MORAL ABLUTION
Isaiah 1:16. Wash you, make you clean.
This is one of a very numerous class of passages which summon sinners to the duty of moral purification, of thorough and complete reformation of character (Jeremiah 4:14; James 4:8; Jeremiah 18:11; Ezekiel 18:30-32, &c.) These passages are very clear and emphatic, but they seem to be in opposition to others which assert man’s natural inability to do anything that is good (Matthew 7:18; Romans 7:18-23; John 15:5), with others which teach that repentance is a Divine gift (Acts 5:31; 2 Timothy 2:25), and with those which teach that sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:11, &c.) The opposition is only apparent [297] Every Divine command really involves a promise of the grace necessary for its accomplishment, and God is ever ready to work with and in us “to will and to do of His good pleasure” [300] Fallen as we are, we yet retain the power of responding to or of rejecting His admonitions; if we respond to them, there instantly begins to flow into our souls that which will enable us to accomplish everything that God has required (Philippians 4:13). Three great questions—
[297] There is no contradiction between these statements and the command to repent. Whoever considers what repentance is,—that it is a change of mind toward sin, so that what once was loved is viewed with disgust, and what was pursued with eagerness is shunned with abhorrence,—will perceive at once that it can only be wrought in us by a Divine power. Man’s natural tendencies are toward evil; and a river could as easily arrest itself on its way to the ocean, and climb to the sources whence it sprang, as can man without the help of the Holy Spirit learn to hate sin because of what it is. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil.” The polluted fountain of our heart will never cleanse itself. Repentance, like every other gift, must come from the Father of lights.
[300] The gospel supposeth a power going along with it, and that the Holy Spirit works upon the minds of men, to quicken, excite, and assist them in their duty. If it were not so, the exhortations of preachers would be nothing else but a cruel and bitter mocking of sinners, and an ironical insulting over the misery and weakness of poor creatures, and for ministers to preach, or people to hear sermons, upon any other terms, would be the vainest expense of time and the idlest thing we do all the week; and all our dissuasives from sin, and exhortations to holiness and a good life, and vehement persuasions of men to strive to get to heaven, and to escape hell, would be just as if one should urge a blind man, by many reasons and arguments, taken from the advantages and comfort of that sense, and the beauty of external objects, by all means to open his eyes, and to behold the delights of nature, to see his way, and to look to his steps, and should upbraid him, and be very angry with him, for not doing so.—Tillotson, 1630–1694.
But “God works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.” By His Holy Spirit He strives in every human soul, awakening desires after a better and purer life. By His long-suffering, by messages from His Word, by the monitions of His providence, He strives to lead us to repentance. But we must repent. As while the earth cannot bear fruit unless the sun shine upon it, it is still the part of the earth to he fertile; so while we cannot repent unless God aid us, it is our part to turn from evil. Repentance cannot he exercised for us; it must be exercised by us.
God commands you to repent, just as to the apostles, when five thousand hungry men, besides women and children, surrounded them, and their whole store was five loaves and two fishes, Christ said, “Give ye them to eat.” The task is as much beyond your unaided power as that was above theirs; but address yourself to it as they did, in obedience to the Divine behest, and you will receive power from on high to accomplish not only it, but other tasks higher yet.
I. Why must we cleanse ourselves from evil?
1. Because sin renders us offensive to God. It is in itself repulsive to Him, just as immodesty in all its forms and in every degree is repulsive to a virtuous woman (Habakkuk 1:13).
2. Because it is destructive to ourselves. In physical matters dirt and disease are inseparable, and so they are in spiritual. Moral pollution leads to moral decay. Sin is a leprosy that eats away all the finer faculties of the soul.
3. Because it renders us dangerous to our fellow-men. In the measure that we are corrupt, we shall corrupt others. There is a terrible contagiousness in iniquity (Proverbs 22:24-25; Revelation 18:4). A sinner is a walking pestilence. And
4. The special lesson of our text in its connection—Because otherwise access to the throne of grace will be closed against us. If it be not so with us now, yet there will come a season when it will be supremely important to us that God should hear our prayers (a time of great trouble, or the hour of death), and how awful will be our condition if God should then turn a deaf ear to us! But this is the doom of obdurate sinners (Isaiah 1:15; Jeremiah 11:14, &c.)
II. How may we cleanse ourselves from evil?
1. By resolutely putting off our old evil habits. This is what Isaiah exhorted the Jews to do (Isaiah 1:16-17). Similar exhortations occur in the New Testament (Ephesians 4:25-29; Hebrews 12:1). Begin with the faults of which you are most conscious [303] Begin and continue the great task of moral reformation in humble dependence upon God.
