καθαρίζω

The first healing narrative in Matthew's miracle cycle uses καθαρίζω for the result. Jesus touches the leper — a transgression of Levitical protocol (Lev 13:46) — and the defilement flows in the opposite direction from what the law expected: not from leper to Jesus but from Jesus outward. 'Immediately his leprosy was cleansed' names both the physical result (skin healed) and the ritual result (he is now καθαρός, clean).

The touch is the theological argument: Jesus does not avoid defilement by proximity to the unclean; he removes it. The same logic governs every NT encounter where Jesus touches what Levitical law called unclean.

Peter's Joppa vision uses καθαρίζω for the theological verdict on Gentile inclusion. The unclean animals in the sheet represent the Gentiles — what Jewish law classified as ritually impure. God's declaration 'what I have cleansed, do not call common' is the application of καθαρίζω to the inclusion of the nations. The καθαρίζω is not a moral judgment (the Gentiles have earned cleanliness) but a divine declaration: God has καθαρίζω-d them, which means they are to be treated as κaθαρός.

The Cornelius narrative that follows is the outworking of this vision: the Spirit falls on the uncircumcised (Acts 10:44-48), demonstrating that God had already καθαρίζω-d them before any human ritual.

Hebrews' argument about the superiority of Christ's sacrifice uses καθαρίζω for what the blood of Christ does that the Levitical sacrifices could not: it cleanses the conscience. The Levitical system purified the outer person — skin conditions, ritual contaminations — but the conscience was not in its scope. Hebrews argues that the blood of Christ addresses the inner person: the conscience that accuses, the guilt that clings, the 'dead works' (the attempts to establish right standing with God through human effort) are removed by the καθαρίζω of the blood that was offered through the eternal Spirit.

John's promise uses καθαρίζω alongside forgiveness as two distinct but related acts. Forgiveness addresses the relational guilt — the debt is cancelled. Cleansing addresses the contamination — the stain is removed. The 'all unrighteousness' (πάσης ἀδικίας) scope is the Johannine equivalent of 1 John 1:7's 'all sin': there is no moral contamination that exceeds the reach of καθαρίζω.

The condition (confession) does not earn the cleansing — it is the act of honesty that puts the person in the place where God's faithful and righteous character can do what it does: forgive and cleanse.