Can I truly be ‘clean’ forever?
By Jessica Brodie
Do you have attributes you simultaneously despise and appreciate? One of the best and worst things about my long, fine hair is the way it absorbs scent. If I happen to pass through someone’s lovely perfume or some gorgeously scented flower garden, this is a good thing, for suddenly my hair smells delicious. But on the flip side, if I walk by a restaurant where people are outside smoking, guess what my hair suddenly absorbs? I’m stuck with smoke-scented hair till my next shampoo.
Recently, I reread the Book of Revelation in the Bible, one of the more interesting and vividly visual portions of God’s Word. There’s a passage in the seventh chapter where the writer, the apostle John, witnesses a huge crowd standing before the Lord’s throne wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. He is told, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14 NIV).
Now, normally we don’t think of washing ourselves clean with blood. Blood is typically something we want to wash off, not wash in. So what does this mean? Why would we even want to wash in blood?
The answer: They’re not just washing in any blood—it’s the blood of the Lamb, of Jesus, of the One Who Was Slain, who willingly sacrificed His life for our sins. That’s a special, cleansing, purifying blood, far different (and far better!) than “regular” blood.
See, when my hair is saturated in smoke or the pungent dinner I’ve just cooked, I head to the shower for that fresh-and-clean feeling. And the shower does work—for a while. But then I cook dinner again, or my hair gets exposed to some other scent I want to remove, so I have to head to the shower again. And again. Shampoo isn’t permanent.
It’s likewise with sin. I can do something wrong, and regret what I’ve done. I can, as with shampooing my hair, “wash” it out of my life and strive never to do it again. But that sin remains stuck with me nonetheless, seared to my soul like smoke in my hair.
But for Jesus.
Jesus’s blood is permanent. With Jesus, I can finally be free from my sin, forever. It’s His blood—and the sacrifice it represents—that does the cleaning.
And unlike the shower, I don’t have to repeat the process over and over. His blood does the trick once and for all.
See, the phrases “washed in the blood” or “cleansed by the blood” describes the act of one accepting the free gift of salvation offered in Jesus. In Revelation 1:5, we’re reminded we are freed from our sins by the blood of Christ. In 1 John 1:7, we’re told the blood of Jesus “purifies” us from all sin. Other translations use the word “cleanses” or “washes.”
In the Bible, blood represents life. In Leviticus, God tells Moses “the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life” (Leviticus 17:11). He says much the same in Genesis and Deuteronomy, which makes the concept of sacrifice and ritual, of covenants bound in blood, even more meaningful. Blood, and all life, is a gift from the living God.
This isn’t just an Old Testament notion. It was Jesus’s blood sacrifice that paid the price of our own sin-debt forever in the eyes of God. Ephesians 1:7 tells us His blood ensures we are “forgiven and redeemed” from our sins. Colossians 1:20 tells us His blood “reconciles us” to God.
As the apostle Peter explains, “It was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:18-19).
Jesus Christ’s blood sacrifice establishes a new covenant between God and all of us who believe, and the holiness of Christ’s blood washes us clean forever.
This reminds me of the concept of living water Jesus spoke about with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. He tells her that while everyone who drinks of the water in the well will eventually be thirsty again, those who drink of Jesus and His “living water” (4:10) will never be thirsty again. Being washed in the blood of Christ is the same as drinking this living water. When we are washed in the blood, when we partake of this living water, it means we accept the terms of the covenantal agreement God established through His Son, Jesus Christ. We’re a “new creation” through this, 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us. Through the blood of Christ and our acceptance of Jesus as our savior, God reconciled the world to Himself.
How do you feel knowing only the blood of Christ truly gets us clean? Share your thoughts below.