My yard is currently covered in snow. Living where I do, I’m quite used to the stuff. But there is one thing about snow that always, without exception, takes me by surprise: how bright it is. Every time I pull back the curtains on a new day and find snow on the ground, my eyes receive a jolt because I’m never ready for the startling effect of snow’s pure whiteness. This effect takes my mind to Psalm 51:7, where David says to God:

“…Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (N.K.J.V.)

The heading of Psalm 51 leaves no doubt as to what prompted David’s need of cleansing. The prophet Nathan had just confronted him regarding the adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah (2 Samuel chapters 11 & 12). Shockingly, David, the “man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), had broken three of the ten commandments that made up the moral summation of that body of law God had given to Israel. He had coveted his neighbor’s wife (Exodus 20:17), committed adultery (Exodus 20:14), and murdered (Exodus 20:13).

David understood God was the only One who could remove the dark stain of his sins. There was no heroic deed David could perform to remove that stain. There were no good works, rites, or rituals that would result in his cleansing. There was only God. If He would forgive, David could be restored. If He wouldn’t, there was no hope.

And did David receive his forgiveness and cleansing? Yes. God used that odd chemical process of His to do it. He took David’s sins, which in His holy eyes were crimson, scarlet red, and covered them with sacrificial blood, which was also crimson, scarlet red. That covering turned David’s sins white as snow. While it’s true that dark red on dark red shouldn’t produce white, somehow in God’s chemistry it does. As the Bible says in Isaiah 1:18:

“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord., “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.” (N.K.J.V.)

Of course, David lived in Old Testament days, days in which God commanded the people of Israel to offer up blood sacrifices to Him (Leviticus 17:11). What we must understand, though, is that those sacrifices couldn’t truly “take away” sins (Hebrews 10:4,11). All they could do was roll those sins forward and stay the wrath of God (Hebrews 10:1-3) until Jesus (God the Son), the One whose blood could take away sins (John 1:29), would come and die on the cross as the eternal payment for all sins (Hebrews 10:12-14).

It was only by way of Christ’s death that all the Old Testament sacrifices found legitimacy. Just as we look back upon that death, Old Testament believers such as David looked ahead to it. Therefore, ultimately, it was in the crimson blood that flowed through Christ’s sacrificial body that David found his eternal cleansing.

Maybe you have done something that makes you want to cry out to God for cleansing. Maybe you have committed sins you want God to make whiter than snow. If so, you need to know that such forgiveness is available to you as well. Again, it’s found in Jesus, the One who died on a Roman cross as an Old Testament style, blood sacrifice for the sins of the entire world (1 John 2:2). There is no sin so scarlet He cannot plunge it under His blood and make it as white as snow.

However, just as there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood (Hebrews 9:22), there is no application of Christ’s blood without belief in Him. Whereas His death was sufficient for everyone’s sins, it is only efficient for those who place their belief in Him as Savior (John 3:16-18). This profound doctrinal truth is presented in 1 John 1:5-10, which says to Christians specifically:

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (N.K.J.V.)

You see, it is only the authentic believer (the Christian) who has fellowship with God, walks in spiritual light, has fellowship with other Christians, and has his or her sins cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Such people freely confess their sins and have those sins forgiven. The Greek word translated as “confess” is homologeo, which literally means “to speak the same thing.” Therefore, to honestly confess one’s sins is to say the same thing about them God says about them rather than try to defend or deny them.

The point in all this is that God’s chemistry does work as scarlet sins are turned snow white, but the agent that produces the reaction is the blood of Jesus. And that blood only gets applied to those who make the voluntary decision to believe in Jesus as Savior. Just as homologeo, the Greek word for “confess,” has a specific definition, so does pisteuo, the Greek word for “believe.” It means “to place confidence in” or “to trust.” One popular definition defines it as “to place one’s full weight down upon.”

So, tell me, have you believed in Jesus (God the Son) as your personal Savior in this way? Are you right now resting all your hopes of forgiveness (i.e. salvation) solely upon Him? Have you confessed your sins to Him, agreeing completely with His assessment of them? And have those crimson, scarlet sins of yours been made white as snow by His crimson, scarlet blood? If so, you can say like David, “I have been washed and made whiter than snow.” If not, God has no choice but to see you as unclean and dirty. No, that’s not His preference, but His perfect holiness demands nothing less and your unforgiven sins leave Him no other choice.