Read 2 Kings 5. 2KI 5:1-27
THE record of Naaman's afflicted condition, of his course to and from Jordan, of his cleansing, and its results, is full of most precious instruction, when viewed in the fight which the New Testament pours upon it.
“Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valor; but he was a leper.”
Here we have the two sides of Naaman's condition. As to his circumstances, he was all that heart could desire: "great," “honourable," " mighty," " valiant:" What more could he be? He was (as men would Say) one of fortune's most highly favored sons. He was commander-in-chief of the armies of Syria; he possessed the confidence and esteem of his king; and he wore upon his brow the laurel of victory. “But he was a leper.”
This was indeed a painful drawback; a grievous blight upon all his dignities; a heavy cloud upon all his glory. Thy foul disease which infected his person not only prevented his enjoying the honors which had been heaped upon him, but actually changed them into so many sources of humiliation and chagrin. His very elevation made his malady conspicuous, and the sunshine of prosperity rendered his personal vileness more apparent. His military costume enwrapped the person of a leper, and his laurel of victory tory crowned a leper's brow. In short, the lowest menial in Naaman's establishment would not have felt the humiliation of leprosy so keenly as the noble captain himself. The higher he was in position, the more intensely he must have felt the degradation and depression of his loathsome disease. What would he not have given to any one who would but take away his leprosy? And yet he was soon to have it taken away for nothing!
When we look at all this from an evangelical point of view, we discern in the person of Naaman the case of a sinner in his natural state. He is covered with the disease of sin. Yes, outwardly he is covered, and inwardly pervaded with the incurable malady of sin. He may, like Naaman, be surrounded by wealth and splendor, pillowed on the bosom of fortune, nursed in the very lap of luxury; but he is a sinner; he is lost, he is undone; and when once he is brought to see this, his very honors and dignities only serve to make his inward wretchedness all the more intense. He is lost, and he needs salvation. He needs to have his malady removed, his guilt canceled, his conscience cleansed. And this is what God has pro, vided for him.
As in Naaman's case God had the water of Jordan to cleanse him from every trace of his disease, so in the case of the convicted sinner He has provided “the precious blood of Christ "to cleanse him from every stain of guilt, and free him from every breath of condemnation.
But let us see how strikingly all this comes out in our narrative.
“And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy.”
What a difference between this little captive maid and her noble lord! And yet she was in possession of a grand secret of which he was wholly ignorant. She knew that in the land of Israel her master could find what he needed. She understood where grace was to be found, and the knowledge of that grace filled her heart with the desire that her lord should partake thereof. "Would God," said she, "he were there.”
It is ever thus. Grad fills the heart with earnest desire for the good of others. It mattered not to the little maid that she was an exile from the land of her fathers, and a captive in the house of a Syrian. She saw that her master was a leper, and she longed to put him in the way of being healed. The God of Israel was the only One Who could perfectly meet a leper's needs.
“And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus saith the maid that is of the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, Go to, go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment.”
How hard it is for the human heart to rise to the measure of the thoughts of God! The idea of being cleansed foil nothing never entered Naaman's mind. He was, we may safely say, quite ready to give largely, if by that means his leprosy could be cleansed; but the idea of getting all he wanted " without money and without price " was entirely beyond him, and hence his cumbrous preparations. He knew not, as yet, the grace of the God of Israel. He thought that the gift of God was to be purchased with money. Here was his mistake, the mistake of millions, the mistake of the human heart, in every age and in every country.
And yet, when one looks at it closely, what an absurdity to suppose that a little gold and silver could get aught from “the. Most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth! “Yes, this is easily seen to be absurd; but it is not just as easily seen to be absurd to come before God trusting in our own works, in our morality, in our religiousness, in our amended life, our altered conduct, our changed habits, our pious performances, our tears, prayers, sighs, vows, resolutions, almsdeeds, our feelings, frames and experiences, in anything which we could produce of thought, word or deed.
But it takes a long time to convince us of the worthlessness of all our own efforts. It seems passing strange to the human heart to be told that we need no other title to Christ but our utter ruin; that we need not wait to prepare ourselves; that every step in self-improvement is a step in the wrong direction, inasmuch as self can never be mended in such a way as to make it fit for God, fit for heaven. Religious flesh is as far from God, as far from righteousness, as far from heaven, as flesh in its very grossest forms. This is a hard saying, but it is true; and moreover, it is well that its truth should be fully seen. It is of the very last importance that my reader should understand that what is needed is not self-reformation, but a new life altogether, and this life is Christ. This is the grand point.
We must get rid of all hopes and expectations from our fallen and corrupt nature, and take Christ as our all and in all. Do what you will with flesh, you can never make it fit for. God, for heaven. Flesh could not live in heaven.
It could not breathe the atmosphere of that hallowed region. The most fruitless task that ever was undertaken is to seek to effect any improvement in that which God has condemned and set aside as incorrigible and incurable.
