Chapter Five
Chapter Five
The Great Physician
The beginning of health is to know the disease,” wrote the Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes, and every physician would agree with him. After all, how can you prescribe effectively if you don’t diagnose accurately?
These three chapters in Leviticus deal with bodily infirmities of one kind or another, because God was concerned about His people’s physical welfare. He cared for their needs during their wilderness march (Deut. 29:5) and, if they obeyed Him, He promised to shield them from the diseases they’d seen in Egypt (Ex. 15:26; Deut. 7:12–15). While it’s true that our greatest needs are spiritual, God still has the physical well-being of His people at heart.
The Hebrew word translated leprosy in Leviticus 14—15 includes various skin diseases and even mildew (13:47ff.; 14:33ff.). But there’s more to these chapters than simply a description of symptoms and ceremonies. In Scripture, disease is one of the images of sin (Ps. 147:3; Isa. 1:5–6; Jer. 8:2; 30:12; Mark 2:17). Thus as we study these chapters, we can learn what sin is like and how God wants us to deal with it. We must look beyond Moses to Jesus Christ, the Great Physician, who was wounded that we might be healed (Isa. 53:5). These three chapters illustrate three topics that are vitally related to the life of holiness: sin (Lev. 13), salvation (chap. 14), and sanctity (chap. 15).
1. SIN (13:1–46; 14:1–32)
Since infection made a person ceremonially unclean, God appointed the priests to act as His examiners to determine whether the victim was unclean and therefore had to be separated from the rest of the camp. The person being examined could be isolated for as long as two weeks to give the disease a chance to change for better or for worse. The symptoms might involve swelling and a rash (13:1–8); swelling, whiteness, and raw flesh (vv. 9–17); boils (vv. 18–23); burns (vv. 24–28); and various skin eruptions (vv. 29–44). Not everything that looked like leprosy actually was leprosy, and it would be cruel to isolate somebody who wasn’t actually infected.
Note also that the investigation included not only persons (vv. 1–46), but also clothing (vv. 47–59) and even houses (14:33–57). Here the priest was looking for a mildew or fungus that, if allowed to spread, could do serious damage. Once Israel was in their land, these fungi could even destroy their crops (Deut. 28:22; Amos 4:9).
Since disease is an illustration of sin in the Bible, as you read these verses, you will learn a great deal about the “symptoms” of sin.
Sin is “deeper than the skin” (13:3–4, 25, 30–32, 34). “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). The word translated “wicked” in this verse means “sick”; the NIV translates it “beyond cure.” Sin is not a surface problem that can be solved with simple remedies, like trying to cure cancer with hand lotion. Sin comes from within, from fallen human nature; unless the heart is changed, there can be no solving of the sin problem. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells” (Rom. 7:18 NKJV). Those who talk about the “innate goodness of man” know neither the Bible nor their own hearts.
In eighteenth-century England, if you were convicted for stealing, the judge could order the authorities to chop off your right hand. If you were convicted a second time, they could cut off the left hand. I recall reading about a pickpocket who lost both hands but managed to succeed in his career because he perfected picking pockets with his teeth! Even if the authorities had pulled all his teeth, it wouldn’t have solved the problem, because sin is deeper than the skin. Jesus said, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man” (Matt. 15:19–20).
In Jeremiah’s day, the false prophets were like physicians who lied to their patients and refused to give them bad news. “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace” (Jer. 6:14). The medical profession today would discipline a doctor who did that, but the practice is perfectly acceptable for humanistic counselors, liberal preachers and professors, politicians, and newspaper columnists. People still believe the “progress myth” that people are good and are making themselves and the world better and better day by day.
Sin spreads (13:5–8, 22–23, 27–28, 32, 34–36, 51, 53, 55, 57; 14:39, 44, 48). True leprosy (Hansen’s disease) affects the skin and the nerve endings; as it spreads, it produces nodules and ulcers. The tissues then contract and the limbs become deformed. What begins as one sore gradually spreads and turns the whole body into a mass of corruption and ugliness. How like sin! “Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death” (James 1:15 NKJV).
Our first parents were thieves. Their son Cain was a liar and a murderer. From that small beginning, sin spread so as to corrupt and enslave the whole human race. By the time God sent the flood, the earth was filled with wickedness, evil, violence, and corruption (Gen. 6:5, 11–13), and things haven’t become any better since then. Scientific progress has made life more comfortable, but it hasn’t made the world less corrupt. “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores” (Isa. 1:5–6 NKJV).
For over fifty years, Alexander Whyte preached God’s Word at Free St. George’s Church in Edinburgh, Scotland, and gained a reputation for exposing the sins of the human heart and bringing them under the scrutiny of the Word of God. “Surgical preaching” people called it. At one time, he had an assistant named Hugh Black who preached at the evening service and was much more liberal and optimistic in his message. The congregation said they were blackened by Whyte on Sunday mornings and whitewashed by Black on Sunday evenings!
