The All-Purpose Cleaner

Did you know that a five-pound bag of wheat flour can have as many as 3,000 insect fragments? Or that a 1.5-ounce chocolate bar could contain up to 30 microscopic insect parts? Although none of us would choose to make insects a regular part of our diet, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration kindly reminds us that “it is not possible, and never has been possible, to grow in open fields, harvest and process crops that are totally free of defects.” Thus, while we might have a natural aversion to dining on such things as aphids, unless we restrict our consumption exclusively to Twinkies and Cheese Whiz, we have undoubtedly eaten many such creatures inadvertently over the years.

Supposedly, the FDA’s Food Defect Action Levels are set such that the natural or unavoidable amount of insects contained in our food do not present a health hazard to humans. So, while we may consume some amount of aphids or other insect larvae, no remedy is necessary or even desired (except, perhaps, refraining from reading the FDAL handbook!). However, there are things out there that all of us encounter in our experience that are more serious and do present a hazard to us, and consequently, must be addressed effectively. Chief among these are sin, and the effects of living in a world full of iniquity.

James tells us that pure and undefiled religion is, among other things, keeping oneself unspotted from the world. (James 1:27) If it is desirable, then, that we keep ourselves unspotted from the world, we must posit therefore that it is possible to become spotted from the world. The question is, how does this happen? I think we would all agree that our own sin creates undesirable consequences: the wages of sin is death. But what about the cumulative effect of other’s sins? We are certainly not held responsible for other’s actions, or inactions, but could this be how one would become spotted from the world? Isaiah observed that the world is polluted by its inhabitants, because they have disobeyed God. (Isaiah 24:5) It is encounters with this pollution that, I believe, causes us to otherwise become spotted from the world.

Peter recommends that we make every effort to be spotless, blameless, and at peace with God. (2 Peter 3:14) But how can we do this with so much iniquity in the world? Encounters with the moral pollution around us are just as unavoidable as the inadvertent consumption of insect fragments. It is possible, therefore, I would suggest, to be blameless, but not spotless. To paraphrase the FDA’s caveat quoted above, “it is not possible, and never has been possible, to live in the world and keep oneself unspotted from it without the application of some remedy.” But, thank God, there is a remedy! A remedy which is effective and, when applied, makes us spotless, blameless, and at peace with our Creator.

This remedy is, of course, none other than the blood of Jesus. John reminds us that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7), and even though it probably goes without saying, it is worth noting that the blood of Jesus is superior to any other spiritual cleansing agent – there is no stain, spot, or blemish that it cannot remove. The seventh chapter of Revelation speaks of a particular group of people that had “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” They were not strangers to the unavoidable pollution found in the world, but they had made liberal application of the remedy – the remedy that kept them spotless, blameless, and at peace with God. May we, too, make daily application of this Divine Remedy and keep ourselves unspotted from the world.