《Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary – Leviticus(Vol. 2)》(Various Authors)
14 Chapter 14
Verses 1-57
Leprosy Cleansed
SUGGESTIVE READINGS
Lev .—In the day of his cleansing. Remedy and respite came to the pitiable leper. Although his case seemed forlorn and dismal—unclean, and an outcast—yet the hope was left to him that the plague might be healed, and he be again restored to society and the sanctuary. The darkest lot of human life is illumined by hope; faint may be its ray, yet it breaks the dreariest gloom. Weary indeed were "all the days wherein the plague was in him" (Lev 13:46), but after long waiting there might come in due season "the day of his cleansing." Yes, the possibilities of better things cheer us in every adverse case; the promises of God alleviate the desolation of all who wait for Him, even as the outlook for "the accepted time and the day of salvation" cheers the languishing soul in its conscious misery and sin. To every plague-bound soul this solace remains—"the day of his cleansing" may perchance come.
Lev .—The priest shall go forth out of the camp. No restoration from banishment to God, no removal of the bane of uncleanness, except through priestly mediation. Between the soul and salvation comes the priest. And the whole work of reinstating the outcast in his lost privileges begins in this act of the priest going forth to the place of the leper's banishment. The coming forth of Christ Jesus to us, to where we were in our banishment, that was the initial incident in our restoration to God. No one but the priest could come nigh a leper without contracting defilement; no one but the sacred person of our divine Priest could approach us "in our sins" and both Himself remain "holy, harmless, undefiled," and also bring the unclean life back to purity and privilege.
Lev .—Two birds, cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop. Symbols of ceremonial and sacrificial cleansing. The one bird was killed, the other set at liberty. The one bird dead, symbolising that the leprous life of the victim was now also dead; the other bird free, symbolising that henceforth a new life of liberty was set before the restored leper. Or the evangelical symbolism may suggest to us in the slain bird the death, and in the soaring bird the resurrection of Christ—two aspects of His perfected redemption for the sinner.
The "cedar" in Scripture is the symbol of loftiness and pride, and leprosy was regarded as God's rebuke for arrogance and haughtiness. "Hyssop" symbolised lowliness. Tradition affirms, "Pride was the cause of the distemper, which cannot be cured till man becomes humble, and keeps himself as low as hyssop."
"Scarlet," a binding of crimson wool, by which the cedar and hyssop were connected; suggestive of "sins as scarlet," and equally of the blood of atonement; or it may symbolise the now purified and healthy blood flowing in the cleansed leper's veins.
Lev .—Sprinkle upon him seven times. Welcome to the leper those sprinklings of the blood; each one being a testimony of his deliverance. And to a sin-burdened life how welcome "the blood of sprinkling." There is no impatience while the sign of cleansing is "seven times "repeated. Naaman might resent the requirement of the seven washings in Jordan; but it was in ignorance of the fact that "seven" is the sign of perfectness. The life which craves emancipation from uncleanness and banishment, frets not under the repeated application of the purifying blood; it is to him "precious blood," and his outcry is "Wash me throughly from mine iniquity." They who have experienced the bitterness of sin, weary not under the process of cleansing.
Lev .—He that is to be cleansed. The first process of personal purifying restored the leper to the camp, the place of acknowledged relationship to Jehovah; he entered the society of Israel. Even so does the repentant sinner, who has been recalled from his outcast life, seeks to cleanse himself from evil ways and outward defilements, and then takes his place amid the congregations of God's people. It is the beginning of his new and better life. He ventures not yet into "his tent," nor treads the floors of the sanctuary; for these nearer and more sacred felicities require a fuller sanctifying. He must be "clean" who would dwell in "the camp"; doubly cleansed who could enter the family of God's people in happy "tent" fellowship; supremely sanctified if he would tread the sanctuary of holy privilege, accepted within the very presence of the Lord.
Lev .—He shall take two lambs, etc. For now, at the end of seven days the soul is to come "before the Lord" (Lev 14:11); and who will venture near Him without sacrifice? The priest leads him to the very "door of the tabernacle," waves the "trespass offering" in God's presence, slays the "sin offering and burnt offering in the holy place," then applies the trespass-offering blood, to the person of the suppliant together with the oil of consecration, making atonement for him, that he may be clean. The priestly ministries, and the sacrificial offerings reveal to us the works of Jesus; the applied blood and oil suggest the gracious offices of the Holy Spirit. All the most effective methods of purifying are called into requisition if a leper is to be made acceptable to God. True types of the needs of guilty men. It is not by easy and superficial processes they can be reinstated in grace. The priestly offices and sacrificial merits of Christ, the direct ministries of the Holy Spirit in applying the healing virtues of redemption, are imperative for their acceptance with the Lord. The sinner needs all that Christ and the Spirit can do for him if he is to stand without spot or rebuke before God.
Lev .—If he be poor. Poverty is left without plea of inability by such concessions; and equally is saved from fear of rejection by such evidence that God thinks specially of the poor.
Lev .—Leprosy in a house. A law given in the desert which was applicable to their future lot in the Land of Promise. It is thus a hostage that they would "come into the land of Canaan." God sees the end from the beginning. He knows the way we take, and He arranges the goal we shall reach. It is so in our earthly movements; it is certainly so in our spiritual pilgrimage.
God would have our homes pure. No care could be too minute, no toil too heavy, no sacrifice too serious, in order to keep the house clean from plague. The habitations of the righteous should be free from all impurities; the walls bared of all suggestions of wrong thoughts and passions; the house free from every enticement to indulgence and sin. Modern Art is responsible for many a plague spot on the walls of our houses; and Luxury is to-day laying decoys on our tables which allure to habits whose issue is sin. Christian houses should be free from all occasions to such defilement. At all costs, though it mean the parting with ideal pictures and valued sculpture in the adornment of our rooms, or the removing of indulgences from our board, which may encourage in our children impure thoughts or perilous habits, let us show ourselves to be God's people by keeping our homes clean. For a Christian home is earth's best type of the beauteous and blissful heaven.
SECTIONAL HOMILIES
Topic: THE LAW OF CLEANSING (Lev )
The "law of cleansing" is clearly and emphatically shown at the outset; man's part in his own purifying is to "stand still, and see the salvation of God." All is to be done for him, nothing done by him. The leper must make no advances, could effect no purifying; he must for ever remain unclean and an outcast if help and deliverance are not brought him. And in the redemption, in the recreation of the sinner, all must be of God, all of grace; "not of works, lest any man should boast." [Addenda to chap. xiv., Helplessness.]
I. GUILTY MAN'S ABSOLUTE HELPLESSNESS.
1. His position. The leper's place was outside the camp, in the place of (symbolical) banishment from God. He was consigned to solitude, dreary isolation, beyond the reach of human aid. Doubly outlawed, from God and man; all help divorced from him; far off from the agencies of healing and amelioration; shut out from divine and human regard. In the ranks of sinful men and women to-day, there are thousands equally outlawed from help; living far off from God, apparently untouched by gracious influences of heaven, never hearing of Christ, unarrested and unawakened, living as outcasts. Nor do their fellow men come to their aid; "no man careth for their soul;" they are shunned as criminals, abandoned as hopeless. Let not this be supposed true only of the lower classes of society; in the highest stations there are those of whom, so far as sacred agencies reaching them, God seems to say, "Let them alone!" and to whom no delivering help or saving word ever appears to come from those who know the way of salvation.
2. His condition. Beyond human aid, certainly the leper was beyond self-aid. How could he act to secure his own cleansing? He could only communicate defilement to everything and every one he touched. He was a defiled and a defiling leper; could make nothing clean, only unclean. Without any helper, he was absolutely helpless. Are sinners thus? Can we minimise or escape our guilt? If it were possible for us to do "works of righteousness," they would not diminish the guilt to our past account or obliterate present sinfulness. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; "there is none that doeth good and sinneth not." It is mournfully true that the unclean cannot act any single part for the removal of their uncleanness.
Add to this the fact that one leper could not cleanse another, and the sum of his helplessness is complete. Neither in himself nor in his fellow-men, clean or unclean, could deliverance or healing be found.
When shut out from men we are shut up to God. Grace meets us in our extremity. Jesus finds him whom men "cast out" (Joh ), and receives sinners whom society rejects (Mat 9:11-12).
When penitence has wept in vain
Over some foul dark spot,
One only stream, a stream of blood,
Can wash away the blot.
II. GOD'S ABOUNDING HELPFULNESS.
Since his only resource was in God, He alone devised and accomplished the plan of his cleansing.
1. The outgoing of divine help. "The priest shall go forth out of the camp." He was in this the "minister of God," acting out God's purpose. In the priest God approached the leper. Later in time, to guilty men there came the Supreme Priest; man could not, in his sin, come to God, but God came to man in Christ. And still He comes, by mediatorial agencies, to the lone spirit in the misery of sin. The first step in a sinner's salvation is taken by God. He does not shrink from leprous scenes. Where sinners are the Saviour comes. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us" (1Jn ).
2. The process of divine cleansing. Having "began a good work," God carries it on to completion (Lev ; Lev 14:7). Sacrificial bloodshedding follows (Lev 14:6), then the blood of sprinkling is applied (Lev 14:7) in token of redeeming merits communicated; followed by the soaring bird (Lev 14:7), symbolic of the risen life into which God's grace calls the soul whose death is both symbolised and substituted in the offering slain.
