Christ and the Unclean

“For this ye know, that no … unclean person… hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Ephesians 5:5).


“No unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God” (Alma 40:26).

Passages like these sometimes trouble me because, while I recognize their logic, I also realize that I am not entirely clean and thus should be excluded from heaven. I can relate to Isaiah, who lamented, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (6:5).  I sin and doubt and, even when I fulfill my callings and keep the commandments, I sometimes do it grudgingly, so even in my obedience, I stray. This recognition of my fallen, sinful state may be why I was so moved while reading the Gospels by the way Christ treated those who were considered unclean during his earthly ministry: He would spend time with them, eat with them, touch them (despite the levitical assertion that doing so would make Him ceremonially unclean) and allow them to touch Him. And He would heal them. This gives me hope that Christ will accept me and allow me to come unto Him (now and at the judgement day) despite my own spiritual leprosy. 

As I’ve started reading the beginning of the second half of the New Testament, I’ve been struck by this same principle. Again and again, we see God touching sinful men, and making them powerful instruments in His hands. Peter, the betrayer, becomes the head of the Church; Saul, the persecutor, becomes Paul the apostle; Cornelius, the gentile Centurion, receives a pentecostal witness of the Spirit. It was of the latter that He declared, “What God hath cleansed, call not thou common” (Acts 10:15). That vision referred explicitly to food that was ritualistically unclean (or common), but symbolically to the gentiles and ultimately, to all humankind. Those food items did not meet the requirements of the law--Peter was technically correct in thinking they were unclean/common. And God’s response was not to point out how, actually, these particular food items did meet the requirements of the law. Rather, he simply stated that He had cleaned them. Similarly, we do not keep ourselves entirely clean through perfect observance of the law, but if we will allow God to cleanse us, we will not be unclean.

Paul would later testify, in his letter to Titus “[Christ] gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people” (2:14).

At baptism, we enter the gate and join that peculiar (uncommon) people. And although we will certainly continue to make mistakes, Christ will purify us. It is He who will make us clean, not our legalistic obedience. No unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God because you can’t inherit the kingdom of God unless Christ touches you. And if He touches you, you are not unclean, despite your past or future sins. As long as we choose to continue on the path we begin at baptism, sinning and repenting as we go, He will purify us unto Himself. What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.