Now it is interesting to see how our chapter opens this line of truth to our view in its own peculiar style. When Naaman stood with his pompous retinue, and with all his gold and silver, at the door of Elisha, he appears before is as a masked illustration of a sinner building upon his own efforts after righteousness. He seemed furnished with all that heart could desire; but, in reality, all his preparations were but a useless encumbrance, and the prophet soon gave him to understand this. The brief, simple, pointed message, “Go, wash," swept away all confidence in gold, silver, raiment, retinue, the king's letter, everything. It stripped Naaman of everything, and reduced him to his true condition as a poor defiled leper needing to be washed. It put no difference between the illustrious commander-in-chief of the hosts of Syria and the poorest and meanest leper in all the coasts of Israel. The former could do with nothing less; the latter needed nothing more. Wealth cannot remedy man's ruin, and poverty cannot interfere with God's remedy.
Naaman evidently felt the prophet's message to be deeply humbling. He was not prepared for such a total setting aside of all human pretension. He would have liked to be called upon to tell out his pieces of gold, his talents of silver, his changes of raiment, but to be told to "Go, wash," without the slightest allusion to any of these things, was quite too humiliating. " But Naaman was wroth, and went away, And said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lard his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.”
Thus it is ever. God's simple plan, of salvation is so thoroughly humbling to man's pride that he cannot submit to it. “They being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God." (Rom. 10) ROM 10:1-21 And yet, we may say, what right had a leper to reason, to argue, or to prescribe? Had he come to be cleansed or to dictate? Had he tried what “Abana and Pharpar" could do for him?
The fact is that Elisha wanted to teach him that he needed to bring nothing to God but his leprosy. All beside was superfluous.
This was a noble lesson. Naaman must bring back to Syria everything he had brought out of it, except his leprosy.
This is deeply humbling. It puts the legalist "in a rage." All those who think themselves wiser than God must learn their own folly sooner or later; but as for those who know and own themselves lost, they have but to put their trust in Jesus, and be as clean as His precious blood can make them. This is God's simple way of salvation. Jesus has done all. He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and He is now up in heaven as the pledge, proof, and measure of the believer's acceptance before God. All who, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and on the authority of the Holy Scriptures, put their trust in a dead and risen Christ, are as free from guilt and condemnation as He is.
Glorious, emancipating, elevating, soul-satisfying fact! May my reader enter into its power. May he prove the deep blessedness of simply taking God at His word.
This was what Naaman, after a fierce inward struggle, learned to do. He learned, after all, to give up all confidence in “Abana and Pharpar," and yield the simple" obedience of faith "to the testimony of God." And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”
This was just and simple reasoning: “If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?”
No doubt; but then this word "Go wash” was so humiliating, so self-emptying.
It left flesh nothing to glory in. “To him that worketh not, but believeth." “Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Such is God's principle, and to this principle Naaman had to submit. He went, and washed in Jordan. He obeyed the word of the Lord. And what was the result? “His flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”
The very moment a sinner submits to God's righteousness, that righteousness becomes his.
The very moment he casts himself on Christ, he is as safe as Christ can make him. The glory of God is involved in the full and eternal salvation of all those who simply look to Christ. Naaman might have plunged himself ten thousand times over in the waters of “Abana and Pharpar," and remained just as he was; but the moment he took God's way, he became as clean as God could make him. Had a single spot of leprosy appeared on Naaman's person when he came up out of Jordan, it would have been a dishonor cast upon God's remedy. For a sinner to trust God's salvation and yet not be saved would involve an eternal insult to the divine glory, and furnish an abiding ground of triumph to all the powers of darkness.
And now one word as to the practical results of all this, "as seen in Naaman's course after he came up out of Jordan. Nothing can be more interesting. “His flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came and stood before him: and he said, Behold now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant. But he said, As the Lord liveth before Whom I stand, I will receive none. And he urged him to take it; but he refused.”
What a marvelous change in Naaman, from the moment in which he turned and went away in a rage from the door of Elisha, until he found his way back to that door again, cleansed, and like a little child! He was, in type, a new creature. He stood on new ground. He was in a new condition. He had submitted to God, and he felt and manifested the precious results of so doing. Thus it is in every case. The proud, haughty, self-sufficient legalist may display all the bitter animosity of his heart against a scheme of redemption which places him on a level with the vilest of the sons of men. He may argue, reason, and rebel; but the very moment he bows his head, and consents to be saved in God's way, all is changed. The animosity and indignation of the legalist, together with the guilt and uncleanness of the sinner, are all left beneath Jordan's flood, and he comes up cleansed and pardoned, calm and humble, to devote all he is and all he has to the service of the true God.
But why, let me ask, did Elisha refuse to take a blessing from Naaman's hand? For a truly noble reason. He would have Naaman to return to Syria with this testimony that the God of Israel had taken, nothing from hint but his leprosy. He would have him to go back and declare that his gold and silver were useless in dealing with One Who gave all for nothing. Elisha would not tarnish the lustre of Divine grace by accepting a shekel of the stranger's money.
And now Naaman's heart went out after the One Who, without money and without price, had fully and perfectly met his need. "Shall there not then, I pray thee,” he says to Elisha, "be given to thy servant two mules' burden of earth? for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord.”
Thus it was with Naaman. He had left home a defiled leper; he was returning thither a cleansed worshipper.
What a change! And all done in a moment, when once he took God's way. The work was of God; and, as for Naaman, he had but to bow his head, and worship. Having left his leprosy behind him, he desired to bear away with him an altar on which he might offer sacrifices to the only true God.
C. H. M.
“We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." (Gal. 2:15, 16.) GAL 2:15-16