God is Merciful

Will you still not be made clean? Jeremiah 13:27

This God asked of Jerusalem. And possibly the world. “I have seen your adulteries and your lustful neighings, the lewdness of your harlotry, your abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! Will you still not be made clean? Jeremiah 13:27. Could sin make people dirty? Or, is the right word ‘unclean.’

God gave Moses many instructions regarding clean and unclean. This was important because even Job asked, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one! Job 14:4. No one but God!

Certain animals were clean and others were unclean. A person could become unclean and could then become clean. Things could become unclean and then become clean again. A person with leprosy was unclean. But when the disease was healed the leper could be made clean again.  Daily chores could make a person unclean like touching mold or mildew. God gave instructions on how to clean the things and the person. God gave Moses instructions regarding the rituals to make people and things clean. Sinners were unclean. Only God can make a sinner clean. This was important because only clean people and things could approach God.

This was done by the shedding of blood. Consider Hebrews 9:13-14: For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Clearly this is no small thing for God. God is holy. For anyone to approach God must be made holy or he will perish. Therefore, God, in His mercy, made us holy so we could have fellowship with Him. We, who were once unclean, are now made clean by the blood of Jesus Christ.