Because God is absolutely pure, he is perfectly good, and we can trust him.
We live in a world where impurity can ruin anything.
Last year, for example, after one of the most respected Christian apologists in the world died, he received waves of public admiration and eulogy. A few months later, however, investigators revealed he had maintained for many years a double life of sexual sin and abuse toward many. YouTube channels reverberated for months with disillusioned people trying to make sense of it. By destroying people’s ability to trust leaders in general and by bringing discredit to the gospel, this man’s sins outweighed the good he had done for a lifetime.
Ruined by impurity
Ecclesiastes 10:1 says, “Dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.”
In computer apps, one wrong character or command, one corrupted line of code, can render the entire program useless.
And in hospitals, one disease-causing microbe on the glove of a surgeon can lead to an infection that ends in death.
In restaurants, one cockroach in your food is enough to spoil the entire meal and prevent you from ever going to that restaurant again.
Who wants food with a long list of artificial ingredients? Who wants corrupt politicians? Or who wants polluted air and water?
Pure is good.
Absolutely pure
To say that God is holy is to say he is absolutely pure, meaning he is uncontaminated by any trace of evil, but in fact hates evil and loves only good.
False gods and worldviews are impure. The pantheon of gods in Roman and Greek mythology were powerful, but flawed. The idolatrous gods of the nations around Israel required cultic prostitution, child sacrifice, and self-mutilation, and their rituals involved worshipers with demons. Pantheistic religions and worldviews maintain that everything is God and part of God, including all the corruptions inherent in our world. In the worldview of yinyang, everything contains both light and dark.
But 1 John 1:5 says, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” 1 John 3:3 says, “He is pure.”
Like sunlight
The definition of pure is: not mixed or adulterated with any other substance or material. Unalloyed. Free of contamination. Spotless. Stainless. Unmitigated. Free from what vitiates, weakens, or pollutes. Containing nothing that does not properly belong. Free from moral fault or guilt.
God is pure love, pure goodness, pure truth, and pure light.
He is as pure as sunlight, as clean as fire. God is not 99.9999 percent pure, but rather 100 percent pure, perfectly free from contamination and corruption, perfectly delighting in what is morally clean and abhorring what is defiled. He cannot be tempted by evil.
Psalm 5:4–6 says, “You are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.”
The benefits of having a God who is absolutely pure
Because God is pure, he is perfect.
Because God is pure, he alone is good, perfectly good in himself, and perfectly good to his children. In all things—not some things or merely most things—he works for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28).
Because God is pure, he will not lie to us.
Because God is pure, we can trust him.
And because God is pure, he is unchanging.
Because God is pure, he is infinitely superior to us.
Because God is pure in relation to us, he cannot act in malevolence toward us or betray us.
And because God is pure, he is love, pure love. We do not have to fear some pocket of darkness in God, but rather can trust him entirely.
Because God is pure, he is eternal life. Revelation 22:1 says, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”
This is what God is like
God is like organic, all-natural food perfectly free of artificial ingredients, preservatives, pollution, and disease-causing microbes and chemicals.
God is like a grocery store absolutely free from food, employees, or customers with coronavirus, colds, flus, or any other disease. You could walk in their without a mask and breathe freely and observe no social distancing and not have any chance whatever of getting sick.
God is like a surgery room with no germs, viruses, or bacteria on anything or anyone. It would be literally impossible to get an infection during surgery because there is not a single disease-causing microbe in the room.
God is like perfect computer code.
God is like a governmental leader who cannot lie, take a bribe, associate with corrupt business or political leaders, believe false information, or make a bad decision.
And God is like pure water that does not merely meet minimum standards for purity, but rather is perfectly free of toxins. In the real world, such perfection is impossible, but if it were, that is what God is like, with not even a trace of toxins.
We, too, can be pure
And because God is pure, and purity is good, he calls us to be pure.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).
First John 3:3 says, “Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”
Second Corinthians 6:14–7:1 says, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.’ Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)