...Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word... (Eph. 5:25-26)
I prefer the non-Reformed version...
ph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
We are cleansed by the word, not the spigot...It's not the washing with water, it's the washing of water, BY THE WORD...It is being compared to the washing of water...It's the type of washing...The washing of water...
Similar to this following verse:
Tit 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
We do not grab a washcloth, run it under some regeneration and wipe down with it...And we do not run it under water and wipe down with it...
It's a spiritual operation in both cases...A spiritual cleansing, without water...
And how do I know that??? By comparing scripture with scripture...
Is it the outer man/flesh that is cleansed??? No,it is the 'new' man inside of us that is clean...There's plenty of scripture to back that up...
The man who was healed of his blindness was cleansed by Jesus' word, not the mud/spittle. BY THE LIVING WORD.
(Yet I still don't see treatises, threads, & posts by people yelling at Jesus for choosing to use a common element like mud/spittle to accomplish that, do I?)