What is the meaning of impurity in the Bible?

Sin may be viewed in two ways, either as an offence against God, or as defilement to the sinner. God has His sovereign rights and claims over all His creatures, and it is this fact that constitutes sin a wrong done to Him, an outrage upon His majesty and glory. Sin in this aspect needs forgiveness, the way of which has been shown in a former paper. But sin also is in its very essence and nature defiling, polluting; and it is to this allusion is made in that striking entreaty in the prophet Isaiah: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Isa. 1:18.) There is also a recognition of this by the psalmist when he cries, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." (Ps. 51:7.) The word guilt perhaps combines these two aspects of sin, because it tells of the soul's sin against God and the effect upon the soul itself; and the first question for our consideration is, the method God has provided for cleansing the guilty soul from its deep-dyed iniquity.

Sin may be viewed in two ways, either as an offence against God, or as defilement to the sinner. God has His sovereign rights and claims over all His creatures, and it is this fact that constitutes sin a wrong done to Him, an outrage upon His majesty and glory. Sin in this aspect needs forgiveness, the way of which has been shown in a former paper. But sin also is in its very essence and nature defiling, polluting; and it is to this allusion is made in that striking entreaty in the prophet Isaiah: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Isa. 1:18.) There is also a recognition of this by the psalmist when he cries, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." (Ps. 51:7.) The word guilt perhaps combines these two aspects of sin, because it tells of the soul's sin against God and the effect upon the soul itself; and the first question for our consideration is, the method God has provided for cleansing the guilty soul from its deep-dyed iniquity.

Accordingly, the Lord called the crowds together again and communicated to them the truth on this subject in simple and concise language such as they might "hear and understand." He spoke to the multitudes direct without an intermediary, so that these simple peasants of Galilee were able to drink from the well-spring of truth itself. Everyone was called to give heed to Him, and to seek to lay hold upon His words. Hearken unto me every one of you, He said, and understand: "there is nothing from without the man, that going into him can defile him: but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man."

The Lord's subject in this saying is not the means of cleansing, but the cause of defilement. He does not here speak of the futility of ceremonial purification, and of the use of water to remove immoral stains (Job 9:30-31). Of this He had already spoken to the Pharisees, but He now instructs those uninstructed in the law with regard to the true source of defilement. Cleansing pre-supposes defilement. How then does man become unclean? Is it by the polluting influences of external things entering his physical organization? The Lord declared that the inner motives from which man's words and actions spring are the cause of his uncleanness, none being able to bring a clean thing out of an unclean.

(Vv. 14-16). Having exposed the hypocrisy of the outward religion of the flesh, the Lord, in the hearing of "all the people," shows that the source of defilement is not from without, but from within. The washing of hands and cups and pots, simply deals with defilement from without, but the source of moral defilement springs from the inward evil of the heart. This cuts at the root of all worldly religion of the flesh which simply deals with externals and leaves the heart untouched. God works from within and deals with the conscience and heart. The real source of defilement is not a man's environment but himself. It is true that man being such as he is — a fallen creature — if he goes into scenes of evil and temptation, his surroundings will stir up his lusts within. But even so the source of the evil is from within. An Angel can pass through Sodom and not be defiled, but not so Lot. There was no evil heart in the Angel to answer to sin; there was in Lot.

Not only the Pharisees are included in the Lord's ministry that begins in verse 14. He called all the people to Him, to press upon them a matter of deepest importance, urging them to listen and to understand. Nothing from outside, entering into a man, can defile him. Spiritual defilement is not contracted in this way. Of course a man may eat food that is physically harmful to him: he may even take poison, but this in itself is not spiritually defiling. But the things that come out of a man (not physically of course) are those that defile him. The Lord does not further explain this to the crowd, but seeks to stir them with the words, "If any man have ears to hear, let him hear."

Having unmasked the Pharisees as men whose hearts were far from God, and who dared to make of no effect the Word of God, the Lord called the people and publicly proclaimed the truth which cuts at the root of all religious pretension. Man is not defiled by physical contact with external things, but is himself the seat of what defiles. A hard saying this, and only they who have ears to hear will receive it.

The Pharisees made clean the outside of the cup and platter, but that did not cleanse the inside, for it is that which comes from within defiles the man. The stream was bitter because the fountain was bitter; and the fruit was bad because the tree was bad. The fountain of a man’s defilement lies in his own heart. No attendance upon a religious ritual could be of any value. The mere fact of this only made men hypocrites. An appearance of sanctity and goodness might be, and had been, adopted by the Pharisees as an outward garb, leaving the seat of the disease untouched; but of what avail was that in the presence of One whose eye was upon the heart. And “out of it are the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23). There is nothing to be gained by attention to that which is merely external. If the tree were good the fruit would be good, and if the fountain were sweet the stream would be sweet; and if the heart were pure the man would be pure also. Not that which entereth into a man defiles him, but that which comes out. “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man.”

Having exposed the Pharisees to their faces, the Lord turned to the people to warn them as to the error which lay at the root of this hypocrisy - the assumption that defilement is imposed upon men from without, rather than generated within: that it is physical rather than spiritual. The defiling thing is what comes out of a man's mouth, expressing what is in his heart. The heart of man is the fountain-head of defilement. Solemn fact! The Pharisees of course were offended at such teaching, which cut at the root of all their ceremonial observances, but that only showed that they were no plants of God's planting. Their end was to be rooted up. They were blind themselves and misleading others who were blind also. God would deal with them in His government, and the disciples were to leave them alone and not retaliate.

Next in order in the word, and in harmony with the order of the moral teaching just noticed, we read of defilement from the working in one way or other of nature in man. Thank God we look to be free from the body of sin, the flesh. We have, however, to learn what the flesh is in God's sight, and the working of it. What a humbling lesson for man is this! How the Israelitish man or woman must have felt it, when he or she was considered unclean from the action of nature within them, as set forth in chapters 12 — 15; communicating, too, defilement to any places or things brought into contact with them (15:4-12). And we who never were of the seed of Abraham after the flesh, and were never placed under the law to prove the burdensome character of its ceremonial, we have each and all within us, and are to be aware of it, that hateful defiling thing called "the flesh," of which the ceremonial purifications remind us. What came from an Israelite's flesh defiled that person. What comes from the heart of man, the working of the evil nature within him, defiles the man (Mark 7:21). The Israelite's nature did not defile him, but the outflow of it did. So the flesh within us does not defile us, though the actings of it does. And God is holy. Compromise therefore, on His part with uncleanness is impossible, hence provision to cleanse the defiled one is made the subject of divine revelation, and that in both Old and New Testaments.

These scriptures, which are but samples of what occurs on well-nigh every page of the Gospels, teach the threefold condition of man under sin. He is a transgressor whose sins have put him into a place of guilt from which alone he can be released by the mercy of God. The grounds of this we shall see later. He is also unclean, for sin brings not only guiltiness in the sight of God, but corruption. This defilement is seen to proceed from within. It is not a question of the hands, but of the heart. Our Lord's constant testimony against the Pharisees was that, while scrupulous about the outside of the cup and platter, within they were full of all uncleanness. He charges them with being like unto sepulchres full of dead men's bones within, though beautiful without; with being like graves that appear not, and those who walk over them are not aware of them.