2. By prayer. In earnest communion with God our views of duty and purity receive a marvellous elevation, and we catch the inspiration of the Divine character, so that iniquity, instead of being attractive, becomes hateful to us also [306]
3. By humble but resolute endeavours to copy the example of our Lord Jesus Christ.
4. By intercourse with the people of God [309]
5. By making the Word of God the only and absolute rule of our life (Psalms 119:1). These are the means by which we may attain to moral purity in the future. Cleansing from the guilt of sin in the past is bestowed freely on all who believe in Jesus (1 John 1:7-9). Yea, the guilt of a man whose hands are literally “full of blood” may thus be washed away; e.g., Saul, the persecutor and murderer of the saints (Acts 22:4; Acts 22:16; 1 Timothy 1:16).
[303] Rooting up the large weeds of a garden loosens the earth, and renders the extraction of the lesser ones comparatively easy.—Eliza Cook.
[306] There is an antipathy between sinning and praying. The child that hath misspent the whole day in playing abroad, steals to bed at night for fear of a chiding from his father. Sin and prayer are such contraries, that it is impossible at a stride to step from one to another. Prayer will either make you leave off sinning, or sinning will make you leave off prayer.—Gurnall, 1617–1679.
[309] Get some Christian friend (whom thou mayest trust above others) to be thy faithful monitor. Oh, that man hath a great help for the maintaining the power of godliness that has an open-hearted friend that dare speak his heart to him. A stander-by sees more sometimes by a man than the actor can do by himself, and is more fit to judge of his actions than he of his own; sometimes self-love blinds us in our own cause, that we see not our own cause, that we see not ourselves so bad as we are; and sometimes we are oversuspicious of the worst by ourselves, which makes us appear to ourselves worse than we are. Now, that thou mayest not deprive thyself of so great help from thy friend, be sure to keep thy heart ready with meekness to receive, yea, with thankfulness embrace a reproof from his mouth. Those that cannot bear plain-dealing hurt themselves most; for by this they seldom hear the truth.—Gurnall, 1617–1679.
The first true sign of spiritual life, prayer is also the means of maintaining it. Man can as well live physically without breathing, as spiritually without praying. There is a class of animals—the cetaceous, neither fish nor seafowl, that inhabit the deep. It is their home; they never leave it for the shore; yet, though swimming beneath its waves and sounding its darkest depths, they have ever and anon to rise to the surface that they may breathe the air. Without that these monarchs of the deep could not exist in the dense element in which they live, and move, and have their being. And something like what is imposed on them by a physical necessity, the Christian has to do by a spiritual one. It is by ever and anon ascending up to God, by rising through prayer into a loftier, purer region for supplies of Divine grace, that he maintains his spiritual life. Prevent these animals from rising to the surface, and they die for want of breath; prevent him from rising to God, and he dies for want of prayer. “Give me children,” cried Rachel, “or else I die.” Let me breathe, says a man gasping, or else I die. Let me pray, says the Christian, or else I die.—Guthrie.
III. When may we cleanse ourselves from evil? NOW! this very hour the task ought to be begun.
1. Difficult as the task is, delay will only increase its difficulty [312]
2. Now, because God’s commands brook no delay. (Psalms 95:7-8).
3. Now! because now though God may be willing to-day to grant you “repentance unto life,” by your delay you may so provoke Him to anger that to-morrow repentance may be denied you.
[312] The more we defer, the more difficult and painful our work must needs prove; every day will both enlarge our task and diminish our ability to perform it. Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it, and the farther on we go, the more we have to come back; every step we take forward (even before we can return hither, into the state wherein we are at present) must be repeated; all the web we spin must be unravelled.
Vice, as it groweth in age, so it improveth in stature and strength; from a puny child it soon waxeth a lusty stripling, then riseth to be a sturdy man, and after awhile becometh a massy giant, whom we shall scarce dare to encounter, whom we shall be very hardly able to vanquish; especially seeing that as it groweth taller and stouter, so we shall dwindle and prove more impotent, for it feedeth upon our vitals, and thriveth by our decay; it waxeth mighty by stripping us of our best forces, by enfeebling our reason, by perverting our will, by corrupting our temper, by debasing our courage, by seducing all our appetites and passions to a treacherous compliance with itself: every day our mind groweth more blind, our will more resty, our spirit more faint, our passions more headstrong and untamable; the power and empire of sin do strangely by degrees encroach, and continually get ground upon us, till it hath quite subdued and enthralled us. First we learn to bear it; then we come to like it; by and by we contract a friendship with it; then we dote upon it; at last we become enslaved to it in a bondage, which we shall hardly be able, or willing, to shake off; when not only our necks are fitted to the yoke, our hands are manacled, and our feet shackled thereby, but our heads and hearts do conspire in a base submission thereto, when vice hath made such impression on us, when this pernicious weed hath taken so deep root in our mind, will, and affection, it will demand an extremely toilsome labour to extirpate it.—Barrow, 1630–1677.
