By Erika Schwibs
In the worldy, economic sense, the U.S. dollar has often been referred to in recent times as "the cleanest dirty shirt":
Fortune, July 2022: "Why is the dollar dominating? Because the U.S. is" the cleanest dirty shirt. "
Asia Times, September 2022: "Analyst Louis-Vincent Gave at Gavekal Research observes that 'in a dangerous world, the reason for the US dollar' s super-charged performance over the last year has been investors' view that it is the 'cleanest dirty shirt' in a smelly pile of laundry.'"
In the spiritual sense, who or what has the "cleanest dirty shirt" in the world?
The Christian church, of course.
That's the chief admission of a genuine Christian: that our "shirt" is hopelessly dirtied by our sin, with no hope to ever get it clean ourselves. We need to be provided a clean wardrobe by God Himself. Similarly, our own dirty clothing is our biggest problem and not the dirty clothes of others.
But it's only through faith in the spiritual that we can see that every human being, including ourselves, naturally has a dirty shirt. The natural man and the spiritual man are at enmity with each other. A person is blind in the spiritual realm the more that he or she denies its existence and chooses to live only through the natural, as if God doesn't exist. In a word, atheism. The shirts of other people different from himself, especially Christians, are dirty to the natural man, but his own shirt is pretty good by comparison.
The natural, God-denying man actually believes himself to have, if not a clean shirt, then "the cleanest dirty shirt." That's because "all the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes..." (Proverbs 16:2). The hardened unbeliever believes that he's supreme morally and intellectually. He believes he's achieved this exalted status himself. He hears the word, but isn't interested in being a doer of it, even in pretense or pride. So he doesn't even use the mirror God has given him to see the state of his clothing.
"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was," (James 1:22-24).
That makes for incompatibility between believers and unbelievers. "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" (Amos 3:3).
And it shouldn't be forgotten that the Laodicean Christian often isn't too far off in heart and mind from the unbeliever.
The Christian life in this world is about laundering our dirty laundry and exchanging it one day, once and for all, for the white robes earned for us by our savior.
We don't need to despair because we are credited with having the perfectly clean robes of the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ:
"And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them," (Mark 9:3).
But we can only have these robes because we recognize the eternal dirtiness of our own, our own inability to either possess a clean shirt or to launder it to cleanliness ourselves. We can't do anything for it but receive it:
"And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment. And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen," (Matthew 22:11-14).
And we must follow Christ through whatever suffering we're to endure with Him in carrying our cross:
"After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands," (Revelation 7:9).
"And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," (Revelation 7:13-14).
We cannot provide the "laundry soap" ourselves. The "soap" that gives us new life and eternal life with God is the blood of the Lamb.
Unbelievers have no solution to the problem of their dirty shirt. They don't even recognize their problem. The dirtiness is only on other people.
As Christians, we can confess the dirtiness of our natural attire, and confess that the only launderer in the universe who can take away the stains of sin is Christ. We can tell other people about Him, and point the way to Him. On Sundays, we can come together to discuss the problem of man's dirty clothing, continually own it as our own, and rejoice in the eternal clean robes provided for us by God in His Son. And that's why, even in this world, Christians who love the Lord in sincerity still have, overall, the cleanest dirty shirts.