Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.
No one can make what is pure come from what is impure, so fallen human nature cannot make itself clean or produce a pure heart by its own strength. Learning, culture, willpower, outward correctness, religious forms and self-directed efforts to keep God's law cannot change the evil heart or purify the springs of life. Cleansing requires a power working from within, with Christ's grace and the Holy Spirit alone giving new life from above in a complete transformation and death to sin and self rather than a mere improvement of the old life. The sinner must admit this helplessness, give up his own will and way, and depend on Jesus, through whose merits God re-creates him and brings what is clean out of what is unclean to restore His image in a mind and life made wholly pure.
Human Helplessness and Divine Renewal
Unclean sinful human nature cannot by itself or by its own power produce purity or a clean heart, for no one can bring a clean thing out of an unclean. Men are sunken in the pit of sin with evil hearts they cannot change of themselves, making it impossible to escape by themselves. An unclean person cannot make himself clean, and nothing unclean can make itself clean.
Education, culture, the exercise of the will, and human effort have their proper sphere but are powerless here. They may produce outward correctness of behavior and change outward behavior, but they cannot change the evil heart or purify the heart and the springs of life. No human effort or human invention can cure the sinning soul and transform the heart. No religious form, no formal or merely legal religion, can do it. Self-directed attempts to keep God's holy law cannot make a person holy, because human nature is depraved and unlike God's character and the works of the selfish heart are unclean.
Change from sin to holiness requires a power working from within and a new life from above. That power is Christ, whose grace alone can quicken the lifeless faculties of the soul and attract and draw it to God and to holiness. The heart must be purified by the Holy Spirit alone, so that a person's life can become pure. The new birth and conversion are a complete change and transformation of nature, a death to sin and self and a wholly new life, not an improvement or mere improvement of the old life.
The sinner must recognize this helplessness as a first step, humble himself before God, give up his own will and way, and depend on Jesus Christ for the converting power that brings victory. The call to make a new heart and spirit does not excuse inaction even though the sinner cannot accomplish it unaided. Through the merits of Jesus Christ, God re-creates the human agent and thus brings a clean thing out of an unclean, restoring God's image in humanity. This re-creation counteracts Satan's work to ruin humanity. This cleansing is seen in a pure mind and in soul and body presented to God without spot or wrinkle and wholly conformed to God's will, and the person pursues and advances toward perfected and perfection of character by beholding Christ and Christ's character.
Whether a person who dies will live again is asked, and the raising of Moses answers it. Christ then exercised His power for the first time to break Satan's power and give life to the dead, beginning His work of making alive that which was dead. By raising Moses He testified that He is the Resurrection and the Life with power to ransom those Satan has made captives, so that although people die they will live again. The act was a great victory over the powers of darkness and an incontrovertible testimony to the supremacy of the Son of God, showing Satan will be despoiled of his prey.
No Clean Education from Unclean Sources
Nothing pure can come from an impure source, so Christian principles cannot be maintained and Christian character cannot be developed from an education moulded by pagan classical literature and by teaching that defies the principles of God's law. An education shaped by such literature and by such teachers is itself an unclean source, and youth cannot be expected to develop Christian character from it. Greek and Latin writings are full of evil sentiments, including incest, murder, and human sacrifices offered to lustful and revengeful gods. Minds and characters shaped by those sentiments become corrupted rather than clean.
Skeptical, infidel, atheistic, and pagan authors who deny God and pour contempt on His word are unclean and are agents of Satan, and there is nothing that can vindicate them or their doings. No good education or good thing can come from their writings. Believers who have tasted the good word of God must give their works no place, must turn away from them, must keep them off library shelves where children can reach them, and must no longer count knowledge of them as essential to a good education.
Even though the works of pagans, atheists, and infidels contain a few bright gems of intellectual thought, God alone is the originator of those gems. Satan, who has knowledge of good as well as evil, mingles the precious with the vile in order to give power to deceive, so the works of his agents are not to be received as essential to education. Time and effort spent seeking the bright ideas of infidels should instead be given to studying the precious things in the word of God, where all truth is at command without wading through a mass of error.
