In Yahwism, as in Judaism, the concepts of purity and impurity were key in religious life. At first glance it may appear that these are purely ritual restrictions, partly borrowed from the pagan world. But that is not quite so...
In Yahwism, as in Judaism, the concepts of purity and impurity were key in religious life. At first glance it may appear that these are purely ritual restrictions, partly borrowed from the pagan world. But that is not quite so. The concepts of purity and impurity were connected with those ideas about life and the human being that belonged to pre-exilic Yahwism and then became common in Judaism as well. The Bible describes the human being as a twofold unity, a spiritual-natural creature. God 'breathes' into the human being's 'nostrils' - so it says in the Hebrew text - the breath of life that makes him human. And human life itself is a stream that includes both spiritual and natural components. God's breath of life touches nature in the human being, penetrating it and changing its quality. This stream of life is called by the Hebrew word usually translated into Russian as 'soul.'
Naturally, the intensity and quality of this life stream can vary. In the world and in human life there is something that clogs its channel and slows its flow - this is what biblical language calls impurity or defilement. First of all, of course, a person is defiled by the consequences of committed sin. But in pre-Christian times there were also other things in the world that could defile a person and lead to the shallowing and exhaustion of the stream of his life. Everything connected with death, decay, entropy - all such things diminished the measure of a person's fullness of life and lowered its quality. And in such a state, meeting God became problematic for a person, or even impossible: for in order to meet Him and experience the reality of His presence in the place He Himself had chosen, one already had to possess a certain minimum fullness and intensity of one's own existence. In Sheol, in the realm of the dead, God is not praised because His presence does not reveal itself there: the existence led there by the dead is existence at a minimum, when the stream of life has almost completely dried up. Before the coming of Christ, all this had to be taken into account.
But with Christ the Kingdom entered the world with all its fullness of life, previously unseen and unknown. Now everyone who lives this life no longer needs to fear that some processes in the untransformed world will prevent him from living the whole fullness of the life of the Kingdom. Now only his own sin can hinder a person. And, of course, fear of impurity: for fear often creates its own object. Whoever still fears the impurity of the fallen world will certainly encounter its effect upon himself. But the rest, those who have chosen Christ and the Kingdom, need not worry about this: for the breath of the Kingdom is stronger than any destructive forces of this world.
