January 9: Be Pure

Wiley Richards is a retired professor of theology and philosophy at The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville.

When I was a boy, my father grew sugar cane. We ground the stalks through the mill in October to produce juice to boil into syrup. He advertised it as “pure cane syrup,” meaning it contained no additives, as we say today. It contained nothing that would taint, impair, or affect the syrup adversely in any way. Similarly, we believers are to live in such a way that nothing adversely affects our spiritual growth and Christian testimony. We highlight four ways we should be pure.

• First, our lives should be nothing less than a sacrificial presentation (Rom. 12:1-2). Jews of the first century would readily recognize the temple language the Bible records. The Greek word for “present” is that employed when a worshiper gave a lamb to the priest to be sacrificed on the brazen altar to be burned. The Bible commands us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, a reasonable or rational step to take in the light of our new standing before the Father which the Son procured.

However, the Bible breaks away from the sacrificial analogy in that the lambs chosen for the sacrifice are passive participants with no control over themselves or their fate. Shepherds assured their lamb’s physical condition as being acceptable. Believers, however, share a responsibility in preparing themselves to be offered to God before the world. They have two options, whether to conform to the world or take the opposing approach and be transformed by the renewing of their minds (v. 2). The latter course pleases God and brings the worshiper in lines with His perfect will.

• Second, being pure is therefore a mode of preparation (1 Cor. 6:9-11). Turning attention from the enticements of the world, believers focus attention on the Kingdom of God (v. 9). What worldly activities prevent anyone from entering it? Satan, the great deceiver (2 Thess. 2:9-10), has a lot of weapons in his arsenal. The list includes a battery of sexual sins which were “legitimized” for the Corinthian public by being incorporated into the worship of the goddess Aphrodite with its 1,000 temple prostitutes. Not all of Satan’s devices are sexual. The Bible lists idolaters, thieves, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers as being banned from God’s kingdom.

The Bible breaks into this litany of godless desires and practices with God’s assurance of victory. Study the actions on behalf of believers. They are washed, sanctified and justified. No sin is so horrendous and no heart is so depraved that Jesus cannot change the sinner to prepare for what is to come.

• Third, believers practice purity because of the principle of participation (vv. 13b-17). Our bodies, because of our physical drives, pull us in two directions. The first relates to the sex urge which can lead to fornication (v. 13b). The Bible denounces this sin with a scathing comparison. In having physical relations with a prostitute, the body becomes one entity with her, violating God’s idea of one husband and one wife (Gen. 2:24).

In the second direction, Christians live by a higher ideal. The body was made for the Lord and not for prostitution (v. 17). Therefore, believers are to put as much space as possible between them and opportunities for fornication.

• Fourth, believers practice purity because of Christ’s preemption (vv. 18-20). To preempt is to lay claim to something before anyone else can. Christ has a prior claim on our lives because He bought us with a price; His blood on Calvary (1 Peter 1:19). In paying the ransom price, He set us aside as a new dwelling, the temple of the Holy Spirit Who is in us (v. 19). We are not our own; bless His Name.