Snow is very white; perhaps the purest, the most spotless, thing we know in nature. But there is something whiter than it. What can that be? No one could have supposed what it is if God had not said so. It is the sinner who is washed in the blood of Jesus. How blessed! “Purge me with hyssop,” said David, “and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” The hyssop, doubtless, refers to the bunch of hyssop that was often used for sprinkling the blood of the sacrifice, and certainly pointed to the all-cleansing efficacy of the blood of Jesus. That blood takes sin so completely away from the sight of God, that it leaves the one who is washed whiter than snow. Hence in one of Israel’s worst days of sin and failure the inspired prophet exclaimed to the sinful people “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. 1:1818Come 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. (Isaiah 1:18).) And the voice of God in the New Testament is, that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin; that He who is the brightness of His glory,” and the express image of His person, upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on “the right hand of the majesty on high.” The sins being purged, the sinner is thus cleansed, spotless and unblameable in God’s sight. It is the person, the believer himself, that thus stands justified before God. It is God who justifieth. He says so. He tells us also that the ground on which He pronounces present justification is the blood of Christ. “Being now justified by His blood.” And the person justified is he who believes. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:11Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1).) And lastly, that the character of the justification is to account the sinner that believes righteous in His sight. Marvelous grace! But so it is, and so it has ever been; for “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” “And to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” (Rom. 4:3,53For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. (Romans 4:3)
5But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:5).) This is not the righteousness of the law, but, as we are told in Rom. 3, the righteousness of God; and it is this which God has blessed us with in Christ— “Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.” This is not man’s work, but God’s work; it is not through our doing, keeping commands, ordinances, or anything else, but what God has done for all that believe in His Son Jesus Christ. Hence it is written, “Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto as wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.” Surely such persons as God accounts righteous in His sight, as standing before Him in all the acceptability of Christ, as made the righteousness of God in Him, have a spotlessness and purity, that of them it can be said, They have been washed, and are made “whiter than snow.”
We are informed that when John Bunyan was one day walking in a field under great distress of soul, with an unusual sense of his own vileness, he says that he heard, or thought he heard, a voice saving to him, “Your righteousness is in heaven.” He went to his home, and turned to his Bible, and though he could not find the exact words, he found the blessed truth, that Christ in heaven is the righteousness of every one that believeth. Oh, the heart cheering blessedness of those two line of divine truth running all through Scripture—the judgment of God of sins and of sinful self in the cross of Christ, and the gift of life, righteousness, and acceptance in Christ at God’s right hand.
“WHAT is the foulest thing on earth?
Bethink thee now, and tell:
It is a soul by sin defiled,
‘Tis only fit for hell;
It is the loathsome earthly den,
Where evil spirits dwell.
“And what’s the purest thing on earth?
Come, tell me if thou know:
‘Tis that same soul by Jesus cleansed,
Washed whiter far than snow;
There’s naught more pure above the sky,
And naught else pure below.
“God’s eye of flame, that searches all,
And finds e’en heaven unclean,
Rests on that soul in full delight,
For not a spot is seen:
Cleansed every whit in Jesus’ blood,
Whate’er its guilt has been.
“He sees no sin, but sees the BLOOD
That covers all the sin;
‘Tis Christ upon the soul without,
‘Tis Christ he sees within
To judge it foul were just to judge
God’s Christ Himself unclean.
“Thou Lamb of God! Thy wondrous grace
This great redemption wrought;
Not only snatched from yawning hell,
But to God’s bosom brought;
And raised the ruined wrecks of sin
Above created thought.”