Repentance is entirely in God’s disposal. This grace is in the soul from God, as light is in the air from the sun, by continual emanation; so that God may shut or open His hands, contract or diffuse, set forth or suspend the influence of it as He pleases. And if God gives not repenting grace, there will be a hard heart and a dry eye, maugre all the poor frustraneous endeavours of nature. A piece of brass may as easily melt, or a flint bewater itself, as the heart of man, by any innate power of its own, resolve itself into a penitential humiliation. If God does not, by an immediate blow of His omnipotence, strike the rock, these waters will never gush out. The Spirit blows where it listeth, and if that blows not, these showers can never fall.
And now, if the matter stands so, how does the impenitent sinner know but that God, being provoked by his present impenitence, may irreversibly propose within Himself to seal up these fountains, and shut him up under hardness of heart and reprobation of sense? And then farewell all thoughts of repentance for ever.—South, 1633–1716.
A PLAIN COMMAND
Isaiah 1:16. Cease to do evil.
One of the pretexts by which wicked men endeavour to excuse their neglect of religion is, that many of the doctrines of the Bible are mysterious. They are so necessarily, and that they are so is one proof that the Bible is from God. But however mysterious the doctrines of Scripture may be, its precepts are plain enough. How plain is the command of our text! No man can even pretend that he does not understand it. If he does not obey it, he will not be able to plead that it is beyond his comprehension. We have—
I. A universal requirement. Certain of the precepts of Scripture concern only certain classes of individuals (sovereigns, subjects, husbands, wives, &c.), but this command concerns us all. Your name is written above it, and it is a message for you.
II. A most reasonable requirement. It is wrong that needs justification, not right. The worst man in the community will admit that he ought to “cease to do evil.” And he can, if he will, not in his own strength, but in that which God is ever ready to impart to every man who desires to turn from sin. And not only ought and can men “cease to do evil,” it will be to their advantage to do so. Sin has its “pleasures,” but they are but “for a season,” and they are succeeded by pains and penalties so intense that the pleasures will be altogether forgotten. To exhort men to “cease to do evil” is to exhort them to cease laying the foundation for future misery [315] On every ground, therefore, this is a most reasonable requirement.
[315] As where punishment is there was sin; so where sin is there will be, there must be, punishment. “If thou dost ill,” saith God to Cain, “sin lies at thy door” (Genesis 4:7). Sin, that is, punishment for sin: they are so inseparable, that one word implies both; for the doing ill is the sin, that is within doors; but the suffering ill is the punishment, and that lies like a fierce mastiff at the door, and is ready to fly in our throat when we look forth, and, if it do not then seize upon us, yet it dogs us at the heels; and will be sure to fasten upon us at our greatest disadvantage: Tum gravior cùm tarda venit, &c. Joseph’s brethren had done heinously ill: what becomes of their sin? it makes no noise, but follows them slily and silently in the wilderness: it follows them home to their father’s house; it follows them into Egypt. All this while there is no news of it; but when it found them cooped up three days in Pharaoh’s ward, now it bays at them, and flies in their faces. “We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul,” &c. (Genesis 42:21).
What should I instance in that, whereof not Scripture, not books, but the whole world, is full—the inevitable sequences of sin and punishment? Neither can it be otherwise. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” saith Abraham. Right, is to give every one his due: wages is due to work; now “the wages of sin is death:” So then, it stands upon no less ground than very necessary and essential justice to God, that where wickedness hath led the way, there punishment must follow.—Hall, 1574–1656.
III. A comprehensive requirement. It is not from certain forms of evil, merely, but from evil in all its forms, that we are required to abstain. “Cease to do evil!” [318] Sin must be utterly forsaken! not great and flagrant sins only, but also what are called “little sins” [321] These destroy more than great sins [324] One sin is enough to keep us enslaved to Satan [327]
[318] There may be a forsaking of a particular sin that has been delightful and predominant without sincerity towards God, for another lust may have got possession of the heart, and take the throne. There is an alternate succession of appetites in the corrupt nature, according to the change of men’s temper or interests in the world. As seeds sown in that order in a garden, that ’tis always full of a succession of fruits and herbs in season; so original sin that is sown in our nature is productive of divers lusts, some in the spring, others in the summer of our age, some in the autumn, others in the winter. Sensual lusts flourish in youth, but when mature age has cooled these desires, worldly lusts succeed; in old age there is no relish for sensuality, but covetousness reigns imperiously. Now he that expels one sin and entertains another continues in a state of sin; ’tis but exchanging one familiar for another; or, to borrow the prophet’s expression, “’Tis as one should fly from a lion, and meet with a bear that will as certainly devour him.”—Salter.
