Stain Treatment
In the Old Testament, there are a number of laws about purity; and being clean or unclean. The laws pertain to foods the Israelite could eat, skin infections or sores on the skin, coming in contact with blood, coming in contact with a dead body, mold in a house, and other various situations. There are a number of reasons for these laws, and I do not have a thorough list for those reasons. In one of these regulations regarding going to the bathroom in your camp, in Deuteronomy 23:14, the people are told that God walks through the camp, and it must be kept holy. Otherwise, God will see something unclean and turn away from the camp. Perhaps one of the reasons for the cleanliness laws is that an uncleanness or something impure will be the reason God leaves the camp.
I don’t believe the uncleanness drives God away from the camp. God is constantly coming to us, whether we are clean or unclean. However, there appears to be an amount of uncleanness that God decides he’s just not going to remain around. It seems if people aren’t going to care about whether they are clean or unclean, then God will decide he’s not going to dwell with that person or people.
When Jesus offered his life to the Father on the cross, the ramifications of violations of God’s law were handled there. But other things happened there as well besides legal remedies for wrongs that had taken place. One of these is elaborated on in Colossians 2:14-15. I’ll quote starting from the end of verse 13 – “God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”
The part I want to hone in on is this record of debt that stood against us. Particularly the “stood against us” part. Some of you may remember a tv commercial from almost 20 years ago about the talking stain. It was a commercial for a product called “Tide to Go.” You can find a video of the commercial on the internet. It was a stick you could rub on a stain, it was portable and easy to use, and it would remove the stain. In the commercial, a job candidate is being interviewed for a position, but all the while as the candidate is talking, there’s a stain on his shirt that is talking and yelling louder than he is. The stain is causing a ruckus and a distraction. So much so that the interviewer is more intrigued by the stain than what the candidate is saying. The point of the commercial is that you can rid yourself of such a distracting stain if you use the Tide to Go stick.
This stain is similar to what happens to us when we sin. When we sin, we’ve done more than simply perform a wrong act, or fail to perform a right act. The action of sin does something to us that leaves us in a state of being unclean. We need cleansing from that sin. Otherwise, when we come before God, our sin stain is with us and constantly creating confusion and disruption. It gets in the way and impedes our relationship with God. It testifies against us, saying our loud "I've sinned against you God!" Neither we nor God can function normally in that situation. That sin stain, that “stood against us” needs to be removed. Just like the Tide to Go stick in the commercial, in our spiritual lives, the cross of Christ takes that sin stain away. That’s what our baptism does for us – it washes away not just our sins, but all the debilitating effects that those sins had upon us. We are made clean before God.
But we know we still sin. Baptism doesn’t prevent us from sinning any longer. 1 John 1:8 says “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” This is true. Does that mean the cleaning job that the cross of Christ did for us is now lost? No! To continue with our cleaning and laundry theme, Jesus’ blood not only cleanses us of our past sins, but it also acts as a sort of scotch guard for future sins. You know what a scotch guard is, right? It’s a product you apply to furniture or something, so that if you spill something on the furniture, it will not leave a stain. That’s Jesus’ blood. Oh we still sin, sometimes just as good as we ever did. But the effects of that sin do not impede us in our relationship with God. Also 1 John 1:7 says this – “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 cleanses us from all sin.” And when I say we still sin, it’s not that we want to sin. If we did want to, then that scotch guard effect as noted in 1 John 1:7 would not apply. We have to be walking with Jesus. We have to be in him to receive the scotch guard type effects of his blood on our sins and the stains they could leave on us. We don’t want to sin. We want to do right. We want to be in Jesus. But we also know we are weak and will struggle and fail – and that when we do, Jesus is there for us. 1 John 2:1 tells us that if anyone does sin, then Jesus is our advocate before the Father. His blood has that preventive effect on us. Unlike 007 and his license to kill, we do not have a license to sin. We hate it, we struggle with it, and we succumb to it, but we’re not engaging in it with a license to do what we want.
To that end, another passage helps us in our struggle. We may be like Paul in Romans 7, wanting to do right, but sinning. Wanting to refrain from sinning, but still sinning. What do we do? How can we be comfortable in the presence of God? How do we get our sins of scarlet to be as white as snow? How can we know that cleansing has taken effect? Again the blood of Christ has an effect on us. Hebrews 10:22 encourages us to draw near to God, because our hearts have been sprinkled with the blood of Christ – and that blood cleanses us so that we no longer have guilty consciences.
Perhaps there’s a fine delineation to make here. Sin should always trouble us. We should never get comfortable or complacent with it. But we should also know that the power of Christ at work in us is greater than the power of sin. Perhaps 1 John has one more tip for us. 1 John 1:9 tells us if we confess our sins, Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us those sins and to cleanse us (note that theme again!) from all unrighteousness. As long as we confess our sins, and recognize them as sinful, and bring them Christ, he’s cleansing us. We’re not licensed to sin, but we are admitting them. Were we to ever get to a point where we no longer were bothered by sins, such that we no longer confessed them, then perhaps we’d want to question if we were still walking in the light with Jesus and in Jesus. But as we struggle, and rely on Christ, we can be assured, and have a clean conscience before God, that Jesus is taking care of our sin stain.
-Mike Hendricks