In the days of Noah the world was filled with violence and corruption, and God intervened to cleanse it from its impurity with an overwhelming flood. Today, the world is marked by the same antediluvian features, and even in Christendom moral impurity is unashamedly asserting itself publicly, and being accepted by sections of the Christian profession. Soon the Lord will come to deal with this world in judgment, removing all that is offensive to God, and bringing in a new order in which evil will no longer be able to raise its head without immediate judgment. Before the Lord comes in judgment, He will first come for His saints to take them into a scene where all is pure, and they shall be fitted for that pure and heavenly place, their old nature, received from Adam, passing with the change of their bodies into bodies of glory like unto Christ’s body of glory.
A Pure Conscience
In writing to his son in the faith, Timothy, the Apostle Paul said, “I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience” (2 Tim. 1:3). Before Paul was converted he had a pure conscience, and he even persecuted the church without his conscience condemning him; but when he got into the presence of the Lord, on the way to Damascus, he discovered that his pure conscience had not been a reliable guide, for only when the conscience is pure in the presence of God can it be relied on to guide us aright.
The way to assure our hearts before God, that is to have a pure conscience in His presence, is to love “in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18-19). When the heart is right before God we can enter His presence without the conscience condemning, but we shall be afraid of the light of God’s presence if the conscience is not right. Job had a pure conscience when he reasoned with his friends, but when he got into the presence of God he realised how vile he was (Job. 40:4; 42:5-6).
After Paul was converted he exercised himself “to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and men” (Acts 24:16), which meant that he sought to live constantly in the light of the presence of God. God has given us His word to guide us in all things, so that the Christian can ever live with a pure conscience before Him, doing nothing that is contrary to His will as set forth in His word. This is how we can answer to the divine injunction of 1 Timothy 3:9, “Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.”
The Heart Purified
When the Apostle Peter spoke on the question of circumcision at Jerusalem (Acts 15), he recalled how God had purified the hearts of the Gentiles by faith (verse 9). Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ as made known in the Gospel, produces a moral cleansing in the heart, the seat of the affections, thereby purifying it from the defilement that belonged to it as derived from Adam. In his First Epistle, Peter writes in similar strain to the Jews of the dispersion, “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit” (1 Peter 1:22).
From these two Scriptures we learn that the entry of the word of God into the heart makes it clean in the sight of God. The Spirit of God uses the word of God to this blessed end, and with the object of bringing out in us His own features. This is connected in 1 Peter with the new birth, for the Apostle goes on to say, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever” (1:23).
A Pure Heart
We have considered the purified state of the heart and soul that belongs to every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, but the maintenance of purity in the life is another matter, and we have many exhortations in Scripture to this end. When the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” He was speaking of His people in their normal condition, for it is normal for a Christian to have a heart that is free from the pollution of the flesh, and that answers to the divine exhortation, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.”
Writing to Timothy, the Apostle Paul stated, “Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned” (1 Tim. 1:5). These practical features are to mark us, love flowing out towards others from a heart that is kept pure by obedience to the word of God, with all that belongs to the flesh kept in the place of death.
Having counselled the faithful to purge themselves from the vessels of dishonour in the “great house,” the Apostle goes on to exhort them to “follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:20–22). Those who call on the Lord are Christians, and when they call on the Lord out of a pure heart they are in normal Christian state, exercised before God, His word being their food and their guide.
Pure Minds
Man’s mind is defiled by all that engages it connected with the world, and the Christian’s mind will also be defiled if he gets occupied with what belongs to a defiled world. The Apostle Peter views the Christian’s mind as being pure, that is kept pure by the word of God, and therefore wrote, “This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance” (2 Peter 3:1). We need to be constantly reminded of the great truths of Christianity, and to be ever meditating on them.
Writing to Titus, the Apostle Paul said, “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled” (Titus 1:15). All pure things are pure to pure minds, but the defiled and unbelieving are unable to apprehend the purity of divine things, not having the divine nature and the pure mind that alone can enter into them. They can only see things through their impure and defiled sensibilities, so that everything is impure to them.
Pure Water
Approach to God requires a moral state in consonance with His holy presence, and this God has given to those who believe in Him through the Gospel. When Aaron and his sons were consecrated as priests for the service of God, they were first washed with water then sprinkled with oil mingled with blood. This is no doubt what is alluded to in Hebrews 10:22; the blood setting the conscience right before God, giving us “no more conscience of sins,” and the water in which the priests were washed pointing to the “pure water” of the word of God by which we are cleansed from the moral pollution of the flesh.
