Laundry

Sometimes I think that as we enjoy such an unprecedented level of 'convenienced lifestyle', at a deeper level, we lose much more than we gain. However in this instance, I think the contrast is particularly revealing.
Back in our grandparent’s day, doing the laundry didn’t mean throwing a few sparse things into a machine, popping in a pod or two (or three) and setting a dial and/or pushing a button. No, back in their day it was called “the warsh” and it took the better part of the day, not counting the time it took to dry things on the line.

Most detergents had a chemical called “lye” which needed to be handled with serious care. Lye was the stuff that fought against the stains and got the wash clean. Over time, laundry soaps have become more user-friendly although they still advertise being “Tough on stains”. It’s an easy concept: We want clean laundry and we realize that it takes a detergent that fights stains but doesn’t do more harm than good(bodily). There are still older people who swear by lye, and would argue that today’s clothes aren’t anywhere near as clean as what they’d remembered in their day.
So then that’s the real question - How clean does clean need to be, to be clean? And this is also the part where the impact of the contrast is revealed. Nowadays, we feel like if we’ve done our part; loaded the machine, popped in some detergent and pushed the right buttons that the “clean” produced by these efforts is clean enough. We don’t have a lye-washed comparison to hold our wash up against. We don’t know enough to realize how ‘dingy’ or sub-standard the product of our efforts is and because of that, we assume that our best is good enough.

SO the next question is this – how perfectly clean should Heaven be? Should we be able to determine how clean it is based on our best efforts? What if our bestest efforts isn’t clean enough? should God somehow “understand” and settle?

This issue is at the core of Who God is, and He deals with it in very REAL ways in His word.

Heaven’s splendor is glorious beyond measure. You could even use "glorious" as the level of "clean" enjoyed by Heaven. There is absolutely nothing on earth that can produce or even compare to it. Scripture says "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". Because of the sin we're born into, the sin we're subject to, and if we're honest, the sin we crave, we're just incapable of producing that kind of clean. No matter the amount of sincere desire nor a life given to ceaseless efforts. Compared to Heaven, even our very best is still filthy.
We see the reality of this in the order of sacrifices God established with His people, Israel. God clearly communicated that sin is a stain: Not just unsightly, but unbearable.
Sin is a stain worthy of being cast as far from "Holy" as east is from west, and these stains absolutely need to be washed out. So in instituting the ordinance of sacrifices, God, communicated His high level of Holiness, expectancy AND set detailed standards as to what the people would need to do to wash themselves. To purify themselves back to a desired clean state. This message did more of a job conveying God's holiness and the seriousness of the stain than it did to really clean those who’d stained themselves. Later in God’s Word, He makes it clear that this “washing” wasn't working (in any lasting way), and in some ways that it really wasn’t meant to. The ordinance of sacrifice was about the need for continued obedience, but even more important, it was a foreshadowing; pointing towards what it REALLY takes to get things clean.

Here’s The Word:

Isaiah 1: 18(a) Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;

Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

Hebrews 9:22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

Hebrews 10:4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

Psalm 51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Ephesians 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

John 15:3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

Revelation 1:5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

Hebrews 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:

God sits in glorious splendor and nothing here can attain to it. This is why His lasting remedy for us couldn’t include our input. It would’ve made anything we touched, not just unacceptably dingy, but still apparently filthy. This is where we have to stop trying to esteem our “good” as anything worthy. God, in recognition of His “Brightness” calls our best efforts “as filthy rags”. For us to try doing our own laundry; cleaning our own sin to a level of Heavenly pristine-ness is an exercise of ultimate futility. Filthy just can't improve filthy. This explains two very important things. God’s reaction to the stain of sin is righteously and severely violent AND the fact that Christ is REALLY worthy. His washing didn't just clean, it made things NEW! He now sits at the right hand of The Father after providing the stain-fighting remedy in His blood, once and for all. This means that the laundry is DONE.


In Him,
Cros