No one can make what is pure come from what is impure, so fallen human nature cannot make itself clean or produce a pure heart by its own strength. Learning, culture, willpower, outward correctness, religious forms and self-directed efforts to keep God's law cannot change the evil heart or purify the springs of life. Cleansing requires a power working from within, with Christ's grace and the Holy Spirit alone giving new life from above in a complete transformation and death to sin and self rather than a mere improvement of the old life. The sinner must admit this helplessness, give up his own will and way, and depend on Jesus, through whose merits God re-creates him and brings what is clean out of what is unclean to restore His image in a mind and life made wholly pure.
Human Helplessness and Divine Renewal
Unclean sinful human nature cannot by itself or by its own power produce purity or a clean heart, for no one can bring a clean thing out of an unclean. Men are sunken in the pit of sin with evil hearts they cannot change of themselves, making it impossible to escape by themselves. An unclean person cannot make himself clean, and nothing unclean can make itself clean.
Education, culture, the exercise of the will, and human effort have their proper sphere but are powerless here. They may produce outward correctness of behavior and change outward behavior, but they cannot change the evil heart or purify the heart and the springs of life. No human effort or human invention can cure the sinning soul and transform the heart. No religious form, no formal or merely legal religion, can do it. Self-directed attempts to keep God's holy law cannot make a person holy, because human nature is depraved and unlike God's character and the works of the selfish heart are unclean.
Change from sin to holiness requires a power working from within and a new life from above. That power is Christ, whose grace alone can quicken the lifeless faculties of the soul and attract and draw it to God and to holiness. The heart must be purified by the Holy Spirit alone, so that a person's life can become pure. The new birth and conversion are a complete change and transformation of nature, a death to sin and self and a wholly new life, not an improvement or mere improvement of the old life.
The sinner must recognize this helplessness as a first step, humble himself before God, give up his own will and way, and depend on Jesus Christ for the converting power that brings victory. The call to make a new heart and spirit does not excuse inaction even though the sinner cannot accomplish it unaided. Through the merits of Jesus Christ, God re-creates the human agent and thus brings a clean thing out of an unclean, restoring God's image in humanity. This re-creation counteracts Satan's work to ruin humanity. This cleansing is seen in a pure mind and in soul and body presented to God without spot or wrinkle and wholly conformed to God's will, and the person pursues and advances toward perfected and perfection of character by beholding Christ and Christ's character.
Whether a person who dies will live again is asked, and the raising of Moses answers it. Christ then exercised His power for the first time to break Satan's power and give life to the dead, beginning His work of making alive that which was dead. By raising Moses He testified that He is the Resurrection and the Life with power to ransom those Satan has made captives, so that although people die they will live again. The act was a great victory over the powers of darkness and an incontrovertible testimony to the supremacy of the Son of God, showing Satan will be despoiled of his prey.
No Clean Education from Unclean Sources
Nothing pure can come from an impure source, so Christian principles cannot be maintained and Christian character cannot be developed from an education moulded by pagan classical literature and by teaching that defies the principles of God's law. An education shaped by such literature and by such teachers is itself an unclean source, and youth cannot be expected to develop Christian character from it. Greek and Latin writings are full of evil sentiments, including incest, murder, and human sacrifices offered to lustful and revengeful gods. Minds and characters shaped by those sentiments become corrupted rather than clean.
Skeptical, infidel, atheistic, and pagan authors who deny God and pour contempt on His word are unclean and are agents of Satan, and there is nothing that can vindicate them or their doings. No good education or good thing can come from their writings. Believers who have tasted the good word of God must give their works no place, must turn away from them, must keep them off library shelves where children can reach them, and must no longer count knowledge of them as essential to a good education.
Even though the works of pagans, atheists, and infidels contain a few bright gems of intellectual thought, God alone is the originator of those gems. Satan, who has knowledge of good as well as evil, mingles the precious with the vile in order to give power to deceive, so the works of his agents are not to be received as essential to education. Time and effort spent seeking the bright ideas of infidels should instead be given to studying the precious things in the word of God, where all truth is at command without wading through a mass of error.