands in the way of confessing our sins to God and to one another? Surely it is our pride. I know that to be the case for myself. It is because I am such a proud and hard-hearted person that I find confession of sin really difficult. It is so much easier for me to excuse my sin or to deny my sin. Yet when I do confess my sin, my pride is placed on the anvil and delivered another shattering blow. My eyes are opened afresh to the depth of my need for the gospel, and I am made thankful afresh for the cleansing waters that flow from the cross.

When we confess our sins weekly in church, we look back to that once-and-for-all event and look forward to anticipate all the more eagerly that final day of cleansing. We come and receive the absolution that Jesus purchased for us through his death in our place. We come asking that his blood be applied to our sins, washing away their stain upon us. We know that because the Lord is faithful and just, he will do it, cleansing us afresh and making us fit to stand in his presence. We come thankful that one day our cleansing will be over and we will be perfectly clean forever.


GOD’S FAITHFULNESS TO FORGIVE SINS

The Apostle John sets out for us exactly that pattern of confession and assurance. Having reminded his hearers that they are indeed sinners, he goes on to say, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). The talk of Christ cleansing us from all unrighteousness resonates exactly with the application of the waters of cleansing, doesn’t it? It is Christ’s blood that washes us clean from our filth. However, the passage also raises the question of how it can be “faithful and just” for God to forgive our sins. We can easily see how it could be “merciful and kind” of God to forgive us, but how can it be “faithful and just” for him to do so?

Once again the sacrificial ritual of the red cow makes it all clear. Remember that this ritual required two things for the cleansing to take place. There had to be a spotless sacrifice who was slaughtered to provide the means necessary for cleansing and a clean person who was willing to give up that state of ritual cleanliness and access to God for the sake of another. Both aspects of the ritual point forward to Jesus, the one who gave us his perfect holiness as our clean substitute and suffered for us as the spotless sacrifice. These two aspects of Jesus taking our place are what theologians call the active and passive obedience of Christ. On the one hand, there is the active obedience of Christ: this is the means by which Jesus became our clean substitute. He is the only human being who has ever been perfectly clean. We could have called a surprise inspection of his life at any moment, but we would never have found a speck of dirt where it didn’t belong. He lived his life in perfect alignment with God’s Law, in perfect tune with God’s harmony. He thus took our place as the law-keeper, the clean one who administers the cleansing sacrifice for us.

But there is more. In addition to his perfect life, there is also his death for you and me—his passive obedience. He has not only taken our place as the law-keeper—he has also taken the place we deserved as law-breakers. He went outside the camp and offered his own blood as the atoning sacrifice: through his death he paid the debt for all of the sins of his people, and he became defiled in the process. As Paul puts it: “[God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Just as in the offering of the red cow, the clean one had to become defiled, so the defiled one could be made clean, Jesus took our sins upon himself. If Jesus has died and made full payment for our sins, however, there is no payment left for us to make on them. God can’t punish two people for the same offense. If Jesus has taken our defilement into himself, there is no stain left upon us. The foul spot has finally been purged away, transmitted to Christ. Therefore, because God is faithful and just, and the penalty for our sin has been paid in full, he must and will forgive all who are followers of Jesus for all of their sins.


PLEADING JESUS

When you stand before God as your judge in the heavenly courtroom, there are therefore only two options as to how you can plead—and innocent isn’t one of them. Nobody will be able to plead innocent before God because of a lack of contamination. The truth of our defilement will be clear to all. We have all disobeyed God and have gone our own way times without number. We are all thoroughly tainted by sin and death. One option is to plead guilty and pay ourselves for what we have done, refusing the water of cleansing that the Lord has provided. Tragically, many people will do that, and they will be separated from God forever as a result. “The wages of sin is death,” says the Bible (Romans 6:23). If we are determined to pay that price ourselves, we will be eternally cut off from God in Hell.

But there is an alternative open to us. We don’t have to plead guilty. We can plead Jesus. We can look to the purification offering that the Lord has established for us. We can say to God, “Lord God, I committed all those sins. They are all mine. The death that they deserve is mine. But your only Son Jesus has paid for every one of them. The payment for them all is death, but he paid it all when he died on the cross. He took my defilement on himself, and so now I am clean before you.”

Do you feel clean in the Lord’s presence today? Some people go through life like Lady Macbeth, scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing their hands with their own cleansing fluid, but they are never quite able to get rid of that foul spot. Perhaps there is some sin that clings to us like a neoprene wetsuit, defying our best efforts to dislodge it. Or perhaps there is some great sin in our past for which we are not sure God has ever really forgiven us. The cleansing that Christ provides for us not only makes us definitively clean when we first trust in him but also encourages us to come daily before him and ask for fresh cleansing in his blood. We must not ever get tired of bringing our sin to God; we have his word that he will never get tired of washing it away. In this fallen world, just as we continually wash our clothes and our dishes, we will continue to have to come to Christ regularly for washing. There is no magic cure that will keep us from further defilement. Praise God for the cleansing blood of Christ that purifies us from all unrighteousness. Praise God for the wonderful news that in Christ even our ongoing indwelling sins are presently covered and will ultimately be removed completely. Praise God that the day will come when we will have a spiritual cleanliness that will endure forever, when we enter into the presence of the Lord.


Duguid, I. M., & Hughes, R. K. (2006). Numbers: God’s presence in the wilderness (pp. 239–248). Crossway Books.