Clean and Unclean, Holy and Common

"What is the way out of shame?
Knowledge that leads to belief.
Belief that leads to trust:
     trust in Jesus
     trust in His Words
     trust in His promises." (p.64)

For me, the hope out of shame begins in this chapter where Welch discusses the OT teaching of sacrifices (the part most of us skip over) but the point he really wants to make is how things were categorized into clean and unclean, common and holy and the reasons for that.  Lev 10:10.  Welch tells us that with these four basic categories we get the basic building blocks of the spiritual universe and everyone fits into two of those four groups.  The groups are very distinctly separate --> you can't be a little clean or sort of unclean.  Clean is acceptable, normal; unclean is defiled, cast out, abnormal.  The clean can't cleanse the unclean but the unclean can contaminate the clean and that's why the unclean were separated from the clean.  Think about how lepers were treated in Biblical times. (p. 66)

Welch goes on to describe how uncleanness strikes us all (Is 64:6) because of something we have done or what what has been done to us.  God makes a point about who belongs in the category of uncleanness (anyone associated with death, idol worship, who violates God's intended order) whether perpetrator or victim, because He wants to make clear that uncleanness does not belong in His Kingdom.  Welch is quick to point out though: "That doesn't mean the unclean are unwelcome, but it means God must do something for them before they enter His presence."

The OT spends a lot of time explaining how people could become part of the group again if they became unclean, through sacrifices, but the important difference for us today is that we do not need to find a priest to make a sacrifice for us.

To be clean is shalom, peace, everything is right, the way it's supposed to be, but for us who know shame, being clean is a place we know exists, where most other people live but we never will.  We can't just walk from our unclean, shameful place into the part of town where the clean people live.  In the OT, Welch reminds us that, the way of cleanness went through the temple where the cost of the sacrifice wasn't important, but the shedding of blood was.  The OT was teaching us that a very significant cost was involved to move from unclean to clean, but after the sacrifice of blood you were clean and could rejoin the community and be fully accepted.  No one could point at you and say you were still unclean after the priest had pronounced you clean!

In the next part of the chapter Welch deals with the struggle we might still be having if we find it hard to accept that sacrifices done on our behalf can make us clean.  He is very strong on this part and I would encourage anyone struggling with this to really take a good hard look at yourself --> do you still feel that you have to DO something, or are you just stubborn and angry with the contaminator, playing the victim card, your pride is holding you back, you are believing the lies of the devil!!  Beware, he is prowling around like a lion, looking for someone to devour.  1 Pet 5:6-11.

The OT system may seem to have its advantages with the way to becoming clean following a set of prescribed steps, and then in a ceremony of closure you were clean and fit completely back into the community.  Welch reminds us that this only gets better as we continue our walk through God's Word, the OT rituals are only a warm-up!!

Welch finishes the chapter by also looking at holy and common, with clean and unclean having the same parent -- the common which is separate from the holy.  The category of holy is all about God.  God is holy and anything He declares uniquely His is also holy, set apart to God.  Only the priests in the OT had access to the parts of the tabernacle closest to the Holy of Holies.  If you were unclean in the OT you could become clean yet there was still a barrier between you and God.  Yet God said in Lev 11:45, that He called the entire people of Israel holy.  God made them His own people and as God's covenant people don't we fit into that category?

Finally Welch looks at the common category which relates to people and all created things.  In the OT the common included the clean after it was consecrated.  In the NT the journey from common to holy is sanctification, which is a process where we become more and more like Christ --> we're Christians under Construction.

Welch finishes the chapter by saying, "whether we know it or not, what we truly want is to be holy, to enjoy the presence of the Holy One.  That is the deepest answer to the problem of shame." (p.75)