"If we walk in the light, the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth 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" 1 John 1:7,9.
The same God who forgives sin also cleanses from it. Cleansing is no less a promise of God than is forgiveness; therefore, it is a matter of faith. Cleansing, as well as forgiveness, is as obtainable from God as it is indispensable and impossible for man.
And what now is this cleansing? The word comes from the Old Testament. While forgiveness was a sentence of acquittal passed on the sinner, cleansing was something that happened to him and in him. Forgiveness came to him through the Word. Cleansing was something done to him that he could experience.1 Consequently, we are liberated from unrighteousness and from the pollution and the working of sin by the inner revelation of the power of God--cleansing. Through cleansing we obtain the blessing of a pure heart--a heart in which the Spirit can complete His operations with a view to sanctifying us and revealing God within us.2
Forgiveness and cleansing are both through the blood of Jesus. The blood breaks the power that sin has in heaven to condemn us. The blood also breaks the power of sin in the heart which holds us captive. The blood has a ceaseless operation in heaven from moment to moment. The blood has likewise a ceaseless operation in our heart--to purify the heart from the sin which always seeks to penetrate from the flesh. The blood cleanses the conscience from dead works, to serve the living God. The marvellous power that the blood has in heaven, it also has in the heart.3
Cleansing is also through the Word--the Word testifies of the blood and of the power of God.4 Therefore, cleansing is also through faith. It is a divine and effectual cleansing, but it must be received in faith before it can be experienced and felt. I believe that I am cleansed with a divine cleansing, even while I still perceive sin in the flesh. Through faith in this blessing, cleansing itself will be my daily experience.
Cleansing is sometimes ascribed to God, or to the Lord Jesus, or sometimes to man.5 That is because God cleanses us by making us active in our own cleansing. Through the blood, the lust which leads to sin is mortified, the certainty of power against sin is awakened, and the desire and the will are thus made alive. Happy is the person who understands this. He is protected against the useless pursuit of self purification in his own strength, because he knows God alone can do it. He is protected against discouragement, for he knows God will certainly do it.
Accordingly, our chief emphasis occurs in two things--the desire and the reception of cleansing. The desire must be strong for a real purification. Forgiveness must be only the gateway or beginning of a holy life. I have remarked several times that the secret of progress in the service of God is a strong yearning to become free from every sin--a hunger and thirst after righteousness.6 Blessed are they who thus yearn. They will understand and receive the promise of a cleansing through God.
They also learn what it means to do this in faith. Through faith they know that an unseen, spiritual, heavenly, but very real cleansing through the blood is being worked in them by God Himself.
Child of God, you remember how we have seen that it was to cleanse us that Jesus gave Himself. Let Him, the Lord God, cleanse you. Having these promises of a divine cleansing, receive this cleansing for yourself. Believe that every sin, when it is forgiven you, is also cleansed away. It will be to you according to your faith. Let your faith in God, in the Word, in the blood, in your Jesus, continually increase. "God is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Lord God, I thank You for these promises. You not only give forgiveness, but also cleansing. As surely as forgiveness comes first, does cleansing follow for everyone who desires it and believes. Lord, let Your Word penetrate my heart, and let a divine cleansing from every sin that is forgiven me be the continual expectation of my soul.
Beloved Saviour, let the glorious, ceaseless cleansing of Your blood, through Your Spirit in me, be made known to me and shared by me every moment. Amen.
Be the first to react on this!
Andrew Murray (1828 - 1917)
Brother Andrew Murray was a well-known writer/preacher in South Africa who ministered amongst the Dutch Reformed churches. His writings now are widely accepted by modern evangelicals and he is published more than ever in his life-time.Some of his better known books titles are: "Abide In Christ", "Absolute Surrender," and "Humility." His burden for the body of Christ were teachings on the abiding Spirit of Christ in the believer, the life of faith with God daily, and the life of intercession and prayer in the Church.
Andrew Murray was possibly the strongest spokesman of the Philadelphian age to expound the Body's necessity to abide in Christ, like the Apostle John before him.
Murray was born into a family of four children in the then remote Graaff-Reinet region (near the Cape) of South Africa. Educated in Scotland, which was followed by theological studies in Holland, Andrew returned to his native land to work as a missionary and minister. Given the daunting task of ministering to Bloemfontein, a remote region of 50,000 square miles and 12,000 people beyond the Orange River, Murray already began to sense the need to for the "deeper Christian life".
Though successful in preaching and bringing many to Christ, Murray found many of his greatest lessons in the School of Suffering, as will all who follow in the path of obedience.
Andrew Murray was one of four children born to Pastor Andrew, Sr., and Maria Murray. He was raised in what was considered to be the most remote corner of the world - Graaff-Reinet, South Africa. Educated in Scotland and Holland, in 1848 Andrew, Jr., returned to South Africa as a missionary and minister with the Dutch Reformed Church. His first appointment was to Bloemfontein, a territory of nearly 50,000 square miles and 12,000 people.
Andrew and his brother John had been in close contact with a revival movement in Scotland, an evangelical extension of the ongoing Second Great Awakening in America. He prayed for the same sort of awakening for the church in South Africa and wrote, "My prayer is for revival, but I am held back by the increasing sense of my own unfitness for the work. I lament the awful pride and self complacency that have till now ruled my heart. O that I may be more and more a minister of the Spirit." (J. du Plessis, The Life of Andrew Murray)
In 1860, revival did come to the churches of Cape Town, South Africa, and subsequently spread to surrounding towns and villages. Even remote farms and plantations felt the impact as lives were changed. Where once the churches had not been able to find one man ready to be a leader for God, the revival raised up 50 in Murray's Cape Town parish alone. There were more conversions in one month in that parish than in the whole course of its previous history. (Leona Choy, Andrew Murray: Apostle of Abiding Love)
Greatly concerned for the spiritual guidance of new converts and renewed Christians, Andrew Murray wrote over 240 books. His writings reflect his own longing for a deeper life in Christ and his prayer that others would long for and experience that life as well.