What does "you are already clean because of the word" mean (John 15:3)?

The disciples had already proved the purging power of the word. "Already ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you."285 They had received it, and knew that He came from God, though they knew the Father imperfectly, if at all. Yet Christ's word had wrought in their souls; it had cleansed their ways, it had judged their worldly thoughts, it had laid bare their carnal desires: the effect was real in their consciences. Judas was now gone, so that the Lord does not need to say, "Ye are clean, but not all"; but, on the contrary, "Ye are clean already," even before the Holy Ghost was given as power from on high. The cleansing efficacy of the word is a cardinal truth of Scripture apt to be forgotten, not merely by the Romanist who trusts in ordinances, but by the Protestant who speaks exclusively of the Saviour's blood "that cleanseth from all sin." God forbid that a word should be said to obscure that blood, or to turn a soul from its justifying value. But out of the Lord's side flowed water and blood; and we need both. The blood atones, the water purifies; and as the blood abides shed and efficacious once for all, in contrast with the ineffectual and many sacrifices of the Jews, the washing of water by the word is not only applied at the first, but is needed to purge all through. Where this is not seen, confusion follows, and the enfeebling, if not destruction, of fundamental truth.

Now when God's word enters the soul by faith, it deals with conscience in a purifying way; it awakens to a sense of sin, and produces repentance toward God. Therefore Peter speaks of cleansing our hearts by faith (Acts 15:9), and wrote to the elect sojourners of the dispersion what is equally true of all believers, that they had "purified their souls in their obedience to the truth" (1 Peter 1:22). So the Lord told the disciples (John 15:3), "Already ye are clean, because of the word which I have spoken to you." The atoning work was not yet done, nor was Christian baptism enjoined or even possible. It was God's word which wrought in His grace, being received not as men's word, but, even as it is truly, God's word, which also effectually works in those that believe (1 Thess. 2:13).

Now He addresses the disciples, and tells them that they were already clean through the word that He had spoken unto them. He does not say, Through the blood that I am going to shed. This was not a fact yet; but the word connects itself with our responsibility, the blood with His grace. The chapter is full of our responsibility, and it is the word of God that deals with our shortcoming and makes us feel what the will of God is.

But there are two kinds of cleansing true of every Christian. There is the word, by which a man is first converted to God, when he gets a new nature that hates sin, and by the same word he is afterwards cleansed practically. It is the purifying of every day. Besides, the believer is (as all know) washed by blood, the precious blood of Christ, that he may be clear from all question of guilt. The former is connected with our responsibility to bear fruit for God. We must be cleansed first, but already it was true that they were born of God, and now the urgent call was to bear fruit. It is not here connected with the fact that their sins were forgiven. This might be true; but there was more than this true. The believer receives a new and holy nature, and it is in virtue of this that he is called upon, by having Christ before him, and the continual remembrance that he bears His name in this world, to bear fruit for God. For we can only act for the Lord by acting from the Lord; and we cannot act from the Lord except we are abiding in Him, which means the habit of continually looking and referring to Him, of dependence upon Him. Therefore He says, "Abide in me." He does not say, I will abide in you for eternal life, but He exhorts them to abide in Him, that they may bear fruit. There is responsibility throughout.

Now, you will see that there is no reference in the verse to the blood of Christ. It is "the blood of Jesus Christ, His (God's) Son, that cleanses us from all sin"; that is quite true. But that is not the teaching here. The point here is the progressive cleansing going on at the present time. The Lord Jesus, my dear young friends, has you in hand. He wants to educate you; He wants to bring you up in His ways, in such ways as are in accordance with His own mind and will. There are things about you, in your words, in your thoughts, in your ways and associations, that are not agreeable to Him; they are not according to His mind, and He wants to cleanse you from them. And how will He do it? He does it by His word. "Already ye are clean by the word which I have spoken to you", the Lord said to His disciples. He had been instructing them for very many months, breathing out to them of the love of God, and of those things that were proper to the kingdom of heaven; and to that extent they were clean with "the washing of water by the word."

