Defilement.
It’s that feeling of being “unclean” or “dirty.”
It’s this godly recognition that we are those who are not clean, righteous enough, to approach God based on our own merits.
When we feel defiled or unclean, however, we respond in interesting ways.
Some of us seek to make ourselves clean by good works, religious effort, or generosity. We try to earn forgiveness through “penance.”
True cleanness, however, can never come through human effort; no, we must be washed, cleansed, made holy by God - and this is why Jesus has come. He has come so that we who are in the shackles of sin, convicted of sin and awaiting judgment, that we might be set free, declared innocent, washed white as snow.
Jesus comes to take our place.
That we, who are defiled, might be declared clean.
This is what we are going to be talking about in John 18:28-40 today.