Psalm 18:26
The road to purity
Apologies for the length of this blog! “To the pure you show yourself pure,” or as Jesus put it, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God!” Matthew 5:8. So, we have a dilemma, it’s that chicken and egg question, what comes first, my making myself pure so that I can experience God’s purity OR He is pure and therefore I have to find a way of receiving His purity so I can be pure? Let’s peel back the layers shall we? Firstly, you and I are not pure by birth, by habit or by inclination. We are born in sin, our lives are tainted by the sin disease and “the inclinations of our hearts are evil continually.” We can be mature believers of many years standing and still have a habitual sin problem. We cannot overcome this in our own strength, we do not have the means to fight sin, even the Law causes us nothing but grief for, as we have quoted in verse 25, “Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” Paul loved God’s Law, He was a prominent student of the Law and He had zealously sought to obey the Law but he had to confess that sin still kept itself busy within him. This is hardly the talk of a pure man is it?
Perhaps the first step to understanding this statement, “To the pure you show Yourself pure,” is to acknowledge how impure we are! A correct appreciation of our own impurity shows us how far away from God we are and that in ourselves and of ourselves we have no prospect of ever attaining this quality of pureness. With the burden of our sin upon us, we are trapped at the foot of heavenly Zion’s mountain. There, at the summit, is the throne of Almighty God but there is no ascent for who can ascend but, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart?” Then, of course, we have to acknowledge, like Paul, that we can do nothing about our sin. Any amount of right living and legal observance will not gain us an approach to God for study of the Law and the keeping of the Law simply reveals our sin and how impoverished we really are! So where can I, as a human being, find purity? Is it attainable, ever? Is there some way of making myself even a little bit purer? Cut myself off from the world perhaps? Live a simple life in a monastery or convent with just the Scriptures and no worldly influences? Or maybe I need to beat my body into submission when it fails my quest for purity? Perhaps I need to set up some kind of mental regime that brings my thoughts and desires under stricter control. Surely someone has come up with the right formula, surely some religious practice has cracked the code of purity? Sorry, but no. Even submitting ourselves exclusively to a life of self-abasement and serving others cannot make us pure. Thank God there is an answer to this centuries’ old problem.
The Apostle Paul sets it out at the beginning of Romans 8. By making His Son Jesus Christ a sin offering, God condemned all sins of the flesh to the grave. Sin condemns us so God does what is necessary to condemn sin! Every legal requirement that we should be pure and holy has been met. Every devious thought and deed, every evil act has been washed away and we are pure. In Christ, God began a new human race, we are no longer related to the first Adam, the man of sin. Our spiritual genealogy begins with Christ, the new Adam, the last Adam. Have you ever thought about that? All believers have a new ancestry, we are no longer related to Adam and Eve, we are children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. We are not inheritors of Adam's humanity, we are the body of Christ, and his blood offering makes us pure before God. Now, out of love and gratitude, we begin the journey, up the hill, on the road of sanctification and the purity of our hearts reveals more and more of the Father to us. That is why I write these words! Hallelujah!
Every week I put out the rubbish from my house and a lorry comes and takes it away – it is buried. The house is now clean. That is what on-going confession does, it cleans up the house, it takes away the rubbish and buries it. Before Christ came to me the rubbish accumulated, the house was full of dirt and corruption. He cleaned every room and now all I have to do is keep emptying the bins and putting the bags out!
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