How many there are today who have not reached the death experience. They have had their sins forgiven and realize that they are the children of God; but they cannot say that they are crucified with Christ, in the sense of the actual death of their old man. How many there are who are conscious of this inward foe, and yet are taught that it can never become dislodged from their nature and crucified. Praise God! he has provided a remedy in the blood of Christ. By faith in this blood the consecrated believer can receive the cleansing. The depraved nature is crucified, and Christ now takes supreme control of the holy temple.
The language of the apostle in Gal. 6:14 also expresses the same experience: "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." The blood of the cross has destroyed that inward nature which was the point of contact with the world. As long as this exists within, the world has a strong claim upon us, which, so long as it exists within us, will assert its nature, and, if permitted, will communicate with the world, and cause defeat in our Christian life, so that we cannot conscientiously say we are dead to the world: for there is something within us yet that is actually alive in this respect. This is the point of inward contact with the world, which, when brought into crucifixion, changes our inward condition and enables us to truly say with the apostle, that the world is crucified unto us and we unto the world, by the blood of the cross of Christ, and the life we now live in this mortal body, which is the temple of the Holy Ghost, we live by the faith of the Son of God, who has all power to keep us in the divine law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which makes and keeps us free from the law of sin and death.
In Matt. 15:13 we have this same doctrine of cleansing expressed in the words of Jesus: "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." While it is true that Jesus was speaking of the doctrines of the Pharisees in this instance, we can see beyond the simple doctrines and traditions of men, which are but the outgrowth of this root of depravity which our heavenly Father never planted in the nature of man. The depraved heart is the fertile soil which spontaneously grows all these evil things which Jesus mentions in this parable. The root is there, and so long as it remains, there cannot be a satisfactory Christian life. But the heavenly decree has been uttered by the Redeemer himself, that this plant shall be rooted up, which rooting up can be testified to by thousands of blood-washed saints today. Many plain scriptures teach us that this experience of heart purity was a recognized fact in the apostolic days. Jesus taught that it was attainable and told of its blessings when in Matt. 5:8 he speaks of the pure in heart. John writes: "And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." Paul says that "the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart" (1 Tim. 1:5), and in the same letter he writes: "Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience."—Chap. 3:9. Also in Chap. 4:12, he writes: "Let no man despise thy youth: but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." In Chap. 5:22, he says, "Keep thyself pure." In 2 Tim. 2:22 we are taught that many of the saints had this experience of cleansing: "Flee also youthful lusts; but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart."
The prophet Malachi saw the glorious fullness of this gospel salvation as he beheld and spake by the Spirit: "And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness."—Mal. 3:3.
All these plain texts set forth the doctrines of cleansing beyond question. Then when Peter takes the witness-stand (Acts 15:9) and testifies that he and all the one hundred twenty at Pentecost, and afterward the household of Cornelius, received the cleansing at the time of the outpouring upon them of the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that God certainly is no respecter of persons, and has the same measure of grace for his people in this evening time of the gospel day. Praise his holy name! Let us magnify and exalt the power of the all-cleansing blood, for it can reach beyond the inmost depths of our fallen nature and wash us whiter than snow. "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"—
"Oh, now I see the cleansing wave,
That fountain deep and wide;
Jesus, my Lord, mighty to save,
Points to his wounded side.
"The cleansing stream, I see, I see,
I plunge, and oh, it cleanseth me
Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanseth me!
It cleanseth me, yes, cleanseth me."