The filthiness of our sins was not only before God and within us but also before men. Many of our ungodly and unrighteous acts against God were committed before men, and many of our sinful, evil, lewd, and filthy deeds were known to those around us. Thus, when we believe and are saved, God also, through a particular means, cleanses away the dirtiness of our sin in the eyes of men and before men. This is the cleansing of baptism. Baptism is a silent declaration of our repentance to God. Through baptism we announce the facts of our repentance and believing and of our deliverance from the filthiness of sin before all those around us. This separates us from our sinful defilement in their eyes, and we become repentant, rectified, and cleansed people before them.
1. “Rise up and be baptized and wash away your sins” (Acts 22:16).
These words were spoken by Ananias, who was sent by God to Saul after Saul met the Lord on his way to Damascus. Saul—later named Paul—opposed the Lord, persecuted the church, and harmed the Christians. These actions were well known to all, especially to the Christians. After he met the Lord and repented to Him, he needed to be baptized so that all could realize that such an opposer of the Lord and a persecutor of the church had turned to the Lord to become a Christian. This washed away the sins of opposition and persecution from Paul in the sight of men.
Although we were fully cleansed by God at the time of our salvation, we still need to be cleansed after being saved because we are still living in the old creation, our body is not yet redeemed, and we still fall and sin. On the one hand, we need the Lord’s life to deliver us from the life in the old creation until our body is redeemed and the new creation swallows up all of the old creation. On the other hand, we need the Lord’s blood to cleanse away our trespasses instantly to restore our cleanness before God.
At the time of our salvation, God first washed away our sins by the Lord’s blood so that His life might enter into us to do its work of cleansing to deliver us from the life of the old creation. If the Lord’s blood had not cleansed us, His life would not have been able to enter into us. Therefore, when we are saved, the cleansing of the blood precedes the cleansing of life. However, after we are saved, the cleansing of life becomes primary and the cleansing of the blood supplementary. After we are saved, the major goal of God’s cleansing is to deliver us from the old creation by His life within us until we are completely transformed into a new creation. Since we often fail and sin in the process, God still cleanses us moment by moment by the Lord’s blood and with His life so that the working of His life in us may not be disrupted.
From the time we were saved, the Holy Spirit has been moving and operating in us by the Lord’s life, causing us to put off all that is of man and not of God and all that is not in agreement with God, until we arrive at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ through the operation of the Lord’s life (Eph. 4:13).
1. “Cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word” (Eph. 5:26-27).
Here word refers to the Lord’s word. The water in the word refers to the life that is in the Lord’s word (John 6:63). Like water, this life has the power to cleanse. The Lord is cleansing the church by the washing of this life-water in the word, freeing her from everything natural, everything of the old creation, every spot and wrinkle of man, and every blemish of the old creation so that she may become holy and glorious, filled with Christ’s divine holiness and expressing the glory of God.
2. “Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and of spirit” (2 Cor. 7:1).
The Holy Spirit’s cleansing of the believer by the Lord’s life purifies the believer not only from the filthiness of the flesh without but also from any filthiness of the spirit within. The believer should put off all filthiness without and within by following the moving of the Spirit and obeying the sense of life so that he may be increasingly purified.
3. “Purifies himself, even as He is pure” (1 John 3:3).
The Holy Spirit, through the Lord’s life, will cleanse the believer until he is as pure as the Lord. Therefore, a believer should obey the Holy Spirit and put away by the Spirit all matters that do not agree with or match the Lord, until he is pure even as the Lord is pure.