Think of a new car. Sitting in the vehicle for the first time is a euphoric experience. Everything smells new. There are no dirty spots or stains. The odometer is at nearly zero. Everything is fresh and exciting.
From New Cars to Human Bodies Wearing Out
The Reality of Decay in Creation
But then there is the reality – that once it leaves the dealership, it will never be worth the same. In fact, after the first year of ownership, it is estimated that a car’s value will decrease by 14%; in the first five years, the car’s value will depreciate by about 55% from its original purchase price.1
Why is this? Well, parts eventually wear out. Through even regular use, certain parts need to get replaced. Money, labor is required. Eventually it will come to the point that it will require more money to maintain the car than it would be to just buy a new one.
It applies to to cars, and also one’s body. The human body wears out too. A fifteen year-old’s body is not the same as a 30 year-old’s body, as a 60 year-old’s, as a 90 year old’s. The parts inside us start to wear down, too. One’s body as a person ages doesn’t heal as well or as fast. Bones become more brittle, skin loses elasticity and collagen and begins to become slack. Vision becomes less sharp. Backs start to hurt from years of strain or poor posture. It all adds up.
Not very uplifting, but these things are a reality of life. To be true, there is nothing under the sun that is made or built that lasts forever. Everything on Earth is gradually moving toward decay and eventually death.
God’s Word Endures Forever
God’s Word says, “the grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of God endures forever.” (Isaiah 40:8). God’s word is truly the only thing that doesn’t deconstruct, fall apart, wear away, but rather it stands the test of time.
Understanding Clean and Unclean in the Bible
In studying God’s Word, you may have come across the terms “clean” and “unclean” and wondered what these terms mean and what they mean to us today. Perhaps the highest frequency of these terms “clean” and “unclean” occurs in the book of Leviticus, a book of the Bible that many feel is steeped in ritual, unfamiliarity, and a lack of relevance, but these terms are important to us today; they can teach us profound things about God, our relationship with Him, and our living in response to His salvation in our lives.
So how does one understand the terms “clean” and “unclean”? The first thing that may come to mind is hygiene. While there is more implied in the terms than just being physically clean and not smelling like the “lovely” odors that come from the body, thinking about “clean” and “unclean” as the terms relate to personal hygiene can be a good starting point. When one takes a shower or bath, what is a person trying to do? That person is not just applying soap to his body so that he will smell good. He’s actually trying to clean his body, to free it from the effects of the day. When a person is out working in the yard all day, what starts to happen? He sweats, and with sweat comes odor. Skin accumulates waste and crud, dead skin cells and more.
This is where one can begin to develop a definition for the concepts of “clean” and “unclean.”
Hebrew Words for Clean and Unclean
The Hebrew word for “Clean” in the Bible is “tahor.” It means “Pure, undefiled, fair.”2 The word for “Unclean” in the Bible is “tame,” and it means “defiled, foul.”3
Clean vs. Unclean in Everyday Life
One might relate to the experience of going to a playground for the first time. From a distance, the playground looks nice, pristine, and inviting. But upon closer inspection, one notices something else: graffiti — not the artistic kind, but more of a scribble of words that are hard to make out. What started out as a pure, undefiled playground equipment made for pure, innocent children to play on, has become defiled, foul, and ruined.
Getting back to the categories of “clean” and “unclean”, one sees that clean is the desired state while unclean is the less than preferred. The clean playground is preferred, not the one stained with graffiti.
The Connection Between Uncleanness and Death
Going a little bit further, looking at Scripture, one can notice a theme: that things considered “unclean” are commonly associated with death. For example, look at the list of clean and unclean animals outlined in Leviticus. God’s giving of this list is not a case of God being unnecessarily picky. Many of the animals considered “unclean” eat things that are associated with death and decay. The hare, for instance (Leviticus 11:7), is called unclean. The hare is what scientists today call a non-ruminant animal, meaning it doesn’t have rumens, an organ that processes tough grasses. Because of this, hares use a different method of digestion to process their mostly grass diet, a process called “hind-gut fermentation”. It might sound fancy, but what it means is that the hare eats its own poop in order to run nutrients through its digestive system again.4
Other animals considered “unclean” have a diet that deals with death and decay in another sort of way: in the form of prey, of killing another animal. Animals like the eagle and the owl are called unclean (Leviticus 11:13-19), and these animals eat other animals for food.
What makes the loss of another animal’s life significant in the context of the predator-prey relationship is that in the predator’s killing and eating of another animal, it also consumes that animal’s blood. The blood of a person or animal is considered sacred to God. The blood is called the life of the creature (Leviticus 17:4) and God for a time gave the blood of animals and later the blood of His own Son to make atonement for our souls (Leviticus 17:11). He gives human beings blood to take the place of their lives, for it is their blood that should be shed for sin. God is clear that one is not to mishandle or waste the blood.
