Leviticus 14:10-17
THE SEVEN days had run their course; now we come to the eighth day. And here we have something entirely new and different; it marked a new beginning for the poor leper. The events of the eighth day foreshadow the work of the Lord Jesus in the light of His resurrection, they tell of the Christian’s enjoyment of the blessings grace has brought us into, and of the rich gift of the Holy Spirit. The light of the New Testament shines upon these sacred pages of the Old and reveals these wondrous things.
The leper was to bring a trespass offering, a sin offering, a burnt offering, a meat offering, and a log of oil. These all speak of Christ and His work for the glory of God and for the blessing of the sinner; they speak too of how the believer is brought into the enjoyment of all by the Spirit. They tell of the conscience cleansed from dead works to serve the living and true God, and of access into His presence. For on the eighth day the man was brought not only inside the camp but to the house of God, and there presented to the Lord. What a blessed place His grace brings us into.
The lamb of the trespass offering along with the log of oil was waved before the Lord. God will ever have Christ presented to Him in the power of the Spirit, for what infinite delight He finds in His beloved Son.
The trespass offering was slain in the same place as the sin offering and burnt offering, and we are told, “it is most holy.” God would ever have us remember the awfulness of sin in His sight and of how great the cost to put it away. And yet He would have all know too, that even when the Lord Jesus hung there upon the cross, with our sin and shame upon Him, He was most holy to God.
After the slaying of the lamb the priest was to take some of the blood and put it upon “the right ear, the right hand,... and the right foot” of the cleansed leper. All the man was thus brought under the most holy blood, what he hears, what he does, and his walk as well. He bongs wholly to God in thought, work, and in his ways.
In this we are reminded, dear young Christian, that we are not our own; as it says, in 1 Cor. 6:20: “ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” The claims of God are upon everything that we do, everything that we hear, and wherever we go.
Then follows the sprinkling of the oil before the Lord. It is put in the same place where the blood had been, and is ever the type of the Holy Spirit. This prefigures the full blessing first enjoyed when the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. It is the power that brings us into the enjoyment of what Christ and His work is to God, and of our place now in Him through that same blessed Spirit.
The oil was put upon the right ear, the right thumb, and right great toe. The Spirit is the seal of the work of Christ in our souls, for God would have us know and enjoy our relation to Him. How much we owe to the blessed Spirit sent to dwell personally in us and with us, for by Him we dwell in God and He in us, forever (1 John 4).
Memory Verse: “O THAT THEY WERE WISE, THAT THEY UNDERSTOOD THIS, THAT THEY WOULD CONSIDER THEIR LATTER END.” Deut. 32:29.
ML-03/26/1972