Read to Read …Again
Daily Reading: Leviticus 14-15
Leviticus 14:2
This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest:
Notice, the leper was cleansed before he was brought to the priest. No priest on earth can cleanse a leper. Leprosy was a stinking, painful, embarrassing, and life-threatening disease. It was dreaded. In the Bible leprosy is a picture of sin. Both are in the flesh, both cause separation (the leper from clean society, the sinner from God), both deform and destroy, both are incurable by man, and both can only be cured by God Almighty. The Bible has much to say about leprosy, but all that is written about this horrible condition pales in comparison with all that the Bible communicates about sin.
Sin is the number one problem of the day, as it has been since the day Adam and Eve first sinned. Sin brings nothing good to humanity. Only depravity and ultimately death are the two calling cards of sin. By reading this section of Leviticus one may grow weary or impatient with the tedious teachings concerning the leper and leprosy. Fight this impulse, for in the wearisome and at times uninteresting discussion of this topic in Leviticus there are practical lessons to learn.
Lessons like: the priest did not heal the leper or the leprosy. Only God can do that. The same is true with sin. There is no cure apart from God’s cure which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In that Gospel there is cleansing from all sin made available for all people.
Lessons like: the religious ritual that the priest was to carry out upon the cleansing of leprosy. One bird was to be sacrificed and its blood was to be sprinkled on a living bird. The living bird was to be released to fly free. The sacrificial bird represents Jesus Christ, the living bird represents those who have been cleansed and are now free, or Jesus Christ’s resurrection and His act of transporting His blood to the throne room of Heaven offering it as the eternal sacrifice. Both are equally supportable with Scripture.
Lessons like: when the leper has been cleansed by God’s merciful hand, they are to be received back into the congregation. The separation has ended. This is that great act of restoration which should be the last step in any church discipline issue. As God has restored sinners, let those restored sinners restore others in their repentance from sin.
The list goes on and on. Suffice it to say, leprosy is nothing to play with. Neither is sin.
William T. Howe Ph.D.
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