The work of Christ 7 / Cleansing

 

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

 

(I John 1:7)

 

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

 

(Eph.5:25-27)

 

 

Peter’s warning about forgetting that we have ‘been cleansed from [our] past sins’ (II Pet.1:9), takes us to the pastoral heart of the cross.  The fact of the matter is that sin - whether committed by us or by others against us - spiritually stains us, corrupts, contaminates, distorts and defiles us (Ps.106:39; Prov.30:11-12).  We are used to thinking about our sin as moral debt to God; we owe Him an obedience that sin withholds.  But sin isn’t merely something that affects our relationship with God; it affects us as well, chronically undermining our ability to live as God calls us.  We do what we do because of what we are (e.g. Prov.4:23, Matt.7:18).  If we are unclean, then what we think, say and do will be unclean.  This is the tragedy of our being born such that we inherit sin and its corruption and impurity (Job 14:4).  This is only exacerbated by our own actual sin.  To be made holy, we need to be both forgiven and purified (I Jn.1:9).  And so an aspect of the death of Jesus deals with our cleansing (Heb.9:14; 10:22 etc.).  By dealing with the full reality of our sin in its many dimensions, the cross deals with the sense of (appropriate) shame and guilt, defilement and dirtiness that we can / should feel in the wake of sin.  We are in profound spiritual danger when we can sin without any sense of shame or guilt.  By contrast, our spiritual maturing is often characterised by a growing sensitivity to the depth and impact of sin.

 

One of the most strident explorations of this aspect of the cross is found in the prophecies of Zechariah (c.530s BC, after the return from exile).  We are familiar with Zechariah’s prediction of Jesus’ crucifixion (12:10, cited Jn.19:37); but perhaps we are not so aware that the prophecy runs on to explain that: ‘On that day a fountain will be opened … to cleanse them from sin and impurity’ (13:1).  Much of this is, of course, captured in the promises conveyed through the Church’s rite of baptism (e.g. Acts 22:16; I Pet.3:21).  This has long been the hope of the Church.  So Ezekiel prophecies, ‘I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses … And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules’ (36:25-27). 

 

This cleansing of us is part of Christ’s ‘priestly’ work (this work continues in His heavenly work of intercession, in which Christ prays for the benefits of His sacrifice to be applied to us).  And His work extends not just to the principle of sin, but to our being cleansed of specific expressions of that sin - patterns of thought, speech and behaviour that are sinful.  We are not just cleansed in some objective sense, but that cleansing will increasingly become part of our actual lived experience.  The goal of our salvation is not merely legal acquittal, or even relational forgiveness.  It is the total recalibration of our humanity.  We will be changed, utterly transformed, and conformed to the Image of Christ.  And that is not merely a future to be anticipated; it is the experience of Christians here and now (II Cor.3:18; Phi.3:21; I Jn.3:2-3).  We are not just forgiven, but purified (Jer.33:8; I Jn.1:9).

 

In a healthy Christian, this commitment by God to our cleansing becomes the foundation and motivation for our own commitment to cleansing.  Paul speaks of ‘[t]hose who cleanse themselves’ (II Tim.2:20-21); James commands: ‘purify your hearts’ (4:8); Peter assumes we’ve already done so (I Pet.1:22).  Such language is not a lapse into moralism, or worse, legalism.  It is a call for us to appropriate the work of Christ.  As we will see in future studies, His satisfaction for our sin is the grounds of sanctification from our sin.  Without holiness, no-one will see the Lord (Heb.12:14).  God’s work for us in Christ and by the Holy Spirit, gives us great confidence in our own work.  God is at work through our work, giving a sense of inevitability about our growth in purity.  Jesus, we are told, ‘gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good’ (Titus 2:14).  Our holiness is the point of the cross.  Like all aspects of our salvation, we must wait till the New Creation to enter fully into it, but that is never a reason not to pursue it here and now.

Questions

 

Why is it so important for Jesus to be buried?  Would anything be lost if His body had been left on the cross, or simply left in the open?

 

What did Jesus do between His burial and His resurrection (see I Peter.3:18-20)?

 

Read Psalm 51

The background to this Psalm can be found in II Sam.11-12.

 

How do you think David expected his prayer in vv.1-2 & 7-9 to be answered?  Do you think David understood that ‘[i]t is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins’ (Heb.10:4)?

 

Do you think David is right in v.4 when he says, ‘Against you, you only, have I sinned’?  Hasn’t he also sinned against Bathsheba & Uriah?

 

Do you agree with David’s idea that ‘I was sinful at birth … from the time my mother conceived me’ (v.5)?  Why / Why not?  What do you think he means?  Is God unfair to expect holiness from sinners?

 

Ps.51:8 is probably re-visiting Ps.32:1-5.  Have you ever experienced God’s dealing with you in this way?  What do you think it means for God’s hand to be heavy on us (32:4)?

 

What is David asking for in v.10?  What difference would it make in David’s experience if God granted these requests?

 

Read v.11.  Could God take His Holy Spirit away from a Christian?  Could He cast a Christian from His presence?

 

What does David anticipate to be his response to experiencing God’s forgiveness and cleansing?  Would you expect those to be the responses of everyone who receives God’s grace like this?  If so, what conclusions would you draw if someone wasn’t reacting in these ways?

 

Does God delight in sacrifice or not (vv.16-17 & 19)?

Memory Passage:

 

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!  For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance – now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

Heb.9:14-15

 

For further reflection:

 

On the cross, Jesus declares that everything is finished, but will still not bow to death (Jn.19:28-30).  Redemption is accomplished; but Christ will not exercise the authority to lay down His life until all Scripture has been fulfilled.  There is one last act.  He must drink the wine from the stalk of the hyssop plant (v.29). 

 

Throughout the OT, hyssop is used as a brush to dip into the blood of a sacrifice and then to sprinkle it in application.  So it is hyssop that is used to apply the blood of the Lamb to the doorframe in the Passover (Ex.12:22).  And within the sacrificial system it is to do with purification and cleansing (see Lev.14:4-6; 49-52 etc.).  Hence David’s prayer ‘Cleanse me with hyssop and I shall be clean’ (Ps.51:7).

 

So who needs to be cleansed at the cross?  It is Jesus who is given the wine (blood) using hyssop?  Does He need to be cleansed?  Jesus has cleansed His people (everything had now been finished, v.28).  But in the process, He has been rendered unclean Himself.  As He bears the sin of the world, He is horrifically ravaged, contaminated, violated, polluted by the act of taking that sin to himself (II Cor.5:21).  The Redeemer is rendered unclean as He bears our sin to make us pure.  And now it is Christ Himself who needs to be expiated, cleansed with hyssop so that He will be clean.  It is Christ Himself who must be the first to enjoy the benefits of His suffering; He is the first to be cleansed by the cross.

 

That is why John is careful to tell us that Jesus is laid in ‘a new tomb’ (Jn.19:41).  If He was placed in a tomb in which other corpses had already been laid, He would be rendered unclean again (Lev.22:4; Num.19:13)!  Death would have a legitimate hold on Him, and Christ would be lost to the Father.  That could never be!