Although we have been washed positionally by the blood of Christ before God and in our conscience, we still need the second aspect of God’s washing. We need to be washed dispositionally. This dispositional washing is in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, in His person, and in the Spirit. The blood of Christ washes us outwardly before God and in our conscience. Through His blood we have a conscience without offense, for His blood has washed away the stain of our sins. For this reason, our conscience does not respond to God’s condemnation. Because God forgives us, our conscience also releases us through the outward washing of Christ’s blood. Nevertheless, in our disposition, in our nature, there are many unclean things that require a subjective washing. This subjective washing is a dispositional washing, not by the blood of Christ but in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the Spirit. After we have been washed positionally by the redeeming blood of Christ, we need to be washed daily in our disposition in the name of the Lord and in the Spirit.
Because we have been defiled by sins outwardly and by our old nature inwardly, we need both a positional and dispositional washing. Day by day, we still have the old nature, and often we are defiled by it. Just as our physical bodies are made unclean by the dirt outside them and by the perspiration that issues from within them, so we, in our spiritual being, are unclean both outwardly because of sin and inwardly because of our old nature. These two kinds of defilement require two kinds of cleansing, or one cleansing with both the positional and dispositional aspects.
First Corinthians 6:11 says, “These things were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Here washing is not by the blood in an objective way, for this is the subjective washing of regeneration as in Titus 3:5. This was accomplished in us in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, in the person of the Lord, in an organic union with Him through faith.
It is not easy to understand how we can be washed in the Lord’s name. If Paul had said that we were washed in the precious blood of Christ, this would be much easier to understand. But what does it mean to be washed in the Lord’s name? At the time a person believes in the Lord Jesus and receives Him, he is washed in the blood of Christ. However, this washing is objective. The believers also need to experience a subjective washing. We did experience this immediately after we were saved. This subjective washing is not in the blood but in the name of the Lord Jesus. Such a washing causes us to have a living that is clean and pure.
In the New Testament “in the name of the Lord” actually means in the Lord Himself, for the name denotes the person. When we say, “Lord Jesus,” we experience the person of the Lord. Because the Lord is a living person, not merely a name, whenever we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, we call on His person. He is real, living, present, and available. When we call on Him, He responds. At the time we were saved, we probably called on the Lord’s name spontaneously and unconsciously, without being taught to do this. In this name, which is the reality of the living person of Christ, we were washed dispositionally.
According to 1 Corinthians 6:11, we are also washed dispositionally in the Spirit. The name is the person, and the person is the Spirit. We cannot separate the name of the Lord from His Spirit, for the Spirit is His person. Chapters fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen of the Gospel of John indicate that the Lord’s name cannot be separated from the Spirit. When we call, “O Lord Jesus,” the Lord comes, but when He comes to us, He is the Spirit. Paul certainly experienced this. He knew that when He called on the Lord’s name, the Lord came to Him as the Spirit. Then in the name and in the Spirit he experienced a dispositional washing. This also was our experience when we called on the Lord’s name and contacted the Spirit, who is the person denoted by this name. If we continue to call on the name of the Lord, enjoying His name and His Spirit, we shall daily experience a dispositional washing.
The dispositional washing is by faith. In Acts 15:9 Peter says, “He made no distinction at all between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.” Peter’s word about the cleansing of our hearts by faith indicates that God does not care for outward legalistic ordinances which cannot cleanse man’s inner being; rather, He cares for the inward cleansing of man’s heart. This corresponds to the Lord’s emphasis in Mark 7:1-23. The cleansing of man’s heart can only be by the Holy Spirit with the divine life, not by outward ordinances by dead letters. Such a cleansing certainly is by faith.