Q.—Lev. 13 What is the true explanation of the leper here? J.J.
A.—Surely it typifies a sinner cleansed from impurity otherwise fatal, rather than a saint overtaken by the way. It is ruinous evil in a man's condition beyond means or hope, and not merely the fallen state of a male or female child, as in Lev. 12 which it also seemed good to divine wisdom to impress on Israel. Nothing short of the work of Christ in type could avail for either. But it appears quite illegitimate to tone down a defilement so deadly as leprosy to anything but the effect of sin in all its malignity. Here it is not its healing but its cleansing when healed by the adequate and unnamed power of God. To meet its terrible result we have first the figure of Christ's death and resurrection applied to pronounce him clean and the man subsequently washing his clothes, shaving all his hair, and washing his person. Nor does this effect all; for Jehovah would have him, after a careful purifying on the seventh day, to appropriate on the eighth the value of Christ in all the fullness of His sacrifice, as the trespass-offering, sin-offering, burnt-offering and meal-offering. As the priest applied of the blood of the trespass-offering to the right ear, right thumb, and great toe of the right foot, so of the log of oil to the same emblematic parts of the body; that his hearing, his service, and his walk must be manifestly thus brought under the power of redemption and of the Holy Spirit. So minute and complete is the analysis of the virtue of Christ's work, so varied and comprehensive the exigencies for the sinner's perfect cleansing before God; who would have us know the ungrudging provision of His grace. The true figure under the law for restoring one passingly defiled is the very different sprinkling the unclean with the red heifer's ashes in the water of separation (Num. 19).