Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Contamination from World
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Notice how strongly God expresses the concept of separation from what is spiritually impure. The Canaanites, and all of the other nations that are mentioned, were to be completely wiped out on religious grounds. This is because religion has such a powerful influence on conduct. Israel never did this, and the Canaanites were a constant thorn in their side through their false gods. Through Israel's social and business interactions with them, they were persuaded to follow the Canaanites' god's practices—even to the extent of sacrificing their children in the fire. In order to properly understand this command to exterminate these peoples, it must be understood that, though God was their Ruler, Israel was a nation of this world. Israel was put into the place of God's avenging angels—His agents—to take vengeance on those nations. However, the key is that Israel was a nation of this world, which is something that the church is not. When Jesus was before Pilate, He said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here" (John 18:36). The lesson for us is that we are to be, as it were, this harsh with ourselves in getting rid of the sin within us. As Jesus says, "Pluck out your eye. Cut off your hand."We know that He does not mean this literally! He wants us to understand the spiritual principle that is involved. We have to be willing to go to that extent—to fight "tooth and nail" the contamination of sin that so easily besets us, which can so easily be picked up from contact with this world. So the spiritual lesson for us is that God is equally demanding toward us—that we do not allow this world to influence us in any way that will contaminate our holiness, imputed as a result of Christ's sacrifice. Israel did not follow through, and soon no difference could be seen between them and the Canaanites. God's commands to be different make the witness and provide the means, the environment, for sacrifice. In order to keep from being uncontaminated by the world, there must reside in us a strong measure of religious intolerance, or we will find ourselves compromising. What we call "human nature," and what the Bible calls "carnality," produced this world. It loves this world and is easily attracted to its practices and its attitudes. To attain the Kingdom of God, we cannot tolerate those things in ourselves.
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Haggai 2:11-14
To both questions the priests give a correct answer. Using the laws of clean and unclean, God points out a principle that applies to Christians today. Very simply, God says that it is impossible for God's holiness, in us because of our relationship with Him and the indwelling of His Spirit, to pass from us to the world. In other words, if a holy thing touches a profane thing, the profane item does not become holy. On the other hand, the attitude of the world, if it comes in contact with His people, can pass from the world into us. Using the above wording, if a profane thing touches a holy thing, the holy item is contaminated. The spiritual principle for today's Christian is obvious: The world will contaminate your holiness, if you are not on guard against it. Reading these verses from The Living Bible makes God's meaning very clear. Though it is not an exact translation, but a thought-for-thought paraphrase, the point is correct. Ask the priests this question about the law: "If one of you is carrying a holy sacrifice in his robes, and happens to brush against some bread or wine or meat, will it too become holy?" "No," the priests replied. "Holiness does not pass to other things that way." Then Haggai asked, "But if someone touches a dead person, and so becomes ceremonially impure, and then brushes against something, does it become contaminated?" And the priests answered, "Yes." Haggai then made his meaning clear. "You people," he said (speaking for the Lord), "were contaminating your sacrifices by living with selfish attitudes and evil hearts—and not only your sacrifices, but everything else that you did as a 'service' to me." (Haggai 2:11-14) The people, having absorbed the prevalent attitude of the world, became infected by it. As we have seen repeatedly, their relationship with God quickly deteriorated into estrangement—just as the Laodicean's does.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The World, the Church, and Laodiceanism
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2 Corinthians 6:14-18
Spiritually, this passage is every bit as stringent as Deuteronomy 7:1-5, and the reasons are the same: We are holy. Our holiness must be protected from contamination, perfected through the relationship with God (not with this world), and growing in living God's way of life. Paul's words are a stern warning not to get close to the world. Paul asks five rhetorical questions in these verses to show that God's way has nothing in common with the world. Nothing! In verse 17, Paul quotes Isaiah 52:11, showing that our acceptance by God depends upon obedience, which is loyalty to Him. His statement about cleansing ourselves shows a continuous action. It is not written in Greek as it appears here in English. If it would have been translated as Paul wrote it, the verse would show that cleansing ourselves is a responsibility that must be carried out every day! Two of God's festivals are devoted to reminding us of this responsibility, one in the spring and one in the fall. At Passover, in the spring, we partake of footwashing; we are to have our feet washed once a year because we become symbolically dirty as we walk through life. We do not always walk as we should, so we must be cleansed. How long do you think it would take for us to begin forgetting such things if we no longer kept Passover and its ritual of washing one another's feet? Every fall, before we keep the Feast of Tabernacles, we experience another cleansing on the Day of Atonement, the internal cleansing of a fast, which is what a fast does to a body physically. It begins to dump its garbage through the bowels and the urinary tract. Every cell in the body begins to work in reverse and cast off the garbage within them. It is interesting that at Passover, the symbol is external, but on Atonement the symbol is internal. Keeping ourselves clean is important to God; He gives us reminders to do so twice a year! He wants us clean on the outside and on the inside. He wants us clean in what we believe, and He wants us clean in our external conduct. Our hearts must be cleansed as does our behavior. Thus, II Corinthians 7:1 indicates a daily cleansing, a daily repentance. Paul writes in I Corinthians 15:31, "I die daily." This daily dying to sin—cleaning up his act, as we say—is what he meant.
John W. Ritenbaugh
New Covenant Priesthood (Part Two)
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