Clean and Unclean: A Lost Emphasis
by Ed Nelson
Part Three: The End of the Matter
In this final installment on the biblical subject of “clean and unclean,” the role of the Messiah Jesus [Yeshua] comes front and center in his work of “filling up” the Torah and fulfilling the hope found in the Prophets and Writings (the Tanakh, or Old Testament).
The Messiah overcame the power of tamei. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah and Ezekiel saw a grander vision of hope. They spoke of the coming Messiah whose tahor power would raise up a remnant among the tamei blind, lame, disfigured, pregnant, bleeding, hurting and poor. These categories were representative of all people, including tamei Gentiles (cf. Isaiah 61:1-3; Jeremiah 31:8; Micah 4:6-7; Ezekiel 34:8).
According to these prophets, Messiah’s command and touch would cleanse them from contamination and make them whole.
Messiah Jesus gathered together an “unclean” remnant by the power in his anointing of the Holy Spirit (cf. Luke 4:16-20 where Jesus announced in the synagogue that He was the one of whom Isaiah prophesied). His healing touch and pronouncement of forgiveness reversed the power of tamei. It had never happened before. He healed a woman with an issue of blood, touched a leper who was made clean, held the hand of a dead girl and raised her to life – and many more such miracles were performed by Him at his first coming.
A theme of the Gospels. The instructional content of the Four Gospels deals with Jesus’ teachings on righteousness – what makes a person clean (tahor) and unclean (tamei), incomplete and whole. The writers of the Gospels make much of his mighty works to heal the social outcasts, diseased and broken. Never before had anyone taught or acted like Jesus. He was truly the long-awaited Messiah.
The disciples of John the Immerser brought a report to the imprisoned prophet that Jesus, indeed, is the Messiah. John could face martyrdom without regrets of his mission to announce the Messiah. They reported that He makes tahor (clean) all the tamei (unclean) who come to Him.
All true followers of the Lord Jesus formerly were unclean and could not approach God. Our sins made us tamei. The blood of Jesus – God’s own “life-leak”—made us clean (tahor) from our sins and guilt. [cf. 1 John 1:7 where the text reads: “the blood of Jesus, his Son, makes us clean (tahor) from all sin.”] We were made whole (shalom) through faith in Him.
Contamination and death may be in everyone else’s blood, but abundant life is in his blood.
The power to purify. Until the Messiah appeared, no person could transform another person from an unclean state (tumah) into absolute purity (tahara) before God. Only the Lord Jesus makes a sinner absolutely pure.
Priests, prophets and Torah teachers were impotent. First of all, they too had sinned. They were incapable to impute righteousness. Second, they weren’t God. This was his work alone, for He alone is holy. Only He can forgive sin and declare a person whole.
Cleanness results in a positive effect on outward relationships. To be ritually pure was to be pure in status before Yahweh, to be absent any contamination that defiles the sanctity of the home and community. For the sake of the house and community, one strived to be ritually clean (tahor).
What ritual purity can never do is change a person’s heart. Only Jesus [Yeshua] does this. Its outward result points to the greater work of the Messiah in bringing about an absolute status of purity before God Almighty.
Ritual purity has limited value. A woman had an unbelieving husband. Their children were of great concern to her. The Apostle Paul wrote to her in a letter addressed to the church in Corinth with marital advice only a Jewish person would quickly understand.
Using the concepts of tamei and tahor, he addressed her dilemma. Without understanding the dynamics of these two concepts, the meaning of what Paul wrote is lost.
He told her that her unbelieving husband is ritually pure (tahor) through her clean status as a believer in the Messiah Jesus [Yeshua]. The same held true for her children. They, too, were ritually clean tahor because of her clean and justified status, in fact, before God through her faith in Messiah Jesus [Yeshua].
The same, he said, holds true for a man with an unbelieving wife. (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:14).
Then he asked, “How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:16). Ritual purity and salvation through Messiah Jesus [Yeshua] were not to be considered the same in eternal value.
