The Purity of Christ (December 30, 2018)

On Christmas Eve we lit the last candle in the advent wreath, the Christ candle. This candle often represents the light that Christ brings, and the white color symbolizes Christ’s purity. Today we are going to look at what the Bible has to say about purity.
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Purity is freedom from contaminates. For example, pure water is water that has no other substances in it. Just like pure gold that has been refined is free from all dross/impurities.

Purity is very important to God. God alone is completely pure. Habakkuk 1:13 says that God has pure eyes that cannot stand to look on evil. Psalm 12:6 says that “the words of the LORD are pure words.” God is pure, so what does this mean for us?  

Read Genesis 1:27.

Since we are created in God’s image what should we be? We should be pure like God is pure.

God created a good and pure world which was free from the impurity of sin and its consequences of death and decay (Genesis 1-2). Unfortunately, through the one man, Adam’s, sin the entire world was made impure (Romans 5:12) and all people born into it (Romans 3:23).

This is a huge problem. Read the following verses to find out why.

Psalm 24:3-4

Matthew 5:8

What do these two verses tell us about our relationship with God? Only those who have pure hearts can be in God’s presence and see God.

Read Jeremiah 17:9, Mark 7:21-23. Do we have pure hearts? No. Naturally, our hearts are deceitful and desperately sick causing us to think and do evil.

So, is there any way that his problem can be fixed? In the Old Testament God began the sacrificial system, in which an animal was sacrificed/killed to atone for a person’s or the nation of Israel’s sins. When the animal was sacrificed the blood of the animal would be sprinkled by the priest as a symbol of the sins being cleansed. This ritual was called purification.

Read the following verses about the requirements of the animals for sacrifice. Exodus 12:5, Leviticus 1:3, Leviticus 1:10, Leviticus 3:1, Leviticus 22:20. What kind of sacrifices had to be offered? Animals without blemish or defect, in other words, they were pure.

Why do you think the animals had to be pure?

You cannot wash away something impure with another something that is impure.

Think about it this way, if you are trying to wash a dirt stain out of something, will you use dirty water to do it or will you use clean pure water? If you use the dirty water, you will just be adding more dirt to the problem but if you use clean water you can wash the stain away.

Unfortunately, this sacrificial system was not a real solution. Hebrews 10:11 says that the animal sacrifices did not have the power to take away sins.  Thankfully, God provided us with a permanent solution to our problem through a final sacrifice, Christ who is called the lamb without blemish or spot (1 Peter 1:19).

Read Hebrews 9:13-14. Christ is the perfect sacrifice and only sacrifice that has the power to completely purify us, cleansing us from our sins.

A beautiful picture of this is found in Matthew 8 when Jesus cleanses a leper. Before going to Matthew, however, read Leviticus 13:45-46.

What did a person with leprosy have to do?

·       Wear torn clothes

·       Let the hair on his head hang loose

·       Cover his upper lip

·       Cry out “unclean, unclean”

·       Live alone outside the camp

Why do you think a leprous person had to do these things?

Leprosy is contagious, meaning other people could get it too by having contact with a person with leprosy. All these things a leprous person had to do were to stop the spread of the uncleanness. The person’s appearance and shouting “unclean, unclean” would warn other people not to come near them and living away from all other people would also help to stop the spread of the disease.

Now see what Jesus does in Matthew 8:1-3.

What did Jesus do and how did he do it? He made the leper clean by touching him.

Not only did Jesus make the leper clean, Jesus himself was not made unclean by touching the leprous man, as any other person would be. God is unchangeable and incorruptible by sin. This is also seen in Isaiah 6 when Isaiah dreams about entering the temple unclean which he knows should bring him death. Instead of Isaiah being destroyed, however, an angel takes a holy burning coal and touches it to Isaiah’s lips. Isaiah is made clean by God’s holiness instead of Isaiah making the temple unclean. 

Just as the hot coal made Isaiah clean, Jesus makes us spiritually clean. Hebrews 10:12-14 says that “Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins…[and] by [this] single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

This process of sanctification found in this verse is very important. Even though God sees believers as clean and without sin through Christ’s blood, we still sin. So, while we may be free from the eternal consequences of our sins, we are not free from sin and its consequences in this world. As Christian’s we should not want sin in our lives just as God does not want sin in our lives. Thankfully, God has a plan for dealing with the sin in our lives which is through our sanctification.

So how are we sanctified? Read John 17:17.

“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

We are sanctified by reading God’s word and obeying it.

So, what does God’s word tell us about purity and what does it mean for our lives?

Earlier in Psalm 12:6 we learned that God’s words are pure words, so this means that our words must be pure too. Ephesians 4:29 says “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

In Romans 12:1 it says, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” We also are to keep our bodies pure, meaning we do not use our bodies to do anything God has told us not to do.

Finally, we are to keep our hearts and thoughts pure. Philippians 4:8 says “brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.