ritual cleanness
Ritual cleanness is the state of being ceremonially fit to participate in Israel’s worship under the Old Testament law. It concerned ceremonial status before God’s sanctuary, not simply physical hygiene or personal morality.
At a Glance
Ritual cleanness is the state of being ceremonially fit to participate in Israel’s worship under the Old Testament law. It concerned ceremonial status before God’s sanctuary, not simply physical hygiene or personal morality.
Description
Ritual cleanness refers to the ceremonial state required for participation in Israel’s covenant worship under the Mosaic law. In the Old Testament, a person could become ceremonially unclean through certain bodily conditions, contact with death, skin diseases, childbirth, or other causes named in the law; this uncleanness was not always the result of personal sin, but it did restrict access to the sanctuary and sacred activities until purification was completed. The clean/unclean distinctions helped teach Israel the holiness of God, the seriousness of impurity, and the need for purification in approaching him. In the New Testament, these ceremonial categories are not binding on the church in the same covenantal form, and they are fulfilled in Christ, who brings the deeper cleansing to which such laws pointed.