[321] Thou dost not hate sin if thou only hatest some one sin. All iniquity will be distasteful in thy sight if God the Holy Spirit has really made thee to loathe iniquity. If I say to a person, “I will not receive you into my house when you come dressed in such a coat;” but if I open the door to him when he has on another suit which is more respectable, it is evident that my objection was not to the person, but to his clothes. If a man will not cheat when the transaction is open to the world, but will do so in a more secret way, or in a kind of adulteration which is winked at in the trade, the man does not hate cheating, he only hates that kind of it which is sure to be found out; he likes the thing itself very well. Some sinners, they say they hate sin. Not at all; sin in its essence is pleasing enough; it is only a glaring shape of it which they dislike.—Spurgeon.
[324] The worst sin is not some outburst of gross transgression, forming an exception to the ordinary tenor of a life, bad and dismal as such a sin is; but the worst and most fatal are the small continuous vices which root underground and honeycomb the soul. Many a man who thinks himself a Christian is in more danger from the daily commission, for example, of small pieces of sharp practice in his business, than ever was David at his worst. White ants pick a carcase clean sooner than a lion will.—Maclaren.
[327] As an eagle, though she enjoy her wings and beak, is wholly prisoner if she be held but by one talon; so are we, though we could be delivered of all habit of sin, in bondage still, if vanity hold us but by a silken thread.—Donne, 1573–1631.
Ships, when the tide rises and sets strongly in any direction, sometimes turn and seem as if they would go out upon it. But they only head that way, and move from side to side, swaying and swinging without moving on at all. There seems to be nothing to hinder them from sailing and floating out to sea; but there is something. Down under the water a great anchor lies buried in the mud. The ship cannot escape. The anchor holds her. And thus are men holden by the cords of their own sins. They go about trying to discover some way to be forgiven, and yet keep good friends with the devil that is in them.—Beecher.
If we would realise the full force of the term “hatred of evil,” as it ought to exist in all, as it would exist in a perfectly righteous man, we shall do well to consider how sensitive we are to natural evil in its every form to pain and suffering and misfortune. How delicately is the physical frame of man constructed, and how keenly is the slightest derangement in any part of it felt! A little mote in the eye, hardly discernible by the eye of another, the swelling of a small gland, the deposit of a small grain of sand, what agonies may these slight causes inflict! That fine filament of nerves of feeling spread like a wonderful network of gossamer over the whole surface of the body, how exquisitely susceptible is it! A trifling burn, or scald, or incision, how does it cause the member affected to be drawn back suddenly, and the patient to cry out! Now there can be no question that if man were in a perfectly moral state, moral evil would affect his mind as sensibly and in as lively a manner—would, in short, be as much of an affliction to him, as pain is to his physical frame. He would shrink and snatch himself away, as sin came near to his consciousness; the first entrance of it into his imagination would wound and arouse his moral sensibilities, and make him positively unhappy.—Goulburn.
IV. An imperative requirement. This is not a counsel, which we are at liberty to accept or reject; it is a command, which we disobey at our peril; a command of One who has full power to make His authority respected.
V. A very elementary requirement. Men who have laid aside certain evil habits, such as drunkenness, swearing, &c., are apt to plume themselves on what they have done, and to regard themselves as paragons of virtue. But this is a mistake. Ceasing to do evil is but the beginning of a better life; it is but the pulling up of the weeds in a garden, and much more than this is needed before “a garden” can be worthy of the name. Those who have ceased to do evil must “learn to do well” [330]
[330] Thou hast laid down the commission of an evil, but hast thou taken up thy known duty? He is a bad husbandman that drains his ground, and then neither sows nor plants it. It’s all one if it had been under water as drained and not improved. What if thou cease to do evil (if it were possible) and thou learn’st not to do well? ’Tis not thy fields being clear of weeds, but fruitful in corn, pays thy rent, and brings thee in thy profit; nor thy not being drunk, unclean, or any other sin, but thy being holy, gracious, thy having faith unfeigned, pure love, and the other graces which will prove thee sound, and bring in evidence for thy interest in Christ, and through Him of heaven.—Gurnall, 1617–1679.