There are other unclean things that don’t just deal with animals but with mankind, and these things, too, have a connection with death or a loss of life. Dead bodies are considered unclean, and anyone who touches a dead body is also unclean for seven days (Numbers 19:11). A person with a skin disease, such as leprosy, is considered “unclean” (Leviticus 13:1). Here death again comes in the form of decaying flesh. A woman on her period is also considered unclean (Leviticus 15:19). Here death is seen in the loss of potential life in the form of an egg that gets released from her body as well as the loss of blood. Again, the blood is what God calls the life of the creature (Leviticus 17:11), so losing blood is a loss of life.
Uncleanness Is Not Always Sin
Before moving further, something must be clarified. For one to be called unclean is not the same as saying that a person is “sinful.” For instance, a woman cannot control the fact that she has a period. A person touching a dead body might required to do so by their job. Saying that one is unclean is not the same as saying that a person is in sin.
The Link Between Sin, Death, and Uncleanness
And yet, there is a connection between “unclean” and “sin.” As mentioned, many of the unclean things have a common theme: they have to do with death or a loss of life. And where does death ultimately come from? Sin – trespass against God. The Scripture explains that the “wages” – the rightful earning – of sin is death (Romans 6:23). God’s Word also says that sin entered the world through one man, Adam, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned (Romans 5:12). Our broken, decaying bodies, the diseases that afflict this world, even what we’d call the “ordinary” aspects of the human condition like pain in childbirth have their starting point in the Garden of Eden with the trespass that brought sin and death into the world.
As mentioned, one can become unclean not necessarily from any evil that a person has committed but by the very fact that one is human. Even a woman who has given birth to a child is considered “unclean” for a period of time (Leviticus 12:1). Why? Of course, blood loss occurs in giving birth – a loss of life fluids. But even beyond that, giving birth, while a joyful and life-giving event, reminds everyone of what happened in the garden – that because of sin, pain was introduced to childbirth. “In pain,” God said to Eve, “You will give birth to children” (Genesis 3:16). A state of uncleanness, while not always the result of a sin one personally committed, was and is nonetheless a reminder of sin, of the sin of our parents Adam and Eve. It is a reminder of what all people inherited from Adam and Eve, and a reminder of our need to be redeemed and restored from our fallen condition.
Consequences of Being Unclean in the Temple Era
At this point one might ask, “What were or are the consequences of being unclean, especially in the context of the times of the Temple when an active Priesthood existed in Israel?” In the case of touching a dead body, one was not permitted to participate in the rituals and ceremonies that took place at the Tabernacle, or later Temple (Leviticus 22:4). One could not go to the temple. One couldn’t bring his or her sacrifices.
Approaching God in Holiness
Now, this wasn’t an issue of “insider-outsider” politics or a matter of one not having a ticket for admission. It was a matter of safety and reverence. In its time, the Temple and the Tabernacle before it was the physical place in which God had caused His glory to dwell (Exodus 40:38). It is not that God was so small that He only existed in one place (1 Kings 8:27) but that God chose to identify a place in which people could approach Him and draw near to Him. And one could not just approach God however and whenever he or she wanted to (Leviticus 10:1).
Today one notices the practice of people developing their own religions with their own rules. But very quickly what happens is that “God” starts to look a lot like them — liking the same things they do, agreeing with the same behaviors and attitudes in which they engage. Even as believers, there is the risk of getting too comfortable with God as “friend” instead of “Lord” and “Master.” There is an otherness to God, a standard, a holiness, that goes beyond the natural condition of human beings, and this is a necessary and needed difference. One may joke saying that the world would be really boring if everyone was just like me. Well, no joking: the world would be a really bad place if God was just like us. To maintain respect for God’s otherness, His holiness, people could not then and people cannot now just approach God any way they want.
By the very nature of the Lord being holy, separate, He cannot co-exist with something that is not holy. He cannot approve of it, condone it, endorse it. God says, “And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbor and love no false oath; for all these are things that I hate, says the Lord”s (Zechariah 8:17). God hates sin and that which results from sin: death.
And so, who may approach God? The Scripture asks the same question: “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in His Holy Place? He who has cleanhands and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:4). If someone was considered unclean during the time the Temple existed, that person could not ascend the hill of the Lord to go up to the Temple Mount. That person had to be purified first, either through symbolically washing in a bath called a mikveh (Leviticus 15:13-15) or washing his or her clothing. For someone who became unclean from touching a dead body, a special kind of purification was required: the ashes from the sacrifice of a red heifer were to be mixed with water and sprinkled on that person (Numbers 19:3).
