If I talk of having fellowship with God, I must be able to bear and to enjoy His presence. It is not that I am good, but that God has cleansed me. It does not depend on the degree of my filthiness, but on His power to cleanse. When I have washed something, I do not keep thinking whether it was much dirty or a little dirty, but that now it is clean. And so with saints, “you are already clean” (Jn. 15:3), and God delights to look on me because He has washed me. It does not depend on my great or little sins, but on the good washing, on the value of the blood. So I read, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isa. 1:18); that is the good washing.

Now, do you believe this? If you do, you are walking in the light; you cannot believe it any other way, for, of course, if I am in darkness, I cannot tell whether I am a clean man or a dirty man.

Do you believe that you are washed? It is a personal question in which every man’s conscience is brought into the light of God’s presence. If you can stand there, you stand within the rent veil, and in that you stand spotless: “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” You have fellowship with God and with His Son Jesus Christ. God has cleansed you, and He is delighted to do it. He loves to do it. Christ has died and done it. Once in that holy presence without spot, I can stand still and look back and admire the ways of grace. My soul, my heart, my conscience, are all engaged, and this produces integrity.