| “And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean” (Leviticus 13:45). |
| “Command the children of Israel, that they put out of the camp every leper” (Numbers 5:2). |
| We find the disease of leprosy mentioned quite often in the Word of God, in both the Old and the New Testaments. We know that the Lord Jesus cured people of their leprosy, and they were very grateful, for there was no cure for it in those days. In many countries today we do not see leprosy very often, but in a few countries of the world it is still quite common. |
| As we see in our verses today, a leper in the land of Israel had to stay outside the area where other people lived, and had to warn everyone who came near him that he was unclean. Leprosy in the Bible is a picture of sin. It is a very good picture of how sin works in us, for leprosy acts by taking away the sensation of pain in many parts of the body. Then, when you do not feel the pain of burning your finger, or pinching it between two hard objects, you injure yourself without even knowing it. Gradually parts of your body are damaged severely, and you lose the ends of your fingers, or your toes, and even parts of your face. If you have leprosy over a long period of time, you die from it, unless you are able to get treatment for it. |
| Sin in us is like that too. Before we were saved, we often sinned and did not even realize, in some cases, that we were doing anything wrong. We became so used to sin that we did not feel it anymore. Then, by the time we realized what was happening, perhaps we were doing some rather serious things. That is how sin works in us. |
| But just as the Lord Jesus cured leprosy, so He is able to “cure us” from sin. He wants to wash away our sins and give us a new life in Him. This does not mean that we never sin again, for even after we are saved, we still have the old sinful nature. But the Lord gives us power to keep that old nature from acting, if we look to Him. |
