THE MEANS OF CLEANSING

1 John 1:7

“The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

For sinner and saint alike, nothing but the blood of Jesus suffices to cleanse from sin. For the unsaved sinner, it removes the guilt of sin. For the sinning saint, it removes the defilement of sin. The Christian is in constant contact with sin, and the very tense of the verb used in this verse, “cleanseth,” shows that he never gets beyond the need for the cleansing blood of Christ. 

THE METHOD OF CLEANSING

The grieving Spirit will let us know that He is grieved and what it is that grieves Him. He will convict us of the sin that thwarts and throttles Him, and He will point us to the cleansing blood of Christ. He will open the Word at 1 John 1:9 and show us our part. Then our responsibility begins. God requires but one thing of us — a frank, full confession prompted by true heart-repentance.

1 John 1:9

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

But while He requires only this simple, honest confession, He will accept no substitute for it. Regret and remorse for suffering the punishment of sin are not confession; a forced acknowledgment when caught in an offense, which is in reality merely the admission of transgression rather than of the sin of the transgression, is not confession; prayer in which a short, vague, half-concealed acknowledgment of Sin is overshadowed by a long accompaniment of justification and vindication of self, will not pass with God for a bona fide confession from the heart. Confession of sin is made primarily to God and often only to Him. But if one has wronged another and sin has placed a barrier between them, confession of that Sin before the other may be required to remove the barrier. God’s cleansing of us may await our confession to a brother. Yet this precious promise holds out to us the blessed assurance that when honest confession of known sin is frankly made to God, He instantly forgives and cleanses. We are thereby brought into perfect adjustment to an ungrieved, unquenched Spirit, and every hindrance to His infilling is removed. 

THE MEASURE OF CLEANSING

The measure of cleansing is from all defilement of both flesh and spirit. Separation from every defiling thing is a prerequisite to the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

2 Corinthians 7:1

“Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

God demands a cleansing that reaches from the innermost desire to the outermost deed; that goes from the core to the circumference. He asks us to take His conception of sin, which regards a lustful look as truly sin as a lustful act; which calls hate in the heart sin as much as murder by the hand; which sees in irritability of spirit the seed of the outburst of temper. God asks for the cleansing of both the inner and outer parts of the temple, which He indwells. Even after we have “cleansed ourselves” by deliberately putting out of our lives everything which we know to be sinful, there will be much that once He fills the life, the Holy Spirit will convict us of as unclean and unholy.

God’s withholding of His presence in power from His own children until sin is put away is very strikingly revealed in His dealings with the children of Israel over Achan’s sin. They had gained a marvelous victory at Jericho. The city and all that was in it had been delivered to them by the Lord. God had told them beforehand that everything in the city was accursed and that no one of them was to take anything of the spoils for himself or he, too, would be accursed. Achan, coveting gold, silver, and a Babylonish garment, took them and hid them under his tent. No eye but that of the all-seeing God saw him do it. The children of Israel, rejoicing in the signal victory over Jericho, marched against the smaller city of Ai with absolute assurance of a similar victory, only to meet with an overwhelming defeat.

Joshua fell on his face before God and offered a prayer in which he charged God with blame for such humiliation before their enemies. But God commanded him to stop praying and told him that He would continue to withhold His presence from the children of Israel until the accursed thing was taken away from among them. Not until the man who had coveted, stolen, and deceived was found and confession of sin was made did God again dwell in victory and in power among the children of Israel.

Perhaps you have been praying fervently for the fullness of the Holy Spirit while, all the time, there has been continued indulgence in some known sin, willful disobedience to some known command, or deliberate resistance to God’s clearly revealed will. If so, God is saying to you just now, “Get thee up, wherefore liest thou upon thy face? Thou hast sinned, neither will I be with you any more except ye destroy the accursed from among you. Up, sanctify yourselves, thou canst not stand before thine enemies until ye take away the accursed thing from among you (e.g. Joshua 7:10-13). So long as you are living with a grieved or a quenched Spirit, you cannot be filled. To be filled, one must be cleansed.

I looked the other day upon the snow-clad summit of the Silberhorn as it glistened in the sun. It was a marvelous symbol of purity. What was the cause of its spotlessness? There was nothing between it and the heaven above. It lay open to receive the unstained, unsullied snow sent down from heaven. Oh! that your heart and mine might be as pure. And they may be if there is no known sin between God and us, and our lives lie open to the moment-by-moment infilling of the blessed Holy Spirit.

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Dear Lord, we can’t fool or trick You into filling us with Your Holy Spirit. Your Word makes it clear that cleansing must come first. If we continue to bypass this requirement by failing to confess our sins, You will not fulfill Your promise to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The choice to be filled with Your Spirit is ours.