By Water and Blood. The moral cleansing is “by water”, and the judicial cleansing is “by blood”. After Jesus died on the Cross, the soldier with a spear pierced His side and forthwith came there out blood and water.” Water speaks of the moral cleansing from the defilement of sin. In John 13 Jesus taught about water-cleansing. He said that the disciples had been “washed all over” and did not need to be washed in that way again, only their feet on an on-going basis (John 13:10b; Eph. 5:26). The disciples (except Judas) had the moral cleansing by water because they were born again; and were “clean every whit”. They had a new nature inside them that was as holy as God’s own nature! But never in the gospels do we find blood-cleansing, because the cross was not yet accomplished. New birth is not specific to the New Testament, so they still had the moral cleansing before the cross. When we get to the epistles the truth of cross is fully brought out. Then we find that believers are washed/cleansed in the blood of Christ (1 John 1:7, Rev. 1:5; 1 Pet. 1:2b). Blood speaks of the judicial cleansing from the guilt of sin. Being washed in the blood is connected with believing the gospel for salvation, and it gives the believer a “purged conscience” (Heb. 9:14; 10:2) because he knows the blood of Christ has removed every charge of sin against him. We have both of these aspects in Hebrews 10:22, one pictured by the brazen altar and the other by the laver; “having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water”. It would seem that both issues will likewise be taken up with Israel in the future; “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin [judicial] and for uncleanness [moral]“ (Zech. 13:1).

 

The Order. We have these two aspects to the work of Christ brought together in 1 John 5:5-10. It says that Christ came “by water and by blood”, that is for the purpose of effecting moral and judicial cleansing (new birth and salvation). The Spirit of God bears witness to that. He emphasizes “not by water only”. It was not the Lord’s purpose in coming only to cleanse His people from moral defilement, but also to give God a righteous basis to declare us judicially “just” in His sight (Rom. 3:26). One who is only morally cleansed is not a finished product. In 1 John the water was mentioned before the blood because that is the order in which they are applied to a believer. We must be born again first, then we believe on the only-begotten Son for eternal life. Even in Old Testament typology, the sons of Aaron were washed with water first, then sprinkled with blood (Lev. 8). But in John 19:34 the blood is mentioned before water because that was the order they came out in historically, and the order which has God’s interests first, before man’s need.