But when the church has a superficial view of sin, this attitude affects everything the church believes and does. If men and women are basically good and not sinners under the wrath of God, then why preach the gospel? Why send out missionaries? For that matter, why did Jesus even die on the cross? If people are good, then what they need is counseling and consoling, not convicting; we should give them encouragement, not evangelism.
Sin defiles (13:44–46). The word unclean is used fifty-four times in Leviticus 13—15. It describes the ceremonial defilement that makes the victim unfit for social life or for participation in worship at the house of God. The prophet Isaiah confessed that he was “a man of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5), and then he spoke for all of us when he wrote, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (64:6). Whatever sin touches, it defiles; only the blood of Jesus Christ can wash away that defilement (1 Cor. 6:9–11; 1 John 1:7; Rev. 1:5).
When you read Psalm 51, David’s prayer of confession, you can’t help but notice how his sins defiled every part of his being: his eyes (v. 3), his mind (v. 6), his ears (v. 8), his bones (v. 8), his heart (v. 10), and his mouth (vv. 13–15). His hands were stained with Uriah’s blood (v. 14), and all he could do was throw himself on the mercy of God and cry out, “Wash me” (vv. 2, 7).
Sin isolates (v. 46). What solemn words: “He is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.” He had to tear his clothes, put a covering on his upper lip, cry “Unclean, unclean!” whenever anybody approached him, and remain outside the camp until either he died or was healed. “Free among the dead” is the way Heman described it in Psalm 88:5. God struck King Azariah (Uzziah) with leprosy, and he had to dwell in a “separate house,” literally “a free house,” which was isolated from everybody else (2 Kings 15:5 NIV). He was free—among the dead!
If you’ve done any witnessing, you’ve probably met people who seem to have no concept of the tragedy of sin and the awfulness of hell. “I don’t mind going to hell,” they say rather flippantly. “I’ll have lots of company.” But there is no company in hell, because hell is a place of eternal isolation and loneliness. Like the lepers outside the camp, lost sinners will dwell alone; they will be alone forever.
Sin is fit only for the fire (vv. 52, 55, 57). A defiled garment was to be burned in the fire; it was not to be purified but destroyed. When Jesus spoke about hell, He used the word gehenna, which referred to the garbage dump outside Jerusalem “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44; see Isa. 66:24). Hell is God’s eternal garbage dump prepared for the Devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41) and for those who follow the Devil by rejecting Jesus Christ. It’s a lake of fire (Rev. 19:20) where Satan and his associates will suffer forever along with people whose names were not found in the Book of Life because they hadn’t trusted Jesus Christ and been born again into God’s family.
The consequences of leprosy were temporal, but the consequences of sin are eternal. The Jews knew no cure for leprosy, but there is a remedy for sin—faith in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. Have you trusted Him? If you have, are you telling others the good news that they don’t have to be lepers and live forever in the fiery garbage dump of hell?
2. SALVATION (14:1–32)
I find it discouraging to read chapter 13, with its emphasis on uncleanness and isolation. But chapter 14 brings us that happy ray of hope that we need: A leper can be cleansed and restored! We need the bad news of judgment before we can appreciate the good news of salvation.
The Jews had no cure for leprosy. Thus, if the victim became well, it was a gift of God’s mercy and grace. “And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet,” said Jesus, “and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:27). “Salvation is of the LORD” (Jonah 2:9). If we aren’t saved by God’s grace, then we aren’t saved at all, for nobody deserves to be saved.
The steps in the leper’s cleansing and restoration picture to us what Jesus Christ has done for sinners.
The priest goes to the leper (vv. 1–3). Since the unclean leper wasn’t permitted to enter the camp, the priest had to go outside the camp to minister to him or her. “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). When He ministered here on earth, Jesus was called “a friend of publicans and sinners” (Luke 7:34); He compared Himself to a doctor helping his needy patients (Matt. 9:10–13). As God’s Great Physician, Jesus makes “house calls” and comes to sinners right where they are. In the case of the Jewish leper, the priest went out to investigate and determine if indeed the victim was healed, but Jesus comes to us that He might heal us of the sickness of sin.
The victim offers the two birds (vv. 4–7). This unusual ritual pictures to us what Christ did to save a lost world. Birds don’t belong in clay jars; they belong in the heavens. Jesus came down from heaven and became a man (John 3:13, 31; 6:38, 42). As it were, He put Himself into a clay jar so that He might die for our sins. The running water over which the bird was killed reminds us of the Holy Spirit of God (John 7:37–39), for Jesus offered Himself to God “through the eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14). When the blood-stained living bird was turned loose, it pictured our Lord’s resurrection, for the resurrection of Christ is as much a part of the gospel message as is His death (1 Cor. 15:1–4). Only a living Savior can save dead sinners.
