It’s easy to think that under his new arrangement with humanity, God forgave us because of Christ’s death on our behalf, and that one day we will go to heaven, but we are still the same old sinners we used to be. Nothing could be further from the truth. God didn’t just forgive us. He made us new on the inside.
So the first thing God does is completely forgive us. He takes the sin issue off the table between us. The second thing God does is completely cleanse us. Through the prophet Ezekiel, he promised that under the new arrangement:
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.” (Ezekiel 36:25)
It’s fantastic to know that our sins have been fully forgiven, forever. That’s a big deal. But even if our sins have been forgiven, it’s still possible for us to feel stained on the inside.
God knew this. Sin pollutes us. It’s like cars from the 60s and 70s. Some of them looked great, but man, did they spew out the pollution. You could tell by how black their tailpipes got. Fortunately, cars have gotten a lot cleaner since then. But not nearly as clean as God makes us.
God cleanses us completely when we place our faith in Christ. He washes us thoroughly on the inside. He doesn’t give us half a bath. Once and for all, he makes us sparkling clean.
Once again, do you see how incredibly freeing this is? We are completely clean. Always. There’s never a time when we aren’t clean enough for God. There’s never a time when we aren’t good enough to approach him. There’s never a time when, because we think we’ve performed badly, we have to “clean ourselves up” for God. Jesus already did that for us! He makes us completely worthy. That’s why our Father says to us, “Approach me boldly. Be confident! I’ve made you clean. I want you to come to me—anytime, anyplace.”
God washed us for that very purpose, so we could be close to him. He wants to be close to us, no matter how we think we’ve performed. It’s not about our performance—ever. It’s about Jesus’s performance. It’s about the free gift he gives us: the gift of being utterly clean on the inside.
Once we are cleansed by God, that is taken care of. We don’t need to do anything anymore to be clean. We are clean. We don’t ever have to feel stained again. In my experience, when God makes this real to us, that feeling of being stained goes away. It’s a lie, and it’s been replaced by the truth. We are clean, now and forever. We can be at peace in that. We’ve not only been totally forgiven; we’ve been totally cleansed.
Here are some of the places in the Bible where God explains what we just discussed:
We are thoroughly cleansed by God: “Such 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.” (1 Corinthians 6:11)
Also, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit …” (Titus 3:5)
We are clean and have perfect access to God: “Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus … let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Hebrews 10:19, 22)
