My paternal grandmother was a very immaculate housekeeper. Her residence was not only tidy and clean, but also sanitary. The fragrance of pine cleaner greeted you every time you entered her residence, for she liberally applied it throughout. She probably dusted, cleaned, swept, and mopped her house at least once daily. Dishes were washed as soon as the meal was ended, and rinsed for an extended time in scalding water. When as a wee lad I spent time with her and Pa, I was assigned the drinking glass of my choice to be the only one I was to use, and she cleaned it and returned it to its designated place after every use. If I had ever been required to eat from a floor, I would beg it be hers, for I doubt that even a restaurant floor on the morning of a scheduled visit by the Health Department was more sanitary than hers any day of the year.
My father informs me she employed the same fastidiousness when he was a lad. This applied also to the jars containing the milk she purchased from a nearby lady. After emptying the jar, my grandmother would sterilize it in scalding water and return it to the neighbor by the hand of her son, requiring him to inform the lady that there was no need for her to clean it because it was already as clean as it could be. Every time he returned from his errand, his mother asked if the lady had complied with her instructions. It was always his unhappy lot to inform her that the lady, upon hearing the instructions, immediately placed the jar with others that had been returned to her so they could be cleaned again by herself. This report always greatly irritated my grandmother, for she was convinced that if anything was cleaned by Nora Parks, it was clean enough for any mortal, and no mortal could make it cleaner.
I heartily agree with my grandmother in this regard!
Unhappily, many mortals are such fools as to apply the same rule toward God. They feel they are most immaculate and undefiled even before God’s eyes. They have convinced themselves that they have cleaned and sterilized and sanitized their lives and made their garments spotless through moral reformation and personal righteousness. In order to prevent becoming unclean again, they subject themselves to manmade regulations such as “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle” (Colossians 2:20b-21), and “wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders” (Mark 7:3), and say to others, “'Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am holier than you!'” (Isaiah 65:5). They should be not only canonized but even deified if it were indeed true that “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” (a phrase mistakenly thought by many to be Biblical). But Christ says to them, “Woe to you ... hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:27f).
How different are saints! We confess that “we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). We acknowledge, “If I wash myself with snow water, and cleanse my hands with soap, yet You will plunge me into the pit, and my own clothes will abhor me” (Job 9:30f). We realize that only “the blood of Jesus Christ [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). We have found in Him “a fountain ... opened ... for sin and for uncleanness” (Zechariah 13:1). We pray to Christ, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness .... Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. ... and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:1-7). We see Him as “Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Revelation 1:5). And our Cleanser owns us as “the ones who ... washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14).
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