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Cleanliness

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 10, 1871

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 38, No. 17.

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Cleanliness.

The great God, in his dealings with the Hebrews, not only restricted their diet to the simple manna, in the wilderness, hence their murmurings, but he also taught them cleanliness. Both these were for their health. Gluttony and physical and moral filth are base companions; while temperance and cleanliness are congenial friends.
The splendid maxim, “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” is not found in the Sacred Scriptures, as many suppose; but is in the Jewish Talmud.
And he who reads the books of Moses attentively will not fail to observe that in those moral lessons which were given the people through Moses, cleanliness holds a high rank among the preparatory acts for acceptance with God.
When the Hebrews were about to assemble at the base of Sinai, to witness the grandeur of Jehovah as he should descend upon the mount, wrapped in a cloud of glory, to speak in the audience of all the people the ten precepts of his holy law, among the specified preparations for the occasion, we read: “Go unto the people, and sanctify them to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their clothes.” Ex. 19:10. “And they washed their clothes.” Verse 14.
This act of cleanliness, entering so fully into the sacred record, makes it one of importance. This was not simply because our Heavenly Father was pleased to see his children dressed in cleanly apparel; but it was to impress them with the purity of God, and that he cared for their physical and moral well-being.
Again, while the vast camp of the Hebrews were in the wilderness, it was necessary for their physical and moral good, that they should be particularly neat and cleanly in their common habits. See Deut. 23:10–14.
The God of Israel has not changed. That particular and holy God of the Hebrews, who could not view moral or physical impurities with complacency, is the Christian’s God. The death of his Son for the sins of men, and the world-wide proclamation of his glorious gospel, were never designed to give the idea that the Christian should be less particular and cleanly in common habits of life than the Hebrew. Then, these were necessary to physical and moral health. And, from the very nature of the case, the same necessity exists in our time.
It is the most degrading and miserable fanaticism to suppose that the freedom of the gospel consists in slovenly and filthy dress, in rough, clownish, and irreverent words and actions, or in careless and filthy habits of life. It is painful to state that there is much that passes with certain classes as plain, humble religion, that is a living disgrace to the Christian name. One reason of this state of things, and a very prominent one, is the mistaken idea that God has abolished his rules of cleanliness, goodness, justice, and righteousness, found in the books of Moses, and that the gospel frees us from their restraint.
God is the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever. The same practical instructions which he gave to the Hebrews through Moses, for their physical and moral benefit, he also impressed in substance upon the minds of the inspired writers of the New Testament. Paul exhorts to the point: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” 2 Cor. 6:17, 18.
Acceptance and heirship are the greatest blessings that God can offer on conditional promise to mortal men. Paul continues in the very next verse. “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” Chap. 7:1.
In these impressive words, the purity, or impurity, of the physical and moral are connected. The one is dependent upon the other. The man whose habits are filthy, has a filthy spirit. And the man who obtains real purity of spirit, will be led to cleanly habits of life. Cleanliness, health, and purity of spirit, are all of the same piece, and are priceless adornments of the Christian’s pathway to Heaven.
God pity the poor. These labor under disadvantages. But they can be cleanly, neat, and orderly. While it is admitted that poverty, in many cases, tends to make people slack, disorderly, and filthy, it is denied that this is necessarily the case. The log hovel, with its scanty, rude furniture, may show as many marks of tidiness as the mansion of the wealthy. And the scanty clothing may be clean. Though patch may be put upon patch, all may show the rough beauty and cleanliness of a hand and heart that is moved by the true spirit of reform.
Diseases are received into the system by improper food, bad water, and impure air. The food and water may be right, but if the air we breathe be corrupt, the system will become poisoned, and sooner or later, sickness must follow. In our frequent tours in New England, the middle and north-western States, we have visited many sick persons. When searching for the cause of their sickness, if we have failed to detect it as hereditary, or caused by improper diet, or by impure water, we have usually found it existing on the premises.
Whole families will be prostrated with fevers, and more or less deaths occur, and the good people will gravely and tearfully talk of the mysterious providence of God that has caused so much sickness, and removed valuable relatives and neighbors, when the chief cause of the suffering, and perhaps of premature death, was in their own yard.
We wish to arouse the people upon the subject of securing health, moral elevation, and happiness, by providing themselves with the most healthful food, good water, and pure air. If the people will secure these, and have their other habits temperate and well, they may give the doctors’ drugs to the dogs, save pain and money, and be well.
Personal cleanliness by proper bathing is not only a healthful luxury, but a virtue. Again we quote Paul where he connects physical and moral cleanliness. “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” Heb. 10:19–22.
The word rendered “washed,” in the expression, “our bodies washed with pure water,” is louo, which is defined by Robinson thus: “To bathe, to wash, but only the person or the whole body; not merely the hands and face which is expressed by nipto.”
Liddell and Scott give a similar definition: “To wash, especially to wash the body, nizo being used especially of the hands and feet, pluno of clothes. Most usually in mid. to wash one’s self, to bathe.” The derivatives of this word seem to have exclusive reference to bathing. Thus loutron is defined, a bath, a bathing place; loutrophoreo, to carry water for bathing; loutrochoreo, to pour water into the bath, &c.
The effort of immersionists to press this text into the service of their mode of baptism is an utter failure. There is abundance of the plainest testimony for immersion. But immersion, simply, does not wash the body. Another apostle says of Christian baptism, It is “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh.” 1 Pet. 3:19. This ends the matter. The expression of Paul, then, “Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water,” refers to moral and physical cleanliness. These words simply embrace the work of divine grace upon the mind and heart, and the bathing of the body in pure water. Dear reader, you see that our views of Bible Hygiene lead us to adopt the position that the blessing of personal cleanliness was not alone secured to the Hebrew, but that the glorious gospel of God’s dear Son recognizes the bath tub as verily as it does the communion cups.
Between the tabernacle of the Hebrew congregation and the altar was the brazen laver containing water in which the Jewish priests were to wash themselves before putting on the pure linen garments, preparatory to entering the sanctuary to minister before God. And it is distinctly stated that they must do this, “that they die not.” Here we are again impressed with the purity of God, and how particular he was to impress the Hebrews that cleanliness was, to say the least, closely connected with acceptable worship.
Has the change of dispensations changed the character and mind of God in this respect? Has the death of his Son given license to Christians to pollute their bodies and souls with filthy indulgences, which in the former dispensation would have been prohibited on pain of death? No! No!! God is the same in all dispensations. And those moral teachings found in the books of Moses, which contain rules to secure moral goodness, cleanliness, justice and the favor of God, are as changeless as the throne of Heaven.
God save us from that Christian (?) dissipation that suffers the professed minister of the holy Jesus to ascend the pulpit with his blood, and breath, and, perhaps, his lips, clothes, and flesh, tainted with the filth of tobacco. But we forbear, lest what we might add in truth should offend some whose moral sense and piety are still enslaved by morbid appetite.