The Connotations of Cleanliness

There are many words whose sounds are sweet because of what they connote words such as warmth and love, home and friends, peace and quiet, comfort and kindness and so many more that have come to mean so much.

There is another meaningful word that we should like to consider for a moment: the word clean cleanliness. All through the Old Testament, men are reminded of cleanliness even as our Savior in the New Testament said, “be thou clean.”

Among the ancient philosophers Epictetus observed that “cleanliness…divides [men] from the lower animals”and then added: “Will you not cleanse yourself? Will you not come clean among us that you may give pleasure to your companions?”

Think for a moment of some of the connotations of uncleanliness: dirt and darkness, smut and filth, unwashed, impure, contaminated, soiled, and sullied. And then by contrast think of some of the blessed connotations of cleanliness: clean clothes, clean sheets, clean food, clean hands, clean speech, clean minds, clean motives, clean men.

The honest sweat of toil, the honest dirt that comes with work, and the fresh smears and smudges on a boy’s face, have a sort of accepted virtue. But stale dirt, and dirt of mind and dirt of morals are abhorrent in their contrast to cleanliness, and especially abhorrent to the inside kind of cleanliness, of which Epictetus further said: “The [first] and fundamental purity is of the soul.”

Some, no doubt, will be cynical on this subject. Some will say or subtly suggest that the laws and commandments concerning chastity and personal purity are old-fashioned, and can safely be set aside. But if they do say so, they deceive themselves, for there is this sure certainty: that sin, old-fashioned as it is to speak of it, is still followed by its costs and consequences. The law of cause and effect has not been repealed even if some would say so.

How blessed is the blessedness of cleanliness of washing clean, of being clean, of thinking clean, of living clean, of keeping clean with cleanliness of person and cleanliness of soul; with the chaste and moral cleanliness of a young man or woman coming to marriage. This kind of cleanliness is at the very core of man’s peace and effectiveness in life, and quietness of conscience the cleanliness of a man inside himself.

In the words of Job, “He that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.”