How solemn is the thought that the present time is that in which our capacity is formed for our place and enjoyment in the glory of God! No doubt that all is foreknown and prepared of the Father; but still, just as the soul has learned Jesus here, so will you be able to enjoy the glory.
You will find this illustrated in Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, in John 11. Just as each one learned the Lord in this scene where death reigned, so each one had a place in the lovely typical and yet real scene of chapter 12, where the glory is portrayed. Just as we constantly find that the character of a person's conversation gives a tone to his walk, so his walk will determine his place in the glory! The present then is the time of preparation for that scene in capacity and growth; the enjoyment of it will be by-and-by; yet, as we have said, all will be as ordained of the counsels of God.
The Lord by moral cleansing is preparing us for the glory. This action detects what is in your heart, by the entrance of His Word giving light there. Now that may be done without your having a bad conscience, for you may never have thought that the thing detected was unfit for the light. Many things and associations that are not according to the light may never have been thought of as not suited to it, and hence the conscience is not defiled. They are shown to you in this mystical washing, that you may cast them off. If you do so, the conscience is undefiled, and it is not then the removal of a stain, nor the restoring the soul when defiled, but our moral education by the Lord in the suitability needed for the new place.
But supposing you were to go on with them after they have thus been detected, you would need to be restored. The Lord's thought is that you should go on with nothing between Him and you, and by the action of the Word He is discovering to you what would come between, that you may be the better able to enter into the enjoyment of the Father's love in communion with Himself as well now as by-and-by.
Under the law, at the brazen laver the hands and feet were washed. The laver stood between the altar and the holiest. Both hands and feet had to be washed because the Lord was taking cognizance and forbidding the actions and walk of the old man there under the law; here it is to a man who has the divine nature, but who has also a principle within him which loves sin, and whereby he becomes defiled. Then the Lord deals with the conscience; and "we have an advocate with the Father" (1 John 2). How important it is then to bow immediately to the washing of water by the Word; there is then instant restoration. Keep a thing that the Word has detected still on the conscience, and it corrodes there. One's felt state will show him surely that communion is lost, while all the time you have not got to your real state. The longer it is there the more difficult to have the sense of restoration. Remember too that the moment you are made conscious of failure, it was the Lord who did it.