Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity

Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity.’ — Yer. 2a.

THIS verse must make the meaning of that which precedes still more clear to us. David entreats mercy. He expects the manifestation of it in the forgiveness of his sins. He longs that his transgressions should be blotted out of God’s book, and taken away from before His eyes. But the sin on which he looks back presses also upon his soul. It not only stands recorded in God’s book, but it has stained his conscience, and cleaves to him as an impurity which makes him loathsome in his own eyes. Therefore it is that he prays to be freed from the sense of guilt, from this consciousness of inner impurity. He knows that this same mercy can bring sin to naught at once in God’s book and in his own conscience, and that the act of God in heaven is also an act of God in his own innermost spirit. Therefore he prays: ‘Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity.’ He shows us that he knows that the only way in which his sin can be re-HAVE MERCY ME.

moved is by a spiritual act of the grace of God. This must wash him from his iniquity.

And how came David to use such an expression for the work which he desired to be accomplished by grace? It was by the external washings and sprinklings of the Old Testament that he was led to this prayer. Under the old covenant every priest had to wash himself as often as he had to draw near to God in sacrifice. Every individual member of the congregation who had in any way but come into contact with that which was unclean, must also first be washed before he could mingle as one that is clean in the midst of the people. He knew that these washings had been intended by God to be symbolic representations of what must take place in the heart of man. They were a symbol of cleansing by the blood of Jesus Christ. The New Testament speaks of Jesus as of ‘Him who hath washed us in His blood.’ Of believers upon the earth it says: ‘Ye are washed ‘; of the redeemed in heaven: ‘They have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lord.’ In the full light of these expressions let us ponder this prayer: 6 Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity.’

And what now is meant by our having to be washed in the blood of Jesus? The word of God has taught us in what way the sprinkling of blood under the old covenant was a symbol of the cleansing from sin. Every one who had sinned was guilty of death. But God gives permission that he should bring a lamb or another victim to die in his place. When, then, the blood of that victim was shed, it was the proof that the punishment of death which the man had deserved had been undergone; and when it was sprinkled upon the altar, it was as much as to say that this death, this blood-shedding, was accepted with God as valid, and that his sin was washed away.

And thus was the blood of Christ shed as a propitiation for our sins. We are all under sentence of death. We have sinned, and made ourselves guilty under the law of God. The law has uttered its curse over us as transgressors, and can by no means withdraw its demands until they are fulfilled. God would be no righteous God and no perfect Judge if He did not maintain the authority of His law and uphold its power, if He should welcome transgressors of His law into favor. And therefore no one can inherit heaven who is not by the law pronounced clean. And no one can possibly be pronounced clean who has not fulfilled its demands; and never has there been any man who of himself has been sufficient for this.

Therefore the mercy of God steps in betwixt us with the gift of His Son. Christ has in our place fulfilled the demands of the law. He was our Representative, who appeared in our nature, to do in our stead all that was required of us. He was our Surety, who paid the price in our place. He was the Lord of the law, but was born under law to fulfill its demands. He has honored it by a perfect obedience. By dying an accursed death He subjected Himself to its sentence in our behalf. He has borne our punishment. He has taken its curse upon Himself, and thereby He has rendered what He had to demand from us. In His Death, His Blood, His Soul, His Life is poured out; and, as was the case with the sacrifice, in the outpouring and the sprinkling of His blood lies the proof that atonement has been made.

And now it conies to this simply: that we should be washed in that blood. And what does this mean? Just as it does not ayail any one who wishes to be cleansed from his impurity that there flows past him a stream of water, if he does not enter into it, if he does not come in contact with the water, and there have his impurity washed away; so is it with the blood of Christ. You must have a personal part in it. Tour soul must come into contact with that holy blood in order to experience the power of it. Christ is not come, as many suppose, to abolish the claim of the law, but to fulfill it. The law has a claim upon you, upon you personally and individually, and will ask you if you have obtained part in the righteousness and atonement of the Lord Jesus. The law will inquire: Have you, yes, you, been sprinkled and washed with the blood of Christ? If you have been thus washed, then you are also acquitted, not because the law has no claim upon you, but because you too are one for whom it sees that Jesus has fully met that claim. If you are not washed in that blood, then it avails you nothing that Jesus has died.

My fellow-sinner, see now what is necessary. See now what must have place with you, else there is no hope for you. Still does the Lord Jesus say: ‘If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.5 With all your praying and seeking, with all your piety, you shall not be saved unless the everlasting God does in you this spiritual wonder — unless you are washed in the blood of Christ. Do not, I pray you, despise the precious blood of Christ any longer, but hasten to God with the prayer of David: ‘Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity.’

Awakened soul, who art in perplexity with thyself and thy sin, pray, hear these glad tidings. Tsot only has the blood of Jesus been shed, but God Himself is prepared to wash you in that Hood. God Himself will by the Holy Spirit bring your soul into an inner spiritual contact with that divine blood; will enable you to appropriate and experience the power of that blood. It is the work of God: He will do it. Only believe what the Word says to you. Believe that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin; believe that without any worthiness in yourselves you can by the imputation of that blood be in a moment freed from all your guilt. Believe that God is in thorough earnest when He offers that blood even to you, and in that faith in Jesus’ blood let your prayer become all the more urgent: ‘Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity.’ 4 Through faith in His blood we are freely justified by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.’ (Rom. iv. 24).