A Study in Purity - Part 1
by Jamie Steach
Ok, it’s time for my honesty hour soapbox again. I’ve grown increasingly bothered by the way that we often talk about purity. Not to say that it’s bad, but ask yourself this question real quick: When you hear the word “purity”, what’s the first thing that you think of? Probably something related to sex, right? That’s exactly the issue I have with the way we talk about purity. Yes, sexual/physical purity is important, but I think real, biblical purity is SO MUCH MORE than this. In fact, I was so bothered by this narrow scope that I decided to do my own study on the way the Bible talks about purity. And, as I expected, what the Bible says about purity is so much mind-blowingly more than just sexual purity. The study I did was definitely not exhaustive, but here is “part 1” of the scriptures and concepts that impacted me the most.
First off, I found that being pure and being blameless are very closely connected.
“9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. 10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. 13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God.
(Deuteronomy 18:9-13)”
So you may be thinking: “What does this have to do with purity? Why am I looking at this?” This passage stood out to me when thinking about purity because of verse 13, which says “you must be BLAMELESS before the Lord your God”. The command God is giving them here has to do with the purity of their devotion. God is preparing His people to enter and possess the land He is giving them, and part of that process is eliminating everything detestable from among them. God wants them to be totally set apart, completely separate from all those things, because what He really wants is for them to be blameless. To be set apart is to be holy, and we often see the words holy and blameless paired together in the Bible. We will further look at the connections in purity and holiness later, but it is significant that God states five times in the book of Leviticus that His people must be holy because He is holy (Leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:7, 26). This is about God being able to fellowship with His people, to exist among them, so they must be holy and blameless. It’s a standard of absolute purity; the people who live in the land are defiled, or impure, because of their practices, so God calls His people to be different and live a life of purity and holiness, set apart from the detestable things, instead. This is also a standard of absolute obedience. For God to be among them, these commands needed to be followed to the fullest extent. Their obedience will be measurable, because absolute obedience will be to completely destroy all of these things. The measure of their obedience will also show the measure of their devotion to God. After going through all the work of redeeming them from Egypt, God could not continue to have fellowship with them if they chose to disobey. Again, this command is really addressing the purity of their devotion to God. Pure devotion should motivate us to full obedience, because we cannot have fellowship with God, the object of our devotion, if we are disobedient. So the important point here is not that being obedient brings purity, but that to maintain pure fellowship with God, there must be obedience. In our case, this kind of absolute obedience means that we will not be led astray by whatever is around us, and that we will “completely destroy”, or remove from our lives, anything that distracts us from having close fellowship with God or obeying what He asks. It’s about devotion, and we need to understand that we must have a pure devotion to God.
So, to simplify, I think there are three important things about purity that this passage teaches us: 1) God wants purity in our devotion to Him, 2) to be blameless we must be pure, and 3) absolute purity brings absolute obedience.
Now that we’ve established the “what” of purity and blamelessness, let’s look at the “how” in the next passage:
“4 I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— 6 God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. 7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1 Corinthians 1:4-8)”
So, we’ve established that being blameless is closely tied to being pure, but I love this passage because it addresses how we become blameless. Did you catch that when you read it? Paul says that God not only enriches us with all speech and knowledge through grace, but we do not lack any spiritual gift, either. All these things are done through Jesus. And, as if that wasn’t enough, we will be kept firm to the end so that we may be blameless on the day of Jesus. What does that really mean? It is JESUS who will keep us firm, and it is JESUS who will make us blameless. God Himself will be faithful in this, and HE will keep us where we need to be through His grace in Jesus. So what does this have to do with purity? If purity and blamelessness are closely tied, as we have already asserted, and if our blamelessness comes through Jesus and His grace, then I believe this passage is also telling us that our continued state of purity comes from holding to Jesus and seeking HIS authority in our lives. What I mean by this is that purity is not a series of choices or actions, it is a state of the heart. We are washed and become pure when we are given grace through Jesus, and our hearts are changed in this process (Romans 2:29, Colossians 2:11-14). BUT purity is not only that one single point, it is also a continued state of being, and we are continually purified by the blood of Jesus IF we continue to walk in the light (1 John 1:7), which means walking in His authority. This is a bit of a callback to that absolute obedience idea from earlier. If we are eagerly waiting for Christ to be revealed, then we are waiting in eager and willing obedience to His authority, because that is the product of our devotion. Jesus is ultimately the one who makes us pure, and it is through accepting God’s grace and surrendering to Jesus’s authority that this happens.
