The need of the sinner is perfectly provided for, once and forever, by the sacrifice of Christ. His sins are washed away in the blood of Jesus, and of that washing there is no repetition for time or eternity. He is brought to God, brought within the veil into the holiest of all, as near to God as the Christ by whom he is represented in the glory. He is accepted in the Beloved, for no lower standard than Christ, in the perfection of His person, is the measure of the believer's acceptance by His God and Father. Never in His Word does God term the believer in Jesus – a sinner; but God calls him a saint, a holy person; so thoroughly are God's people separated to Him by the blood of His Son. Such a position, impossible to be forfeited by the believer, unassailable by Satan, and fortified by the glory of God, being ours, it may he asked, What more can be needed?
If our reader will turn to the diagram opposite he will observe there one spot within the tabernacle's court, and upon the straight line to God, which is occupied by the Laver.
The Laver was a brazen vessel, filled with water, standing between the brazen altar and the door of the Tabernacle, and it stood there to meet the constant need of those who served in the holy things. Suppose a priest having passed the brazen altar, with his feet upon the line of approach to God, what meets his eye? The Laver is between him and his worship. His thoughts are occupied with it. The Laver has a voice to him. Before he can enter the Holy Place, upon the service of the holy things, he must first wash both his hands and his feet. He does not go back again to the fire and the blood, but he goes onwards to the water. And this is what the Lord expresses to us when He says, “He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.” He that is washed once from head to foot needs not a second immersion, but stepping out of the bath he comes in contact with the soil of the earth and his feet require cleansing.
The Christian does not need a second application of the blood of Jesus for the salvation of his soul, because, once cleansed he is always cleansed, and when cleansed he is saved; but he does need a continual washing, so far as his walk upon earth is concerned. He does need the death of Christ applied to the things of daily life; the water to purify as well as the blood to atone. For “He that saw it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe”; and his record is, that “one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water.” The Lamb was slain, the sacrifice had been offered; sin was atoned for, sins borne, divine righteousness satisfied, when the soldier's spear pierced the side of Jesus. And the blood flowed first, the water next. The blood first, which atones for the soul, then the water, which being applied to the cleansed is their practical sanctification. Our separation to God is measured by the death of Christ, whereby a soul is severed from the world and brought to God; and our daily life should witness to the great fact of Christ's death. Hence we say that the believer needs to apply the death of his Redeemer to his daily duties; needs to ask himself, am I walking as one separated to God by Christ's death. Does this or that action become one, who by Christ's death is dead to the world, to self, to sin? There is no practical holiness save as reckoning ourselves to be dead unto sin, and by being connected practically with Christ Himself in the glory.
And this being so, we feel at once how sorely we fall short of practical sanctification, that is of living to God as those who are one with Christ in heaven! Hence, even in service, in the holiest things, we are deeply sensible that we require purifying; and, if in the holiest moments of our lives, how intensely do we need the washing in our daily and earthly duties! The priests washed not only before entering the tabernacle, but also when returning from it. Either going in or coming out, the need for the water was the same.
What, then, is the water which meets our need as sinning or failing saints? We know that the blood met the judgment due to our sins as sinners. There is a word of scripture which is in itself the reply, namely, Eph. 5:25-2725Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25‑27). “Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it” – this is the Altar, the sacrifice for sin; the one offering of Himself once offered, of which there is no repetition. But beyond this, and for those who are washed in the blood, there is the love of Christ, exercised in their continual cleansing, as we read in the latter part of the verse – “that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.” This is the Laver, and the water it contains. The water of the Word is the means by which Christ keeps practically clean those whose sins are washed away in His blood. His love for His people constantly applies the purifying influence of the word to their thoughts and actions. He brings Himself dying for our sins before us, and proves to us the exceeding sinfulness of sin by the cost it was to Him to cleanse us. Thus we learn by grace to hate what, as unconverted men, we loved. We begin to abhor the very things which were once the pride and the pursuit of our hearts.
The more sensitive the heart and conscience become by communion with Christ the greater will the need of this washing be felt, and the more true will be the apprehensions of the soul respecting sin. Thus we find that the more holy people practically become, the more they see the stains and spots which contact with the world leaves upon them; and the more they turn from self and reckon it the dead thing which the cross of Christ proves it to be. There is, then, a continual sanctifying and cleansing by the water of the Word, even as there was a solitary sanctifying and cleansing by the blood of the cross. Those who rejoice in the first, rejoice also in the second. But we know the second after the first: we go from the fire to the water, from the Brazen Altar to the Brazen Laver. It was love which constrained the Son of God to give Himself for us, and it is love which this very moment unweariedly watches over us in order to remove from us everything that is contrary to His own perfect holiness. The love, which in the past, found us in our sins, and washed away those sins in blood, is the love which at this present hour sanctifies and washes us by the water of the Word, and which will in the future present us to Himself in perfect holiness, “not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.”
This love of Jesus, daily expressed towards His own, is one of the most tender features of His grace. It links our affections with Him. We consider that, day by day, our shortcomings, errings, transgressions, and sins are the subject of the Lord's thoughts. He brings back our souls to His Father's love by applying, through His Spirit, the word to our hearts and consciences. He brings about self-judgment and confession of sins by His Word. He induces in the hearts of His own, a thirst after holiness, a desire to be more as He was when here. Ask, believer, whence the returning to warmth after seasons of coldness? whence the present faith that there ought never to be winter in the heart, but always uninterrupted growth and gladness – a ceaseless spring? Whence these bright and blessed desires and expectations The answer is: It is the Lord's love sanctifying and cleansing with the washing of the water by the Word.
The Lord said, “Sanctify them through Thy truth, Thy word is truth,” and true holiness is attained by the means of the truth. It is not attained by our own consciousness or experience, for then holiness would be the result of a mere human realization. They who by grace have the truth before their souls measure holiness by the standard of the Divine Word, and to them perfection is nothing less than the image of Christ in the Glory.
“If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me,” said Jesus to Peter, who would have refused the Master's service of love. And there can be no communion, no part with Christ, when the soul rejects the Laver and its water. And this let us ever remember is a constant, even as that of the blood is a completed washing. We are in a sinful world, and have sinful natures: “in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing” is as true of the strongest as of the feeblest believer. May we have faith to believe in holiness through Christ. It is not holiness, but insensibility to inward evil, which is the attainment of such as profess not to need the daily washing. Instead of practical godliness sin is made light of; and what honest Christians call evil is passed over as of slight moment. The standard is lowered to suit low spirituality. The Christian as surely needs the Laver as the sinner needs the Sacrificial Altar, for “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”