263 "Every branch," clearly, I think, "in me," the gist of the sentence rests on the connection in it: "I am the true vine," then, "Every branch in me." Next the point of question in the husbandman. Not bearing fruit, this the ground, not the work: it does not bear fruit; He takes it away. It was a branch in Christ apparently subject to the general influences of what flowed through the stock, the vine; but it proved not; it was taken away. Also note hence, as the vine, would lead us to suppose it is spoken corporately, not vitally; and every one bearing fruit, the fruit that is looked for from the tree. The tree is for fruit; the others did not bear fruit. The branch that bears fruit, to wit, that for which the vine was planted, it He purges. The fruit is the sign of vital union. On it the Father's, the husbandman's, care is spent, that it may bring forth more fruit. Deep comfort for them; standard for us practically! - "Already ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." This is an important passage. Whenever there is vital union with the Lord, whenever there is any God-given faith, the first words of Christ received, so as to know and be identified with His Person, then there is cleansing: "Now are clean through the word."

There may be discipline for conformity, to subject old thoughts to new; but whenever in faith, in vital apprehension, the word has been received, we are pure. The word also, note, is the standard. We have this practically. Care acts in respect of this. It is that which expresses, as regards us, what the Father's care acts in reference to; so that, if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged of the Lord. He spoke: that was the power. The principle was there; they were sanctified. What He spoke was the standard: they were "clean," cleansed from; for His word bears nought of the world. There may be the purifying ministrations, husbandry of the Father, according to that to which we are united; that is, as to inconsistencies, with the emanencies of the old man, with the seed of eternal life planted by the word. And this is where sanctification works in the daily ordinary sense of the word. But we are clean through the word. This is also true in the relative sense of the word as exhibited chapter 13:10, in that blessed passage of the Lord's girded priestly care: "Already ye are pure through the word." The subsequent operation is for correction, subdual, purging, relative to our purity; and this is the true understanding of the common notion of sanctification; not to enter into it more at large here.

The passage obviously means the application of the word of God in the power of the Spirit — operating in the heart, conscience, thoughts, and actions; and thereby bringing in a new life from God, in which we have His mind, and His thoughts about the kingdom. The following passages will make it still plainer. "Of his own will begat He us with the word of truth." (James 1:18) "That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." (Eph. 5:26) "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." (John 15:3) Here we have the moral cleansing or purifying of the soul, by the application of the word through the Spirit which judges all things, and which works in us new thoughts and affections, suitable to the presence and glory of God.

"Now ye are clean" is "already ye are clean." The "ye are not all clean" in chapter 13 refers to Judas, here there is no exception for it, Judas had gone out. The point is, Israel was the old vine, and Christ takes the place of Israel, and is the true vine. If you look at Isaiah 49, you will see distinctly how he replaces the nation "Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." "And now, saith Jehovah that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, though Israel be not gathered," and so on. Thus it is Christ is the real servant - Israel a vine, but Christ the true vine. So you get in Matthew, "Out of Egypt have I called my Son." Hence Christ is the true Man for God - the true Servant - the true Vine. The true Man, God's Son, has taken up all that in which the first man had failed. Then, when Christ was upon earth, there was no church union; there is no question of planting vines in heaven nor of pruning to get fruit. He says, "Every branch in me that beareth fruit, he purgeth it"; and in verse 3, "Now ye are already purged"; it is the same word. They were clean in the sense of "purged," only that the purging continues; like "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet"; this is the first of these washings. "Ye are already clean"; you are "already." And then comes, "abide in me." It is all responsibility here. The person's conduct is put first, but there is this difference made, when He speaks of ruin and destruction; He turns from "you" and says "a man." In the middle of His exhortation He drops the "ye" and says, "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned"; there it is positive destruction.

Verse 3. The disciples were clean through the word which He had spoken; the word had already wrought in their consciences as far as it had reached them. It was the washing of water by the word. But what a deeply important truth and testimony, from the Lord Himself, as to the cleansing power of the word! He had known that power Himself, in His wondrous, lowly way, saying in spirit, "By the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer." This was as "concerning the works of men." (Ps. 17.) The works of men cast up the paths of the destroyer.

There must be the full effect of the power of the Spirit of God by the word, which is certainly the use of running, i.e., living water. "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." The Lord is speaking here, not of guilt, but of the contrast between unclean and clean.

This helps, then, as to why the water for purification, as well as the blood for propitiation, came from the side of Jesus in death. For it is the Word applied by the Spirit that is the mighty instrument of this change. This participation in the life and nature of God carries with it the sentence of God's judgment upon all that is of the flesh in one reached by it. And the purification is by the communication of a new life and nature in which we are clean every whit. Thus in John 13, while Judas was yet present, the Lord has to say (ver. 11), "For he knew who should betray him … Ye are not all clean," Judas having gone out (ver. 30), in John 15:3, He can say, "Now ye are clean, through the word which I have spoken unto you."