We have been sprinkled ⌞with his blood⌟ to free us from a guilty conscience, and our bodies have been washed with clean water. So we must continue to come ⌞to him⌟ with a sincere heart and strong faith.
“And you, my son Solomon, learn to know your father’s God. Serve the Lord wholeheartedly and willingly because he searches every heart and understands every thought ⌞we have⌟. If you dedicate your life to serving him, he will accept you. But if you abandon him, he will reject you from then on.
I know, my God, that you examine hearts and delight in honesty. With an honest heart I have willingly offered all these things. I’ve been overjoyed to see your people here offering so willingly to you.
The Lord says, “These people worship me with their mouths and honor me with their lips. But their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is ⌞based on⌟ rules made by humans.
He will cleanse many nations ⌞with his blood⌟. Kings will shut their mouths because of him. They will see things that they had never been told. They will understand things that they had never heard.
I will give them the desire to know that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, because they will wholeheartedly come back to me.
Their leader will be someone from their own people. Their ruler will come from among them. I’ll bring him near, and he will come close to me. Who would dare to come near me?” asks the Lord.
He will sprinkle the blood seven times on the one to be cleansed and will declare that person clean. Then he will let the living bird fly away into the open country.
He must put on a holy linen robe and wear linen undergarments. He must wear a linen belt and turban. These are holy clothes. He must wash his body and put them on.
This is what you must do to make them clean: Sprinkle them with water to take away their sins. Make them shave their whole bodies and wash their clothes. Then they will be clean.
I baptize you with water so that you will change the way you think and act. But the one who comes after me is more powerful than I. I am not worthy to remove his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
That’s what some of you were! But you have been washed and made holy, and you have received God’s approval in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
Since we have these promises, dear friends, we need to cleanse ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit and live a holy life in the fear of God.
he saved us, but not because of anything we had done to gain his approval. Instead, because of his mercy he saved us through the washing in which the Holy Spirit gives us new birth and renewal.
Moses’ Teachings with their yearly cycle of sacrifices are only a shadow of the good things in the future. They aren’t an exact likeness of those things. They can never make those who worship perfect.
Moses’ Teachings couldn’t accomplish everything that God required. But we have something else that gives us greater confidence and allows us to approach God.
These gifts and sacrifices were meant to be food, drink, and items used in various purification ceremonies. These ceremonies were required for the body until God would establish a new way of doing things.
As Scripture tells us, Moses told all the people every commandment. Then he took the blood of calves and goats together with some water, red yarn, and hyssop and sprinkled the scroll and all the people.
God the Father knew you long ago and chose you to live holy lives with the Spirit’s help so that you are obedient to Jesus Christ and are sprinkled with his blood. May good will and peace fill your lives!
Baptism, which is like that water, now saves you. Baptism doesn’t save by removing dirt from the body. Rather, baptism is a request to God for a clear conscience. It saves you through Jesus Christ, who came back from death to life.
and from Jesus Christ, the witness, the trustworthy one, the first to come back to life, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. Glory and power forever and ever belong to the one who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood