AFTER the trespass offering came the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the meat offering. Then the man was fully cleansed, and once more could enter his tent, from which, as from the camp, he had been banished for the time. How manifestly all was of grace, but how fully did divine grace provide all that was requisite. Jehovah healed when the case was otherwise hopeless! Jehovah prescribed under the law the requisite sacrifices; whilst in the Gospel we learn that He provided the true sacrifice; His own well-beloved Son. His Son's death we needed for our salvation. The efficacy of His precious blood, then shed is equally needed for our restoration: no salvation, no restoration, apart from that atoning death. Nothing more, however, is wanted than His death, resurrection, and precious blood, as seen and owned by God, for all these sacrifices spoke of One, the Lord Jesus Christ. All having been duly offered up, the leper at length fully cleansed could enjoy afresh every privilege of God's people, as much as if he had never been deprived of them. And surely it must have been with a chastened spirit and an overflowing heart that he found himself again in his tent in the camp, all trace, probably, of his leprosy removed from his person; for this could be the case, since (Naaman's, flesh came again as the flesh of a little child (2 Kings 5:14).
Witnessing, however, as the law did to God's grace, it could not furnish the man with the means to get the requisite sacrifices. Those he had to procure, as best he could, by the eighth day, for without them he could not get back into his tent. The Lord, therefore, made provision for those who could not procure all that had been prescribed (14:21-31). The offerings appointed for the first day, had to be brought for every healed leper alike. The offerings appointed for the eighth day were modified as, to their pecuniary value by this special provision to meet the necessity of the case.
Each one had to bring a lamb for the trespass offering and a log of oil, but the meat offering was reduced to one-tenth of an ephah; and for the sin offering and burnt offering birds could be substituted in the place of the animals. Thus God met the person according to his ability, though he could not dispense with one even of the offerings; for nothing less than the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ can enable God righteously to restore a soul to communion with Himself, and reinstate the person in his place in the company of God's saints. All the offerings, then, called for from the richest Israelite, had still to be brought by the poorest. A trespass offering, a sin offering, a burnt offering, a meat offering, each had to bring; but the man's pecuniary inability to bring the more costly ones was not to stand in the way of his coming with such as he was able to get. And all this took place on the eighth day, the commencement of a new period of time, from which the one cleansed was to be really for God upon earth. That eighth day betokened from whence that life of consecration to God was to start afresh, but it spoke nothing of its ending. Such was not contemplated in the type, nor is it limited by anything short of the duration of life on earth in the doctrine and teaching of the New Testament.
We come now to a third revelation, given as the first was to both Moses and Aaron (14:33-57), and which treats of leprosy in a house in the land. Leprosy in a man, or in a garment could be known in the wilderness, that in the house could only be experienced in the land, and it was a direct infliction by the hand of God. " And I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession." The priest made acquainted with the occupant's suspicion about the house, for it was the duty of one in it to acquaint him with his fears respecting it; he was to order them to empty it, ere he entered therein, that all in the house should not be made unclean. Examining the walls, he judged if the marks were in sight lower than the wall, i.e., not mere superficial marks. If they were, he shut up the house for seven days, for it was the plague which had attacked it. Examining it again at the expiration of that time, if the marks had spread, the plague-stricken stones were to be taken out, the whole house scraped, new stones put in the place of the diseased ones, and the whole re-plastered, whilst the stones removed, and the scraping of the walls were all to be cast into an unclean place without the city. If the plague reappeared after that, there was nothing for it but the demolition of the whole building, and its stones, timber, and mortar, to be carried forth to an unclean place outside the city. Such a house was not to be suffered to remain in the land. What care was to be exercised, and what patience! The plague really there, as evidenced on the first inspection, the priest waited to see whether or not it would spread. If it did, he tried to save the house by the removal of the diseased stones. If, however, the leprosy still worked, unsparing was the treatment to be pursued. But should the removal of some stones be sufficient to eradicate the plague, the priest offered for the cleansing of the house the same offerings as were enjoined for the leper on the first day of his cleansing. Atonement thus made for it, the house was clean, because the plague was healed. These offerings, however, were to be offered only in the case of the plague having ceased to spread, after the stones had been taken out (14:48), and the house replastered. So it would appear that when the second examination of the house (i.e. that on the seventh day), showed that the plague had not spread since the priest had first seen it, no sacrifices were required. The house then was in a condition analogous to that of the man in whom the leprosy had all turned white (13:11). It was clean. Such was the law. To us this affords instruction in type, about an assembly in which evil has got a footing that requires to be dealt with. For the whole subject of leprosy in these two chapters provides us with principles applicable to the circumstances in which a Christian can be found. Is he himself leprous, the disease still at work in him? Then putting away from the fellowship of the saints is the proper Scriptural way of dealing with him, and the assembly, certified of his state, is responsible to act as the word directs. Are his surroundings such as God's word forbids? He must get out of them at all cost to himself. Is any local assembly known to harbor evil, and which ought to be put out? The state of that assembly should be the common concern of all saints. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump " (1 Cor. 5:6). If it purges itself, so that the evil ceases to work, well and good. But should the disease still work, the authors of it, and those infected, by it, must be put away. If that does not arrest the spread of the plague, the assembly must be broken up, i.e., disowned as an assembly of God.
Do any ask for an example in Scripture of the assembly in general disowning any local assembly? We must answer at once that there is none, though we can point to Corinth as affording instruction about the whole case.
Evil, leaven was among them. The Apostle wrote to them about it. They dealt with it, and thus got clear of it (2 Cor. 7:11). The visit of Titus, and his report about them, evidenced that to the Apostle. So he proceeded no further. But was Paul unconcerned about it? No. Did he take the ground, that none could urge a local assembly to act? No. And we may be quite sure that the one who could write as he did in 1 Cor. 5:2, 7, 13, would not have tolerated the retention among them of the evil about which he wrote. " A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump," he writes, a very plain intimation of the character they would have borne if the evil had not been purged out; and if he insisted on their dealing with the offender, would he, could he, have held intercourse with them as an assembly of God, supposing they had refused to act? His language evidences in what light he would have viewed them.
The Corinthians dealt with the offender, as the priest did with the leper. But they did not do it, till Paul, who was not locally connected with them (his language proves that, 1 Cor. 5:7, 13), pressed on them the need of action, and pointed out what should be done; and waited, and how anxiously, to learn what they would do. In this he acted somewhat like the priest, who inspected the house, and then waited a week to see if the disease was still working. As an Apostle, he personally could do all this, and take such ground with them about the evil in question, for he was an Apostle of Christ, and apostolic power was no light thing (2 Cor. 10:1-11;13:2-10; 1 Cor. 4:21; 1 Tim. 1:20; John 3:10).
(To be continued.)