Do you see how the apostle clearly distinguishes between ritual purity and the salvation of the spouse? One is without, the other within. Because the woman made her husband ritually clean (tahor) did not save him from his sins or give him eternal life. No, he must make his own confession of faith in Messiah Jesus [Yeshua]. But her attitude and acts of righteousness may save the marriage and the home; and, who knows, her husband eventually may receive salvation.
What value is there to a tahor marriage when one spouse is an unbeliever? Paul says plenty if you place high value on a functional, intact home.
In the case he cites, the home and its occupants are positively affected by the wife’s absolute tahor state in Messiah Jesus. She is clean, pure in God. If she allowed her husband’s tamei life to contaminate her home, it would also affect their children.
Paul says to do otherwise. Reverse the power of tamei. Let your righteousness in Messiah Jesus [Yeshua] sanctify your home ritually by your influence, good deeds and teaching. Perhaps it will lead to the salvation of your husband and home.
Ritual purity points to the Messiah. From what we’ve learned, we know that the New Testament does not do away with the concept of ritual purity (tahara) as it pertains to the home and community. What has changed is that Jesus of Nazareth filled them up and qualified them in Himself.
The transmission of the status of tahor to our home and relationships within our community was unknown before the Messiah came. tamei ruled. Now tahor rules through faith in the Lord Jesus. Through Him we are qualified to transmit tahor to unwholesome conditions in our home, relationships and community.
Anointing the sick with oil—a dramatic Gospel statement. The climactic example of the superior power of the Holy Spirit within believers in Messiah and its dominant power over uncleanness (tumah) is the practice of anointing sick people with oil.
James [Ya’acov], the half-brother of Jesus [Yeshua], admonished sick persons to call the church’s elders for intervention in their sickness and suffering. He wrote in James 5:14-15:
Is anyone among you sick?
Then he must call for the elders of the church
and they are to pray over him,
anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;
and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick,
and the Lord will raise him up,
and if he has committed sins,
they will be forgiven him.
Anointing with oil was too risky before. Not any more. The threat of becoming unclean when acting in the Name of Jesus [Yeshua] to help unclean persons was gone. The power that raised Jesus [Yeshua] from the dead was the Holy Spirit. The same power works within believers who act in the Name of Jesus [Yeshua].
Touching unclean persons without contamination. When Peter and John met the lame man at the Temple gate, Peter reached out to him and touched him. Peter said he didn’t have alms to give that day, but he commanded the man to be healed and rise up in the Name of Jesus [Yeshua]. Then he reached out and took him by the hand and raised him up. He touched him without becoming contaminated.
The power of the Holy Spirit helped them overcome their natural weaknesses and susceptibilities to uncleanness by reversing the power of uncleanness. Now being tahor in Messiah was the dominant force. Whatever they touched did not make them unclean anymore according to the prevailing transmittal power of uncleanness. The power of the Holy Spirit protected them and overcame all potential uncleanness.
This was unheard of until Jesus [Yeshua] was anointed by the Holy Spirit to begin his ministry. Now his disciples had the same results. The contagion of uncleanness was broken. The Word of God that makes clean those who hear and obey it flowed out of Jesus’ disciples by their spoken word and touch.
The anointing of the Holy Spirit abides for all believers in Messiah Jesus [Yeshua]. The threat and fear of contamination is gone through faith in Him. Condemnation for touching the unclean is over.
Once the mere touch of anything judged unclean was to partake of its life-taking power. Now, because of the Spirit of Messiah indwelling believers, we partake of the life-giving power.
The last word. Uncleanness caused by “life-leaks” is no longer the last word about our status of cleanness or uncleanness. The Messiah Jesus [Yeshua] has the last Word, and his is a powerful Word to all of us. We are made clean by his blood, Word and Spirit. There is no condemnation left for those who are in Messiah Jesus [Yeshua] (cf. Romans 8:1-4).
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