Sometimes, even sacrifices for atonement were required, such as in the case of someone who had been cleansed of leprosy (Leviticus 14:19) or a woman after childbirth (Leviticus 12:7). These situations required a sacrifice for atonement to make one clean. Once the necessary steps of purification were complete, then one could approach God’s temple once again.
Moral and Spiritual Uncleanness
As stated earlier, being “unclean” is a category that did not and does not always mean that a person had sinned or was in a state of sin, though uncleanness is a state that was linked to sin and the death it causes. However, one can become unclean by sinning.
The Heart Matters to God
Isaiah, though a righteous man, was stunned by the utter holiness of God, and he said of himself, “Woe is me! I am undone, a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5-9). Isaiah’s lips weren’t “unclean” because he, say, kissed something with them that was unclean. No, he called them “unclean” likely because his lips, in speaking, had been complicit with sin: maybe gossip, maybe slander, or cursing.
David prayed to God saying, “According to Your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin […] create in me a clean heart” (Psalm 51:3-4, 12). Yeshua, after He was done washing the disciples’ feet said, “He who has bathed has no need to wash except the feet; he is completely clean. And all of you are clean, though not everyone.’ He knew who was betraying Him; for this reason, He said, ‘Not all of you areclean.’” (John 13:6). Cleanness here is not just connected with a state of ritual purity, of being able to approach God, but cleanness here is associated with moral purity and being without sin. Judas, in his premeditated betrayal of Jesus, was unclean.
All of this is to say that a person can become unclean by the sinful thoughts, attitudes, and actions he entertains within himself. Through these behaviors, thoughts and attitudes, a person defiles the vessel – his body, his mind – that God created for life, for His purposes.
Believers as God’s Temple
All human beings were made in the image of their creator, Yahweh, the Lord (James 3:9). What’s more, God’s people are told that not only do they bear God’s image, but that their very bodies have become the Temple of the Living God, the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). Therefore, God says, “What partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? […] What agreement does God’s temple have with idols?
For we are the Temple of the living God […] let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of body and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 6:14, 16, 7:1). Believers are called to be separate, like God, to be holy, for God is holy (1 Peter 1:6). They aren’t to defile themselves — God’s temple— with the sinful, dying things of the world, but they are to be transformed by the renewing of their minds (Romans 12:2) by dwelling on what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, on things of virtue and things worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8). When one approaches God and others, he is to have the aroma of life and not the aroma of death and dead things.
Yeshua Our Cleanser and Redeemer
And this brings us to the point of all of this. God’s laws concerning “clean” and “unclean” were not and are not burdensome categories, but they have been established to make a distinction, a distinction between that which is of life and gives life – the things of God – and that which is associated with death and the reason death exists. A woman who gives birth and is unclean is not sinful, but her situation reminds her and all mankind of the human condition and the fact that in its current state, it is not how God designed it. It has been marred by sin.
Touching a dead body does not make one sinful, but it reminds all of the reason that there are dead things in the first place – because of sin. Further, lying and cheating and the whole list of harmful and hurtful actions, attitudes, actions, and behaviors not only make one “unclean” but they also place that person in a state of sin and in need of forgiveness. A state of uncleanness ultimately points everyone to the need for a redeemer to make things right.
And that Redeemer is Yeshua, Jesus. The rituals and sacrifices of the Temple point to Yeshua and His work on the cross. A physical Temple no longer exists and so the sacrifices and rituals connected with worship at the Temple don’t exist and aren’t able to exist in the same way they once did. But still remaining is every person’s need for purification and cleansing. One receives that cleansing through the Messiah.
As Hebrews 9:12-14 says, “He [Yeshua] entered into the Holy of Holies once for all – not by the blood of goats and calves but by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of the heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish, cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Cleansed by the Blood of Yeshua
Yeshua, Jesus, makes the believer clean. He takes away the stench of death and gives us the aroma of life (2 Corinthians 2:16). In life’s journey, everyone becomes unclean from one day to the next by the sinful things that they do and say, and even by the very simple fact that they are subject to the fallen condition of our world.
Let us day by day come to Yeshua for our cleansing, for our renewal, so that we can be made pure and complete and fit for the service of our God. Amen.
Work Cited
- Car Depreciation Calculator, What is Car Depreciation, Kelly Blue Book, https://www.kbb.com/car-depreciation/. ↩︎
- “Tahor,” Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, https://biblehub.com/hebrew/2889.htm. ↩︎
- “Tame,” Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, https://biblehub.com/hebrew/2930.htm. ↩︎
- Colby Maxwell, “What Do Hares Eat? Their Diet Explained,” A-Z Animals, Updated January 23, 2023, https://a-z-animals.com/blog/what-do-hares-eat/. ↩︎