Today we continue our lesson from last week. At that time our attention was focused primarily upon our calling as God’s children being to holiness. This lesson will focus on beginning to understand the quality of purity and holiness.
The word “pure” as it is used in the NT refers to one’s moral cleanness, chasteness, and modesty. It is a cleanness that tests one’s inward motives and heart. It comes from the same root word as the word “holy.”
The Hebrew writer states in Hebrews 13:4, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” This word for “undefiled” here is only found a few times in the NT. One of those occasions is James 1:27, where James says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” The word “undefiled” is very much like the word pure but it is from the negative vantage point. Something that is undefiled is something that is not impure, it’s not stained or tainted.
The sexual relationship between a lawfully married man and woman is pure… it does not cause one to become defiled or stained before God. This is the wholesome plan of God to keep life on earth going and to help bind that one man to that one woman for life. The relationship that God has provided within marriage is a good thing, designed to be a blessing to the relationship. But sexual relations of any kind outside of that bond are wrong; they are impure in the eyes of God. All other sexual relationships are immoral and God will judge those who engage in such, unless they repent, like some at Corinth did (according to 1 Cor. 6:9). So, regardless of one’s past he or she can certainly be forgiven of such sin.
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Would you listen carefully to the words of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount? Listen, remembering that we will some day be judged by the words of our Lord (see Jn. 12:48). Christ says there in Matthew 5:27-28, “‘You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” So Jesus indicates that not only is it impure to engage in illicit sexual activity, but it is impure to have thoughts of such. This is a whole new level or depth of purity. Jesus desires 24 karat purity! How many karats is your purity? Can you say that number with a good conscience before God?
Understanding the true meaning and depth of purity is very important because the Hebrew writer says that without it “no one will see the Lord” (12:14). My friends, purity is important. My friends, purity is a blessing!
Daren Schroeder
