Clean is Scripture’s word for what may stand before a holy God and be used for His purpose.
In the law it named food, bodies, houses, and time that were fit for the camp and the sanctuary.
The prophets pressed the word into the heart. Jesus touched the unclean and they became clean.
His blood cleanses from all sin. What God has made clean, no one is to call common.
Leviticus taught Israel to distinguish between the unclean and the clean.
- Clean beasts could be eaten.
- A person healed of disease could be pronounced clean by the priest and return to the congregation.
- Water, time, and sacrifice marked the return.
Behind the rules stood a God who is holy and who was training a people to hate defilement.
- The psalms asked who may ascend the hill of the Lord: the one who has clean hands and a pure heart.
- The prophets promised clean water sprinkled, a new heart, and the removal of idols.
- Jesus told the leper, “I will; be clean,” and immediately the leprosy left him.
- He declared all foods clean.
- He said the Pharisees cleaned the outside of the cup while the inside was full of greed.
- Peter saw the sheet from heaven and heard, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”
- John wrote that if we walk in the light, the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Clean, then, is not first a diet.
It is fitness for fellowship with God, given by God, and kept by walking in the light.
- Clean and unclean in the law were tutors in holiness, not a ladder of human pride.
- Outward washing without a clean heart is a lie the prophets already named.
- Jesus does not contract uncleanness. He gives cleanness.
- Food laws served a time and a people; the gospel declares what God has cleansed.
- The conscience is purified by the blood of Christ, not by repeated animal rites.
- Walking in the light is how cleansing is enjoyed day by day.
- Nothing unclean will enter the city. Those written in the Lamb’s book will.
- Fit for God’s Presence – What may come near the holy without defiling it.
- Priestly Verdict – Under the law a priest declared a person clean.
- Clean Hands and Heart – The psalm’s requirement for the hill of the Lord.
- Spoken by Jesus – “I will; be clean.”
- Foods Declared Clean – The distinction of the table is not the gospel’s burden.
- Blood that Cleanses – The Son’s blood purifies conscience and conduct.
- Kept in the Light – Confession and fellowship keep the walk clean.
- Leviticus 10:10 – “You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.”
- Leviticus 13:17 – “And the priest shall examine him, and if the itch has turned white, then the priest shall pronounce the diseased person clean; he is clean.”
- Psalm 24:3-4 – “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.”
- Psalm 51:7, 10 – “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow… Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
- Ezekiel 36:25-27 – “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.”
- Isaiah 1:16-18 – “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes… though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”
- Mark 1:40-42 – “And a leper came to him, imploring him… ‘If you will, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, ‘I will; be clean.’ And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.”
- Mark 7:18-23 – “Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him… What comes out of a person is what defiles him.”
- Mark 7:19 – “Thus he declared all foods clean.”
- Matthew 23:25-26 – “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence… First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”
- Acts 10:15 – “And the voice came to him again a second time, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’”
- John 13:10-11 – “Jesus said to him, ‘The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.’”
- John 15:3 – “Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.”
- Titus 3:5 – “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”
- Hebrews 9:13-14 – “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ… purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
- Hebrews 10:22 – “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
- 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 cleanses us from all sin… If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
- 2 Corinthians 7:1 – “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”
- James 4:8 – “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
- Revelation 21:27 – “But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
I will; be clean.
That is the word of Jesus to the leper, and it is still the word of the gospel.
Clean hands without a clean heart will not climb the hill of the Lord.
What God has made clean, do not call common.
The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. Walk in the light. Confess. Draw near.
Nothing unclean will enter the city.
Create in me a clean heart, O God. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
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