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Job is possessed by a terrible thought. He imagines that God is so determined to have him as an object of condemnation that nothing he can do can set him right; even if he makes himself ever so clean, God will plunge him back in the mire, God will overwhelm him with guilt. This is, of course, a wholly false view of God, though it is not altogether inexcusable with Job in his ignorance and awful distress.

I. GOD ONLY DESIRES OUR PURIFICATION. We may not be tempted to fall into Job's mistake, for we have more light, and our circumstances are far more hopeful than his were. Still, it is difficult for us to conceive how entirely averse to making the worst of us God is. He cannot ignore sin, for his searching glance always reveals it to him, and his just judgment always estimates it rightly. He must bring our sin home to us; for this is for our own good, as well as necessary in regard to the claims of righteous-neat. Thus he seems to be forcing out our guilt. But in doing so he is not plunging us into the mire, but only making apparent the hidden evil of our heart. The process is like that of a photographer developing a picture, like that of a physician bringing a disease to the surface. The result makes apparent what existed before, unseen but dangerously powerful.

II. IT IS HOPELESS TO ATTEMPT OUR OWN PURIFICATION. Here Job was right. We may wash ourselves, but we shall not be clean. Sin is more than a defilement; it is a stain, a dye, an ingrained evil. It is like the Ethiopian's skin and the leopard's spots; sin has become a part of the sinner's very constitution. Tears of repentance will not wash it out. Blood of sacrificed victims will not cleanse it away. Penance and good deeds will not remove it. We cannot undo the past, cannot do away with the fact that sin was committed. Therefore we cannot remove the guilt of our sin, nor its contaminating, corrupting influence from our consciences.

III. GOD PROVIDES PURIFICATION FROM SIN. We need not despair. Job is not only mistaken; the truth is the very opposite to what he imagines it to be. God himself, instead of aggravating guilt, has provided the only efficacious means for its removal. This was promised in the Old Testament: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord," etc. (Isaiah 1:18). It is accomplished in the New Testament. Christ offered forgiveness of sin (Matthew 9:2). By his death on the cross he made that forgiveness sure to us. What no tsars or works of ours can do is effected by the blood of Christ, which "cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). That is to say, Christ's death is the great purifying sacrifice. When we trust in him the cleansing of guilt that is given, on condition of the perfect sacrifice, is ours. Our despair of purification outside Christ should only drive us to Christ that we may receive it. - W.F.A.

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KJV: If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;

WEB: If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye,