Anyone who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. (John 13:10)
The words of Jesus to Peter in this passage reveal the position of every person who belongs to him. The one who has been washed by Christ stands entirely clean. There remains only the daily cleansing of the feet, the removal of the dust from walking through this world. This picture leaves no room for the common confession that a Christian remains a sinner in the same way he was before he believed. The apostles teach that Christ’s sacrifice brings an end to the consciousness of sin. Those who claim to follow Christ but insist that they are still sinners reject the power of his blood and place it on the same level as the blood of animals. The Letter to the Hebrews declares that the sacrifices of the Law could not cleanse the conscience, but that the blood of Christ removes sin and the awareness of guilt from those who trust him. If sin-consciousness remains, faith in the gospel has not taken place.
The one who has been washed by Christ possesses a status that the Bible never applies to unbelievers. A Christian may stumble and commit sins, but he is not identified as a sinner in the way the Bible uses the term. The sinner stands outside the covenant, condemned and alien to God. The Christian stands inside the covenant, righteous with the very righteousness of God. This is not a matter of degree, as if salvation moves a man from being a full sinner to a partial sinner. It is a matter of kind. The new birth produces a new creature, and a new creature is not the old creature in a slightly improved condition.
Jesus told Peter that refusal to be washed by him means having no share with him at all. There is no partnership between Christ and those who insist that they remain unwashed. The one who has been washed is clean except for the feet. He remains in fellowship with Christ and receives the ongoing cleansing that comes through the word of God. The one who insists that he remains filthy after this washing shows that he has never been washed and has no part in Christ. To confess the same identity that belonged to the old man is to deny the gospel and side with the accuser rather than the Savior.
The identity of a Christian is bound to the righteousness of Christ. God’s own righteousness is counted to the believer and rests upon him. The worth of Christ’s blood outweighs the sum of all human sin. No stain survives the work of the cross. Cleansing comes through the teaching of Christ, not through sickness, calamity, or the decay of the body. These afflictions have no purifying power.
A divided mind produces a weak faith. Many live in a contradiction. They claim that Christ has cleansed them, while holding the belief that they remain sinners. Such a belief cancels assurance, drains strength, and leaves the conscience clouded. Entrance into heaven belongs to the righteous. Those who will not affirm their righteousness in Christ cannot affirm their place in heaven. To question the sufficiency of Christ’s righteousness is to question Christ himself.
Paul’s statement to Timothy has been misused to perpetuate the lie that a Christian is still the chief of sinners. The Greek word protos carries the sense of foremost or most prominent, not necessarily worst in moral quality. In the context, Paul recalls his former life as a blasphemer, persecutor, and violent opponent of the faith. His fame as an enemy of the gospel made his conversion the most conspicuous example of grace. He became the most prominent display of God’s mercy, a living proof that Christ saves even those who once opposed him. After his conversion, Paul maintained a clear conscience, defended his blameless conduct, and exhorted the churches to live in the righteousness given to them. He never taught that he remained the worst sinner alive. He testified that he had been transformed into a new man.
Jesus said that the disciples were already clean because of the word he had spoken to them. His word prunes and purifies, producing fruit in those who remain in him. This cleansing happens by revelation and instruction, not by the blows of adversity. Affliction without the word of God changes nothing in the heart.
The mindset of guilt and inferiority belongs to the unconverted. To carry that mindset into the Christian life reveals an unconverted state. Those who embrace it worship a false god, one who demands endless confession of impurity but never provides cleansing. Many preachers have promoted this posture as humility, but it is in fact unbelief disguised in religious language.
Charles Spurgeon once repeated the old lines, “I’m a poor sinner, and nothing at all; But Jesus Christ is my all in all.” In another place he prayed, “Jesus, accept a sinner… though these twenty years I have known thy name, yet still a sinner I come to thee.” Such words may sound devout, but they deny the reality of the new birth. They portray the Christian as unchanged in identity, still in the same class as the condemned, as if the blood of Christ had not accomplished what the gospel declares.
Paul could speak of himself as a sinner only when referring to his past. The Christian may testify in the same way. A murderer who has come to Christ may declare that he was a murderer and that Christ saves murderers. But this is no longer his identity. He has been changed. The Christian does not think like a sinner. He does not feel like a sinner. And the Christian life does not resemble the life of a sinner. The Spirit of God creates a different kind of human being.
When the sense of being a sinner dominates the sense of being righteous in Christ, faith rests more in sin than in salvation. That faith cannot save. The faith that saves receives the word of Christ about what he has accomplished and who the believer is because of him. A man washed by Christ is clean. He walks in the awareness of that cleansing, and he rejects every thought that treats the blood of Christ as inadequate. This is the faith that overcomes the world.