3. Cleanness proclaimed. The priest "shall pronounce him clean," that it may convey glad assurance to the sufferer, that he may fearlessly claim the privileges now his. A wondrous hour to the stricken spirit is that when God pronounces him clean; it brings with it the "peace of God which passeth all understanding," it imparts strong confidence and acceptance to the long outcast life. For as truly as the leper heard, and heard with eagerness, the priest's voice of acquittal, so to the sinner entering into the Saviour's grace comes the "witness in himself," the voice of blessed testimony for the Lord, "Thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace."
One only band, a piercѐd hand,
Can salve the sinner's wound.
"I am the Lord that healeth thee." [Addenda to chap. xiv., Cleansed.]
Topic: ANXIETY FOR RECOVERY (Lev )
Medicinal remedies were not prescribed for leprosy; it was treated more as an uncleanness than as a disease, and the sufferer repaired not to the physician, but the priest. From the decision of the priest there was no appeal. In the leper was expected—
I. WILLINGNESS TO BE HEALED. There was anxiety in the congregation that the diseased should submit to the required regulations, and become quickly healed. The leper must not, through feelings of shame, hide his complaint, or keep from the necessary scrutiny. He must be willing to submit frequently, if needed, and follow closely the directions given. The first step towards moral recovery is to know, and acknowledge the plague of sin in the heart; to have anxiety to be searched by the candle of the Lord, and have every evil way rooted out. It is good when an anxious inquirer exclaims from solemn conviction: "I am altogether as an unclean thing, and my righteousness is as filthy rags."
II. CONFIDENCE IN HIS HEALER. Faith in the priest would lie at the basis of the leper's obedience to the requirements of the Ceremonial Law; abandoning all dependence in any other means. The priest was to confirm the cure God had wrought by directing a process of cleansing, which would exercise and prove the offerer's faith. The priest was the representative of Jehovah; the directions he gave were to be regarded as the commands of the Lord; confidence in him, and implicit obedience to his directions, were accepted as compliance with the expressed purposes of God.
To be completely recovered from the leprosy of sin, unshaken confidence must be reposed in Him who alone has power to heal, who alone can give us the inward witness that we have passed from death unto life. Meeting the priest outside the camp, as mediator between God and His people, would give comfort and composure to the suppliant for mercy; so, God coming to meet us in the likeness of man, and unattended by overawing manifestations, awakens confidence in the earnest seeker after salvation. Willingness to be saved, belief in the Saviour, personal appropriation of the blessings of redemption, are the sole and indispensible requisites for deliverance from sin and death.—F. W. B.
Topic: REMEDIAL MEASURES (Lev )
Leprosy, next to death, was regarded as a symbol of the pollution and loathsomeness of sin. The care taken in the purification of the leper may be regarded as peculiarly referring to the fact that sin separates man from all pure and holy beings, or the whole family of God, and as setting forth the restoration of the penitent to the company of all faithful people, by means of the great appointed sacrifice. The ceremony to be observed would impress the mind of the restored, not only with the fact that he had become whole, but that a fresh tide of life had started in his veins; and, as he saw the live bird escape and soar towards heaven, he would probably have suggested to his mind that, henceforth, he was to rise superior to earthly things, and seek those that are above.
I. RESTORATION TO THE DIVINE FAVOUR IS THROUGH DIVINELY APPOINTED SACRIFICES.
The leper may have wondered what connection there was between the sacrifices and the cleansing he desired; yet it was not for him to question but to obey, and accept gratefully the blessing conferred. So, in what we are commanded to do for our cleansing and sanctifying the reason may not be apparent, but, since God has enjoined obligations upon us, exceptions and questionings are excluded. These offerings certainly suggest that only by the sacrifice of the life of a substitute can we be cleansed from defilements, only by compliance with divine directions can we obtain restoration to divine favour.
II. WHEN RESTORED TO DIVINE FAVOUR, THE FACT SHOULD HAVE PUBLIC DECLARATION.
The leper was to be cleansed at the door of the tabernacle, "before the Lord," and there he was to be pronounced whole when the rites of purification were completed. Thus the whole camp would know that the man who had been unclean and excommunicated was now recovered, and re-admitted into the society of his friends. His ear, hand, and foot having been consecrated by the priest, a pledge was given that henceforth a new life would be lived before Israel. So, when persons are restored from the plague of sin, and cleansed by the influences of the Holy Ghost, public confession is expected and becoming to the honour of God, and for the encouragement of goodness. Christ has enjoined the duty of confessing Him publicly upon all His disciples, and declared that He will be ashamed of those in the last day who are now ashamed of Him.—F. W. B.