The blood of the bird that was sacrificed was in the jar and on the living bird, but it also had to be applied to the healed leper. Using the hyssop (Ex. 12:22; Ps. 51:7), the priest sprinkled the blood on the leper seven times and then pronounced the leper clean. “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:22). How did the victim know he was clean? The priest told him so! How do believers today know that God has saved us? He tells us so in His Word! No matter how the leper felt or what he looked like, God said he was clean, and that settled it.
The person cleanses himself (vv. 8–9). On the day of his cleansing, he had to wash himself and his garments and shave off all his hair. He was then permitted to enter the camp, but he wasn’t allowed to enter his tent. He had to stay outside for another week.
Why wash when the priest had already pronounced him clean? Because he had to apply personally what God said was true positionally. The man was ceremonially clean and had the right to live in the camp, but he needed to be made personally and practically clean so he would be fit to live in the camp. “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean” (Isa. 1:16 NKJV). “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1). Perhaps Paul had Leviticus 14 in mind when he compared the new life in Christ to a change of clothes (Col. 3:1–14).
The person cleanses himself again (v. 9). This takes place a week later. The man had to wash, shave his body again, and put on clean clothes. The dual shaving left his skin like that of a baby, perhaps symbolizing a new birth. The shaving and washing didn’t kill the germs of leprosy—God had done that—but they symbolized the newness of life that had come to the former leper.
The person offered the required sacrifices (vv. 10–32). It’s now the eighth day since the priest first visited the leper, and eight is the number of the new beginning. The cleansed leper must bring to the door of the tabernacle a male lamb for a trespass (guilt) offering, a male lamb for a burnt offering, a ewe lamb for a sin offering, as well as fine flour and oil for a meal offering.
On the basis of these sacrifices, the priest had pronounced the man clean (Lev. 14:7), because these sacrifices picture the person and work of Jesus Christ. The sin offering shows Christ atoning for a person’s sin. The trespass offering reminds us that Christ paid the debt we owed to God because, like the leper, we were unable to serve Him during our days of uncleanness. In the burnt offering, the man dedicated himself completely to God, and the meal offering displayed the perfections of Christ accepted for the imperfections of the worshipper.
The unique thing about this ceremony is that the priest treated the cleansed leper like a fellow priest! He put the blood of the trespass offering on the man’s right ear, right thumb, and right big toe. He sprinkled oil on the man seven times and then put the oil on the blood that was already on his ear, thumb, and toe. After that, he poured the oil on the man’s head. This is similar to the ceremony Moses used when he ordained Aaron and his sons (chap. 8). What grace that God should treat a former leper like a priest! Six times in this section the Lord declares that the priest “made atonement” for the man (14:18–21, 29–31), which means that his sins were forgiven.
Since the leper had been an outcast, unable to work and earn money, perhaps he wasn’t able to bring all three animals for sacrifices. Thus God permitted the poorer man to bring birds for the sin offering and the burnt offering (vv. 21–23, 30–31). In addition, the Lord didn’t require any restitution along with the trespass offering. God makes it as easy as possible for sinners to be forgiven and restored. But sinners act as if salvation is so difficult that they can’t possibly respond to God’s call.
3. SANCTITY (15:1–33)
The key word in this chapter is issue, used twenty-four times. It simply means a flow of liquid, whether water in nature or a fluid discharged from the human body. The human discharge may be natural (vv. 16–18, 25–30) or unnatural (vv. 1–15, 19–24), but it’s still considered unclean and must be dealt with according to the law of God. Personal hygiene and God’s concern for women are certainly involved in these regulations, but the main thrust seems to be that of enforcing personal sanctity. Not everybody is a leper, but all of us have occasional “discharges” that defile us and could defile others.
Unnatural male discharges (vv. 1–15). These could be anything from diarrhea to discharges caused by a venereal disease such as gonorrhea. Anything the afflicted man touched or spat upon was unclean. In fact, those defiled by touching him had to wash themselves and their clothes, and they remained unclean until evening. Clay vessels that he touched were to be broken and wooden vessels washed. The possibility of infection was taken very seriously.
By the goodness of the Lord, the man with a discharge could get well; when that happened, he had to wait a week and, like the cleansed leper, wash himself and his clothes. On the eighth day, he brought a sin offering and a burnt offering, but he wasn’t required to bring expensive sacrifices, since a bodily discharge wasn’t as serious as leprosy. After that, the man was free to worship the Lord and live a normal life in the camp.
