Knowing the Truth concerning God’s Cleansing

When we repented to God and received the Lord Jesus as our Savior, many wonderful things happened! Among them, our sins were forgiven, and we were brought into fellowship with God.

In a previous post, we saw that God’s forgiveness of our sins is absolute. The Bible shows us our sinful record is abolished, and we’re released from God’s righteous judgment. God’s forgiveness takes care of our record of sin. But there’s another problem: our sins also leave ugly stains on us. 

Thankfully, there’s good news! The Bible assures us of both God’s forgiveness and His cleansing. 1 John 1:9 says:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

And note 3 on cleanse in the New Testament Recovery Version shows us the difference between forgiveness and cleansing:

“To forgive us is to release us from the offense of our sins, whereas to cleanse us is to wash us from the stain of our unrighteousness.”

In this post, we’ll read more verses and notes from the Recovery Version to focus on how God cleanses us of our sins.

Why we need God’s cleansing

Before we were saved, we all lived a life that was apart from God. Everything we were and did was against God, who is holy and righteous. We trespassed against Him in countless ways. 

In Ephesians 2:12, Paul reminds the believers in Ephesus of their condition before they were saved. It says:

“That you were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

Paul states even more strongly in Romans 6 that we were “slaves of sin” who presented our bodies as “slaves to uncleanness and lawlessness.” Our actions, our words, and even our thoughts were wrong and sinful.

Furthermore, Isaiah 64:6 shows us that in God’s eyes, even our good deeds were filthy: 

“All of us became like him who is unclean, and all our righteousnesses are like a soiled garment.”

Filthy and sin-stained in every way, how desperately we needed God’s cleansing!

The effectiveness of God’s cleansing

Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus, “having made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the word rendered purification in this verse also means washing off, purging, or cleansing. Jesus accomplished this purification once for all by shedding His blood on the cross for us. When we repented and believed in Him, that purification of sins was applied to us. In addition to being forgiven, the stains of our sins were not merely covered up; they were washed off, cleansed, and purged from us.

So we don’t have to wonder whether God still sees the stains of our former sins. They were cleansed away by the blood of Jesus. 

Two verses in the Old Testament show us the power and effectiveness of God’s cleansing. Psalms 51:7 says:

“Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.”

And Isaiah 1:18 says:

“Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will be like wool.”

When God washes away the stains from our sinful past, His cleansing is so absolute that we’re made as white as snow and wool. Both snow and wool are naturally white. For us to be whiter than snow or wool means we’ve been cleansed by the blood of Jesus so deeply and thoroughly that all trace of our sins is gone. It’s as if we had never sinned! This shows us how utterly effective the blood of Jesus is in cleansing us.

Experiencing God’s cleansing after we’re saved

Of course, the fact that we’re saved doesn’t mean we’ll never sin again. Our fallen flesh and sinful nature are still with us, and we will inevitably disobey or offend God. But we can experience God’s forgiveness and cleansing afresh whenever we confess our sins to Him, as we saw in 1 John 1:9. 

Let’s also read 1 John 1:7:

“But 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 every sin.”

Note 5 on this verse in the Recovery Version explains more about how we experience this cleansing:

“The tense of this verb in Greek is present and denotes continuous action, indicating that the blood of Jesus the Son of God cleanses us all the time, continuously and constantly. Cleansing here refers to the instant cleansing of the Lord’s blood in our conscience. Before God, the redeeming blood of the Lord has cleansed us once for all eternally (Heb. 9:12, 14), and the efficacy of that cleansing lasts forever before God, so that that cleansing need not be repeated. However, in our conscience we need the instant application of the constant cleansing of the Lord’s blood again and again whenever our conscience is enlightened by the divine light in our fellowship with God.”

Whenever our conscience is enlightened in fellowship with God and lets us know we have sinned, we should simply confess our sins to Him so we can experience His forgiveness and cleansing again and again. This will lay a solid foundation for the rest of our Christian life.

Praise God for His forgiveness and cleansing!

If you live in the US, we encourage you to order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version so you can read all the notes that accompany the verses mentioned in this post.