In John 13, where the Lord Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, Peter objected to his feet being washed, to which Jesus replied, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me” (verses 1–10). Peter then desired to have his head washed also, but Jesus answered, “He that is washed (all over) needs not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.” The pure water of God’s word has made us perfectly clean, and suited for His presence. On the practical side there is the need for the feet washing, and “a true heart, and full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22).
Pure Religion
Christianity is not unpractical, for it is the expression of what came out in Christ. There may be mere profession, failure of real Christians, or mere imitation of the “pure religion and undefiled,” but it is seen in its perfection in Jesus, and ought to be seen in those who profess to follow Him. James tells us that “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (1:27).
We see the attitude of the Lord Jesus to the bereaved when He met the widowed mother who had lost her son, and was on the way to bury him (Luke 7), to Jairus and his wife when their daughter died, and to Mary and Martha when Lazarus had died. His separation from the world is seen in the world’s opposition to Him, for He was not of it; and He said to His Father regarding His disciples, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:16). As His disciples we are to be true to the place He has given as by keeping ourselves unspotted from this defiling world.
Keep Thyself Pure
Although God views the believer as having purified his heart and soul through believing, He desires that in our walk and ways we should be “pure and without offence” for Christ’s day (Phil. 1:10). There are so many ways in which the Christian can contract defilement, that he must be ever watchful against it. To Timothy, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure” (1 Tim. 5:22). One way of getting defiled is to be associated with those who are defiled, and against this Timothy is warned. Laying hands on a defiled person would be to contract his defilement, so Timothy is warned, and we are also, to be very watchful of our associations. See also 1 Tim. 4:12 and 5:2.
The Lord Jesus could touch the leper without being defiled; and could be found in the presence of publicans and sinners without defilement; but who would suggest that He was associated with them? He was bringing divine grace to the leper, and to the publicans and sinners, not being identified with them saving in the defiled minds of His accusers. We too can seek to bring God’s grace to sinners without being identified with them in their sins, but we must ever be careful that in doing so we keep ourselves pure.
The Apostle John tells us how we can keep pure in a positive way, when he writes, “And every man that has this hope in Him purifies himself, even as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). There the Apostle is speaking of the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the hope of the Christian is that we are going to be “like Him” when He appears. If we are living in the sense of this, constantly waiting and watching for the coming of the Lord, it will have a very purifying effect on us, we shall be pure, according to the divine standard of purity that is seen in our blessed Lord Himself.
Pure Linen
Soon the saints of God will have left this impure world for ever, to be with Christ in a scene where all things are pure. At the marriage of the Lamb it is given to His wife “that she should be clothed in fine linen, bright and pure; for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints” (Rev. 19:8). Passing through an impure scene, the bride of Christ has been preparing for the marriage day by preparing her wedding garment. How blessed it is that a garment of purity is being woven and stitched in a scene where all around is defilement; but the grace of Christ enables His saints to do this. Every little detail of fidelity of Christ in this world of sin will be found in that blissful day in the garment woven for the eye of Christ.
Pure Gold
Everything in the heavenly city, where we shall be with Christ, is pure, as He is pure. The city is the vessel of God’s glory and “her light was like a jasper stone, clear as crystal” (Rev. 21:11). Every precious stone adorned the foundations of the wall, “and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass” (21:18). Gold in God’s word speaks of what is divine, divine righteousness, divine glory and divine workmanship. This is what the city of pure gold sets before us. What God has wrought must take character from Himself; and this heavenly city is composed of those in whom God has wrought for His own pleasure, and for the display of His glory. He has given us His own righteousness, for we are God’s righteousness in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21), and this is displayed in the heavenly city of pure gold.
In verse 21 of this chapter it is written, “and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.” Here is the street where the saints shall walk together in divine unity, and where this shall be seen, for the street is transparent glass. Down here the saints have been divided, walking in the light, but often separated from one another. Up there all shall see us walking unitedly in divine righteousness and glory, and in the unity of the divine nature that is ours, and where there is nothing of the flesh that brought in the separation among saints of God.
How blessed it is for us to look by faith into that holy scene where all is pure, knowing that we shall soon have our part there, but how great is the privilege of walking in divine purity here below, as occupied with Christ where He is, as looking forward to His appearing, and as exercised to keep ourselves in separation from this defiling world, and all who defile themselves in association with it.
R. 18.11.67