“What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
I love singing hymns. I love how they speak truth about God and the gospel and how singing such truth can help us better grasp it and personalize it. But so often, we sing the words without applying them. I particularly see this with women who are sexually broken.
If this is you, do you truly believe the words of this hymn—that Jesus can wash away your sin? That He can make you whole again? That He can make you white as snow?
Or maybe you believe that Jesus can do these things for other people, but He can’t or won’t do them for you. It doesn’t feel true that He could forgive you and make you whole. What feels true is your guilt. What feels true is that you are unlovable, unworthy, unclean, etc. because of what you’ve done.
While I don’t know what you have experienced, done, or believed, I do know the truth and the hope of the gospel.
Who You Were and Who You Are
When Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers to instruct them and to confront them about their sin—including their sexual sin—he listed who will not inherit the kingdom of God: the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, greedy, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers.
But, Paul immediately follows this list by saying: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).
Did you catch the verb tense Paul uses here? Such were some of you. He uses the past tense, even though some of his original audience was still struggling with the sins in this vice list.
His point is that’s who you were before Christ. That was your label when you were unsaved and, therefore, an enemy of God. But if you are a Christian, that is not who you are now. This is not how God sees you now.
As Paul states in 1 Corinthians 6, God sees you as washed. He sees you as sanctified. He sees you as justified.
Why? Because of the sacrifice of His Son.
An Old Testament Picture of the Gospel
There’s an Old Testament illustration that helps us understand this truth. Called the Holy of Holies, this inner room of the Temple contained the Ark of the Covenant. Only the high priest could enter this room, and he could only do so once a year on the Day of Atonement.
When God gave Moses the building instructions for the Ark, He explained that it was here that He would meet with him (Ex. 25:21-22), and among the items included in the Ark were the Ten Commandments. So, when God looked down on the Ark, He saw the law, and in seeing the law, He saw all of the ways His people had broken the law.
But when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement, do you know what he did? He took the blood of the sacrifice that had been offered on behalf of entire nation, and he sprinkled it on the mercy seat, which was the lid on the Ark of the Covenant (Lev. 16:15-16). Since the Ark of the Covenant was never cleaned, this meant there were centuries of dried blood caked on the mercy seat as, year after year, the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled onto it.
The picture here is that when God looked down at the Ark, He saw the law, and He saw all of the ways His people had broken the law. However, He saw this through the blood of the sacrifice, and because of this, He could pardon His people.
How God Sees You
Sister, God knows what sins you have committed, but when He looks at you, He sees you through the blood of His Son. This is how you are washed, sanctified, and justified as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6. So do not carry around the guilt that Christ came to set you free from.
There is hope for the sexually broken because Christ’s death on the cross answers the problem of our guilt, and there is hope for the sexually broken because, when we trust in Christ as our Lord and Savior, He gives us a new identity.
Instead of dirty, you are clean. Instead of God’s enemy, you are His child. Instead of guilty, you are pardoned. Instead of unholy, you are holy. Not only that, but you are chosen and wanted and dearly loved by God (Col. 3:12), and He delights in you (Zeph. 3:17).
This is the gospel, and it is why there is hope for the sexually broken. This is why there is hope for you and for me. Because we are all sexually broken.
“Oh! Precious is the flow
That makes us white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
Ashley Chesnut serves as the Associate Singles 20s/30s Minister at The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama, and has a Master of Divinity from Beeson Divinity School. While Ashley has a passion for discipling young women, she also loves her city and authored a child’s guide to Birmingham called Down in the Ham, which was released this summer. When she’s not at the church or meeting with girls, you can probably find her at the farmer’s market or trying some new local restaurant.
