Clean Inside And Out

Psalm 24: 1 – 10

Clean inside and out

A Psalm of David.

1 The earth is the LORD’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein. 2 For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. 3 Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully. 5 He shall receive blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6 This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face. Selah 7 Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He Is the King of glory.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ taught us significant truth we He revealed people for who they truly are. They might have taken a bath and threw on some cologne, but they still stunk because they had internal odor. He said in chapter 23 this remarkable truth

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.

Our Lord’s remark speaks about those who lay great weight on their own gifts and offerings, which have a derived holiness, rather than on what is intrinsically holy. That prevented them from genuinely approaching the living God. Here their fault lies in cleansing externals while not being concerned about what lies beneath, and thus failing to please God. In both cases it is to miss what is essential for the sake of the inessential. They laid great stress on the ritual cleansing of pottery, and of their own outer bodies, but they ignored what lay within themselves and were thus full of ‘extortion’ (obtaining things by false means) and ‘excess’ (lack of self-control, self-indulgence). It is not, of course, that the Scribes and Pharisees were particularly evil men. They simply indulged in the same corrupt practices as many others. The difference lies in the fact that they set themselves up as the standard by which others should be judged, and as the custodians of the people’s morals, and should thus have been a glowing example to others. But they were not. Their light should have been shining before men, but instead it was dimmed and distorted.

When we call ourselves Christians we too must beware that our lives are consistent with what we believe, or we too will come under the same condemnation.

The picture of the Pharisee carefully cleaning the outside of a vessel while at the same time it was full of filthiness, without bothering about the inside, is probably intended to be amusing as well as telling. Our Master and King Jesus constantly uses caricature to get over His point. But in the application the vessel represents themselves, keeping their outsides clean with constant washings, and yet not worrying about the inner heart. It was certainly typical of much of what they did, and much of what many of us do.

26 Blind Pharisee first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.

But what they should have done was first ensure that the inside was clean. Then there might be some point in cleansing the outside. For the outside cannot be truly clean until the inside is. The result of making the inside clean will, in the case of a human being, result in the outside becoming clean as well.

27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

It was the custom in Palestine as the Feast of Passover approached, to generally clear up the highways and specially to mark the graves. This would be done by whitewashing them, so that pilgrims who did not know the district would not accidentally meet them and be rendered ‘unclean’ for seven days (Numbers 19.16), thus missing out on the Feast. For a time, they looked sparkling white, they were ‘beautiful’. But it did not obscure the fact that inside the tombs were rotting flesh and dead men’s bones. The same was true of the Scribes and Pharisees. They put on a show on the outside, but they were dead and putrefying inside.