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Cleanliness Is Not Needed For Godliness
The context of this passage is that King Hezekiah of Israel called the Israelites together to celebrate the Passover. The Passover celebration was later than it was supposed to be, and the people ate the Passover lambs even though they were not ceremonially clean.
One of the most common excuses for people not to attend church or pursue holiness is that they need to “get their life in order.” The sad fact of our lives is that we can’t ever get cleaned up enough to come to God on our own terms. We are messed-up, issue-laden dysfunctionaries whose lives consist of getting into and out of trouble.
Hezekiah understood this, and that’s why he didn’t follow convention. God’s people needed God then and there, and didn’t need to wait until ceremonies rendered them clean. He prayed a bold prayer of faith knowing that God honors faith in Him above any ritual. Jesus went to the Cross so that we can come into the Father’s presence. God has already done His housekeeping, and we shouldn’t think we can self-sanitize our way into His Kingdom.
Thanks T for the reminder of God’s mercy and grace to us. W eare clean and holy before God because of Jesus.
T,
Thanks for the great words. God has always been a Lord of Grace and Mercy. I appreciate your reminder that success in God’s economy is based on faithfulness, i.e. the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and are union with Him satisfies the demands of a Holy God.
T (and anyone who cares to chime in),
Why is it that there is a continual tug to “self sanitize” in order to keep God happy with us? And what do you do with Paul’s words to “be holy… as I am holy”? Is this not a directive to clean up?
You (fly in the ointment) brother,
Jon
Jon:
First, that tug you speak of comes from that natural tension between that which is naturally holy (God) and that which is naturally unholy (us). It’s the same dynamic as when you’re doing something with someone, and you feel embarrassed and ashamed because you know you can’t do it as well as they can. We think that we can please God and become mature by fixing ourselves when true maturity is acknowledging that we’re broken beyond our capability to fix ourselves.
Second, it’s not that we shouldn’t try to be better. It’s that we don’t try to be better without God. We often think that we can “straighten ourselves out,” but we can’t because our flesh is tethered to sin. Because of the new spirit inside of us when we accept Jesus as Lord, we can finally acknowledge that 1) we can’t do it ourselves, 2) we acknowledge that God has made it possible through Christ to be better people, 3) we pursue holiness with the help of God’s Word, His Spirit, and a relationship with Jesus, and 4)we stop trying to cleanup by ourselves.