THERE is a very simple lesson to be learned from this interesting portion of the Old Testament, namely, there was a way by which a leper could be cleansed; it was God’s way, and there was no way but God’s way, so that the leper who did not take God’s way did not get the cleansing. Applying this to the New Testament times, there is a way now by which the sinner can be cleansed from his sins, and only one way, God’s way; and the soul who does not take God’s way cannot know this cleansing.
The leper is the very type of the sinner, for leprosy was what put a man outside of God’s presence in Israel, and it is sin that puts and keeps a man out of the presence of God now.
You will notice in Leviticus, it is the priest, not the leper, who judges the man’s case. And who is the priest a type of? Christ. The priest judges the case, he pronounces the man a leper, and Christ pronounces you a lost sinner, unless you are one who is born of God, who has tasted the Lord’s grace, who knows that he is forgiven.
The priest pronounces the man unclean, and his clothes were to be rent, and his head uncovered, i.e., the thing was to be made patent; there was no covering up, no hypocrisy, and he was to cry “unclean,” that is, there was to be self-judgment; he owned himself defiled, unfit for man’s presence, and unfit for God’s. He was to dwell alone, without the camp. Can you think of anything so pitiable? defiled, undone, cast out, alone, and covered with disease.
The Lord makes the man take his place outside. He makes the line of demarcation very strong. There is no mingling of the clean with the unclean. And this is true now. Are you saved, my reader? Are you washed? Are you born of God? If not, God sees you lost.
May you wake up to recognize your true state, and then you will feel your need of a Saviour.
May He make you take your place as an unclean sinner before the Lord; when you take that place, the day of your cleansing draws nigh. In the cleansing of the leper (Lev. 14), we have an unfolding of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 4, “Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed, two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop.”
Why two birds? Because one bird would not do, for one must die. Man’s guilt can only be met by death; but then there is the glorious truth, not of death only, but of resurrection; not merely of a dead, but a risen and a living Saviour. The bird flying away with the blood of the slain bird upon it is, I doubt not, a type of Christ in resurrection bearing on His person the marks of His passion.
Mark, the birds were to be clean. Jesus was the absolutely spotless man, on whom death had no claim, the one who was not under the sentence of death, giving Himself up to meet the claim of death, for those who were under its sentence, and whom death could claim.
The cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop, take in the whole range of man in nature. The cedar, with its height and beauty, is the significant symbol of what is lofty, and grand, and beautiful in nature. It is sweet smelling too, a fragrant wood.
Scarlet is earthly glory, symbolizes man’s glory, and particularly Jewish, kingly, or earthly glory, what man delights in, whatever is imposing in nature, whatever is bright and glorious. But what is the hyssop? We read in Scripture, “Solomon spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that groweth out of the wall;” that is, the cedar is at the one end, and the hyssop is at the other. The hyssop is the mean, contemptible thing. And is there not what is great, and noble, and sublime in man—man in nature even? There is! And is there not what is bright, and daring, and brilliant, and attractive? Surely. And is there not also what is base and mean, and contemptible, filthy, and ignoble? We must admit this too. And what about all three; the grand, the bright, the base. All must go down, down into death. The cross of Christ puts an end to man; man in his loftiness, and man in his baseness alike come to an end there.
The bird that was killed was to be killed in an earthen vessel over running water, or “living water.” I have no doubt the earthen vessel gives us the figure of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ which brought Him down in human form, and the running, or “living water” is the energy of the Holy Ghost, in virtue of which Christ without spot offered Himself to God.
I have, then, in the birds, the earthen vessel, and the living water, that marvelous display of divine grace, Christ becoming a man and going down into death for us. And oh! my reader, have you ever thought of what it was for Christ to suffer? He must needs suffer. Why? Because there is no way of life for a sinner, except through the suffering and death of the Saviour; no redemption, except by the blood of the Redeemer. The blood of Jesus meets all the claims of God in righteousness, and meets, too, all the needs of the sinner’s conscience.
The living bird, the cedar wood, the scarlet, and the hyssop, are dipped in the blood of the slain bird, go down into death, and the next thing I find is the leper sprinkled.
What went down? The bird, the cedar wood, the scarlet, and the hyssop. What came up? The bird. Who died on the cross? Jesus What did He bear on the cross? Sins! Whose? Mine. I look back at that atoning cross, and see the Saviour bearing my sins, dying for me. I died then with Christ. I see the cedar, the scarlet, and the hyssop, all there on His cross. He died in my place. Death could not claim Christ. He died for one e whom it could claim. Death could claim us, because of sin. “The wages of sin is death.”
Death now, then, has no further claim over me, for the believer died with Christ. Substitution has been effected; and in the death of the substitute, the sinner ceases to exist before God.
All that belonged to me by nature went down into death when Christ died. Who came up? Only Christ, a risen Christ.
If God could see a believer’s sins now, where must He see them? On Christ, for He “himself bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” Does He bear them on the throne of God today? Nay, nay, there is no sin in glory, and Christ, who bare my sins, is there, therefore my sins must be gone.
Had you seen that living bird flying away, you would have seen the marks of blood upon it; and if we look into the glory, what do we see? “A Lamb as it had been slain.” You will see in endless glory, by-and-by, the marks of the Saviour’s suffering for you, for me. The hand that was pierced, and the side from which flowed that precious blood which has cleansed my every sin. And can I have a doubt? No! never, never. Has not Christ died for sin? Is He not in the glory without sin? Then what have you to do? Only to come to Him and trust Him.
Do you believe Jesus can save you? “Yes,” you say. Then, perhaps, you are like the poor leper in Mark 1. You doubt his willingness. Jesus touched that poor defiled man.
It was the finger of God that was on him, and it is the finger of God that touches the sinner’s guilty conscience, and His own voice says, “I will, be thou clean.”
Jesus spake, and that man was clean; and if you draw near to Him, hear His word, trust Him simply, what is the consequence?
You go away cleansed. He delights to make clean the one who simply trusts Him.
How did the leper in Israel know he was clean? The priest told him so. How did the man in Mark 1 know he was clean? Jesus told him so. We are not to know we are clean from our experiences, but from the Word of the Living God.
When the leper was cleansed in Israel, the priest took of the blood, and put it on the right ear, the right thumb, and the right toe of the cleansed, and on that blood he put the oil (Lev. 14:14, 1714And the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot: (Leviticus 14:14)
17And of the rest of the oil that is in his hand shall the priest put upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot, upon the blood of the trespass offering: (Leviticus 14:17)).
The oil is the figure of the Holy Ghost. It was placed upon the blood. You must have the blood first. There must be a coming to Christ, confidence in Him, before there is the seal of the Holy Ghost.
When a man is clean the Lord does look for that which that blood typified, that is, separation to God, consecration. That ear, that hand, those feet, belong to Christ. The believer belongs to Christ out and out. There is to be entire consecration.
The man is first set apart by blood, then by the Holy Ghost, which is power, then the oil is poured on his head (Lev. 14:1818And the remnant of the oil that is in the priest's hand he shall pour upon the head of him that is to be cleansed: and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord. (Leviticus 14:18)) in blessing. The sinner is cleansed by Christ’s blood, anointed with His Spirit, and now his whole life is just to be one of consecration to Him, one constant desire to walk so as to please the Lord.
W. T. P. W.