blemish'.  When we come to the cleansing of 1 John 1:7 we are in the realm of

'manifest' truth; not 'in the beginning' as in the Gospel (John 1:1), but

'from the beginning' (1 John 1:1); not the Word before time began, but during

a period when He could be 'seen, looked upon and handled'.  Not 'life', but

'life manifested'; not what we are in Christ, but the condition of

'fellowship' with Him; not our standing in grace, but our 'walk in the

'If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one

with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth (is

cleansing) us from all sin' (1 John 1:7).

Then, in verses 8 and 9, in contrast to mere lip profession ('if we

say') the apostle puts genuine heart profession ('if we confess').  It would

be easy to dwell on this condition of confession, and to contrast it with the

standing of the believer in Ephesians and Colossians.  The true comparison,

however, is rather with 1 John 2:1,2, where the apostle, after explaining

that he is writing in order that the believer shall not sin, adds:

'If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the

righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins' (1 John 2:1,2).

He supplements this by saying later on in the Epistle that 'as He is,

so are we in this world' (4:17), a passage that is comparable with those that

speak of the standing of the believer in Ephesians and Colossians.

The cleansing and the forgiving of 1 John 1 are experimental.  They

deal with the conditions visualized in John 13:10 in connection with the

washing of the disciples' feet.  They do not contradict the concept of

eternal security, but belong to another realm of grace.

The ceremonial cleansing of the Israelite was accomplished by 'the

water of separation', a cleansing medium composed of the ashes of an

unblemished red heifer together with running water.  So, in Ephesians 5:26,

'the cleansing' is followed by a reference to 'washing by water' (loutron).

This word only occurs twice in the New Testament, here in Ephesians 5:26 and

in Titus 3:5, where the apostle speaks of 'the washing of regeneration'.  In

the LXX the word only occurs in the Song of Songs (4:2 and 6:6), where it is

translated 'washing'.  Josephus speaks of the hot and cold springs near the

castle of Macherus, which, being mixed together, made a most pleasant bath

(loutron).  Aquilla also in his translation of the Old Testament, uses the

word on the two occasions when David speaks of Moab as his 'washpot'.  In

spite of the fact that most nouns ending in tron in the Greek denote Greek

instruments, the LXX translators chose louter, instead of loutron, to

translate the Hebrew word for 'laver' (Exod. 30:18, etc.).  Presumably,

therefore, the apostle's use of loutron was intended to remove the idea a

little from the laver itself to the washing associated with it.  There is

certainly no reference here in Ephesians 5:26 to baptism.  The word used in

the phrase 'by the word' is not logos, but rhema, 'the spoken word', 'the

saying'.  Rhema is also used in Ephesians 6:17, where the apostle speaks of

the 'word of God' as the 'Sword of the Spirit'.  Logos refers to the

expressed 'thought', whereas rhema indicates the expressed 'will'.

The 'washing of water by the word' is referred to several times in

John's Gospel.  In John 15:3 the Lord says:

'Now ye are clean through the word (logos) which I have spoken'.