To Encourage You

John 18:28 “Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.”

James 4:8 “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

You’ve heard the terms “dirty jokes,” “dirty movies,” and “dirty books.” When we hear these words, it elicits thoughts of sexual innuendo or pornography, that sort of thing. Sometimes words like “smut” or “filth” are used to describe such things. In first century Judaism there were many other things that were viewed as “dirty” by religious people. The orthodox were scrupulously concerned with outward defilement. They believed that to enter the building of a Gentile would make them “unclean” on the outside and unacceptable to God. They washed their hands, clothing, food, and dishes so they would be ceremonially clean, and they viewed those practices as things that would earn favor with God. We see the same kind of thing today with “holy water” sprinklings and other outward religious symbolism.

What the first century religious leaders were blind to, however, was the fact that despite their fastidious religious observances, they were filthy on the inside. Jesus said of them “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean” (Matthew 23:25-26). One prime example of this is in the account from John 18 above. While these Jewish leaders would not enter the Roman governor’s headquarters so that they wouldn’t be “defiled” and could therefore properly eat the Passover meal, at the same time they were plotting to murder the perfectly pure and holy Son of God, the true Passover Lamb. They were very concerned with the cleanliness of their outer body, but blind to the filth in their own hearts. Surely man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

There may be nothing inherently wrong with religious observances. Most of them are designed to symbolize some spiritual discipline or concern. However, if that’s the extent of our “religion” we are in danger of following the same example of the Pharisees who put Jesus to death. God is looking at our hearts, more than our hands. While we may be as fastidious as the first century Jews about not being involved in “dirty” things – like pornography, for example, if we are lusting in our hearts we are “dirtying” those hearts, and God can see every smudge.

It is only in the forgiveness of God made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for our filthy sins that we can be clean. God in his grace has proclaimed “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” (Isaiah 1:18). As the well-known hymn asks us “Are you washed in the blood, In the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb?

So are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? If not, you can be, by turning to the only One who can clean us up on the inside, Jesus, the true Passover “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).