“6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
(1 Corinthians 5:6-8)”
Ok, so I know this is another passage that seems to be unrelated to purity, but stay with me. The church in Corinth had A LOT of issues that Paul addressed, so I figured the best place to look for a mindset of purity would be within these letters. The mindset presented here is exactly why I include this passage as an impact point. The idea is that even trace amounts of sin, or blemishes, or impurities, will affect the whole body around us. Because Jesus has died, because of the cross, we need to be rid of every trace of wickedness, worldliness, and everything we were before. God wants us to be a new, unleavened batch because we are a new creation. No yeast of sin anymore. This passage has really awesome callbacks to the Passover and the deep meaning that comes with it (which is also really cool, but that’s a side tangent) that the Jews in his audience would definitely have resonated with, but I really want to focus on the new piece. We need to be made new to be made pure. To become new requires that we eliminate every trace of who we were because we’re meant to be a new, pure creation with a new, pure outlook on life. Even a little yeast leavens the whole batch, whether that batch is our own life or the impact we have on others. Even a little impurity pervades every aspect of who we are, and will impact those around us. So really, I like this passage because it’s the process of being made spotless, and it addresses that to be pure, our mind must also change and become pure.
[Reading all of Daniel 6 will probably be beneficial for this next section, but in the interest of space, I’m only including key scriptures]
4 At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. 5 Finally these men said, “We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God.”
10 Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
13 Then they said to the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, Your Majesty, or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day.”
16 So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions’ den. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!”
22 My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight. Nor have I ever done any wrong before you, Your Majesty.”
(Daniel 6:4-5, 10, 13, 16, 22)
I love this story because not only is Daniel an amazing example of steadfast faith, he’s also an example of living in purity. Daniel’s rivals were jealous of him, but they could find no fault in him; he was blameless. Daniel kept his life pure in the eyes of God and men, so these men knew that the only way to trap him was to find a way to make following God’s law punishable. If you know the story, you know these men go on to convince King Darius, who loves Daniel, to pass a law that if anyone prays to anything other than him for 30 days, they will be thrown into the lions’ den. And what does Daniel do? He stands firm and resolute in his purity before God; he continues to pray exactly as he did before the decree, because Daniel is concerned with absolute obedience to God. Since this whole thing was, of course, a trap, Daniel is then persecuted for his resolute purity, his committed obedience, and although he has no fault before the king, his rivals assert that he has broken the king’s law and must be thrown in the lions’ den. The KING HIMSELF, who does not know Daniel’s God, wishes for God to rescue Daniel from the lions. Daniel was blameless before God and men, and his commitment to a pure life made an impact on the king. Do you ever consider how a commitment to purity in your own life can impact other people? Ultimately, Daniel is thrown in the lions’ den but he emerges unharmed. And why was that? Daniel was found innocent in the eyes of God, and before the king. GOD was the judge of Daniel’s fate; Daniel remained pure and innocent in the face of temptation and opposition, and he was rescued by GOD because of it. Daniel understood the importance of God’s authority and submitted to it, and this kept him pure.
Check back in next Thursday for Part 2 of this series and a case study in the book of Judges on purity!
Part 1 Recap:
Purity is all about devotion to God
To be blameless as God asks, we need to be pure; if we are pure, then we are also blameless
Absolute obedience and submission to God’s/Jesus’s authority must be present with purity, as it is a result of pure devotion