1 John 1:7-9
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, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
One of my Christmas gifts this year from my wife was a new white dress shirt. Now I already had a white dress shirt that I wore every now and then on Sundays, but over time even a white shirt fades a little, so I was happy to get a nice, crisp, clean new white dress shirt!
I made sure to wear that new white shirt the very first Sunday after Christmas; and I have to say it looked pretty sharp along with my new Christmas sweater! But somewhere during the morning I took a pen out of my coat pocket, made some notes, then put it back in my shirt pocket….but without the cap back on the pen.
When I got home after church I took my jacket off and saw the huge ink stain on my brand new white dress shirt. With much chagrin I showed my ruined new shirt to my wife. She immediately applied every stain-removal product at her disposal and sent it through the washer at least a couple of times. But, alas, she couldn’t get the stain completely out.
I can still wear my new shirt, but only with a sweater or jacket that hides the stain.
There is a very obvious illustration in my stained dress shirt; and I’m sure you can see it. We are like the shirt and sin is the stain; and we are all stained. The question is: How do we get the stain out?
In 1 John we read:
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, purifies us from all sin.
Back to my stained shirt for a moment. My wife was able to get most of that stain out; enough, at least, so that I can continue to wear the shirt so long as I cover the remnant of the stain. I think that’s how we sometimes think about the forgiveness of Christ. We know that he forgives us, but we struggle to feel completely forgiven. In a sense we still feel stained; we still carry remnants of our sin with us; we work hard to hide those stains because we do not feel cleansed.
What if my wife had at her disposal a cleaning product that could not only completely remove the ink stain, but restore the very fabric of the shirt to its pristine original condition? What if there was a cleaning product that not only removed the stain, restored the fabric, but caused me to forget that the stain ever even occurred in the first place? Now, that’s a good cleaning product!
That’s what the blood of Christ does! The Greek word translated “purify” in 1 John 1:7 is katharitzo (from which we get our English word, “catharsis”) and it means to cleanse from all impurity. It’s the word used to describe what the leper asks Jesus to do for him in Matthew 8:
“Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said, “be clean.”
This is the kind of cleansing that God promised through the prophet Isaiah:
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow… Isaiah 1:18
See that? Not kinda white; not mostly white; but white as snow. God is telling us that by the blood of Jesus the stain of our sin is not somewhat removed, not mostly removed, it is completely removed!
In Hebrews 8:12 we read:
“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
So why hang on to remnants of that which God no longer remembers?
The old hymn writer said it well:
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
Brian Coffey
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