In recent years, we’ve heard a good deal about “toxic people” and even “toxic churches.” Stephen Arteburn and Jack Felton have written a book called Toxic Faith that describes “cultic” churches and the religious addiction they quietly spread among unsuspecting people. The image is a biblical one, for Jesus warned about people like the Pharisees who pretended to be holy but were really transmitting defilement to the people who followed them (Matt. 23:25–28). In fact, Paul wrote about people in his own day whose religion was “toxic.” “Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene” (2 Tim. 2:16–17 NIV).
Natural male discharges (vv. 16–18). This paragraph doesn’t even suggest that sexual intercourse within marriage is impure or defiling. As the traditional marriage ceremony puts it, “God established marriage for the blessing and benefit of mankind.” Within the holy and loving bonds of marriage, the husband doesn’t defile his wife nor the wife her husband. “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Heb. 13:4 NIV).
Moses is dealing here with ceremonial uncleanness, not moral uncleanness. Since intercourse involves bodily fluids, and bodily fluids made a person unclean, the husband and wife had to take pains to wash themselves and maintain ceremonial purity. Perhaps the Lord is telling us that, even in a beautiful experience like married love, there is opportunity for our sinful nature to go to work and defile it. The Jewish couple had to consider God as well as their own desires, and this helped sanctify their relationship. No sacrifices were required for their cleansing, only washing in water. Thus there was no sin that needed to be atoned for.
Natural female discharges (vv. 19–24). Once again, God wasn’t condemning or punishing the woman for experiencing her normal monthly period, because He made her that way so she could bear children. This regulation declares only that the woman’s discharge made her unclean and therefore she could make others unclean. Rachel used this ploy when she deceived her father about his household gods (Gen. 31:26–35).
During the time of her period and for a week afterward, a woman was unclean and had to be careful where she sat and slept and what she touched. But this confinement was a blessing in disguise since it allowed her to enjoy rest and quiet when she needed it most. If her husband was too aggressive sexually, this law kept him from taking advantage of her at a time when intercourse wouldn’t be especially pleasant to her. If he forced himself on her, both he and the marriage bed would be unclean for a week, and this would separate him from everybody in the family and the camp! It wasn’t worth it.
Certainly God created sex for pleasure as well as for procreation, but pleasure that isn’t disciplined soon becomes bondage and then torture. Unmarried people must exercise self-control lest they commit fornication and invite the judgment of God (Heb. 13:4), but married people also need self-control lest they take advantage of one another and leave God out of their most intimate relationship. God created sex, and wise is the person who permits the Creator to make the rules.
Unnatural female discharges (vv. 25–33). A prolonged hemorrhage would be both physically painful and religiously disastrous, for the woman would be perpetually unclean. The unknown woman who came to Jesus for help had suffered with this affliction for twelve years (Mark 5:25–34; Luke 8:43–48). Strictly speaking, everybody she touched in that big crowd was defiled by her whether they knew it or not; when she touched our Lord’s garment, He was also defiled. How gracious of Him to heal her and give back to her the normal life she longed for! The ritual for her cleansing reminds us of the ritual for the restoration of a mother after the birth of a baby (Lev. 12:6–7).
These regulations for personal sanctity weren’t just pious suggestions from the religious leaders of the nation. They were holy commandments from the Lord, and it was a serious thing to disobey them (15:31–33). For an unclean person to go to the tabernacle would be to defile the tabernacle and invite judgment (v. 31). God warned the Israelites that a violation of the law given in Leviticus 15:24 would cause the couple to be “cut off from among their people” (20:18). Whether “cut off” meant death (it’s used that way in Gen. 9:11) or excommunication, commentators don’t agree, but whatever the penalty was, it was serious.
God’s people today don’t live under the threat of such judgments, although “there is a sin unto death” (1 John 5:16; see 1 Cor. 11:30). But there should be no area in our lives from which God is excluded, and every relationship should be under His control.
His words to us are still, “Be holy, for I am holy!”
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL REFLECTION OR GROUP DISCUSSION
1. How would you express God’s attitude toward our bodies and our health problems?
2. Disease and sin were closely linked in the Old Testament. What links exist between disease and sin today?
3. In what sense is Jesus your own personal physician? (See Isa. 53:5.)
4. How can Christians determine their own spiritual health?
5. When you have been victorious in a battle with a sin-symptom, what led to that victory? What practical warnings against sin would you give others?
6. Why is it that “unless the heart is changed, there can be no solving of the sin problem”?
7. What is your reaction to the idea of “surgical preaching” as Wiersbe explains it?
8. What happens to “good news” messages when they leave out the “bad news” of sin defiling all it touches?
9. What is the biblical view of the reason people do wrong? How does this view compare with the reasons people usually give?
10. When you think of your own experience of salvation, what is the significance of the priest pronouncing the victim clean—and then requiring washings?