FEB 22 TODAY’S READINGS IN THE ONE YEAR BIBLE
Leviticus 13:1-59; Mark 6:1-29; Psalm 39:1-13; Proverbs 10:10
TODAY’S READING: JOY ON THE DAY OF CLEANSING
Leviticus Chapters 13 and 14 deal with an infectious condition called ‘tsara’at’. The Hebrew term is used to cover a number of skin diseases and additional conditions of rot and mildew. The symptoms of what we call ‘leprosy’ today may be included, but the Hebrew word ‘tsara’at’ is not equivalent or limited to Hansen’s disease. The symptoms of the infectious skin conditions of ‘tsara’at’ (translated ‘leprosy’ in our English Bibles) are described in Leviticus 13:2-3:
Leviticus 13:2-3 (NASB) 2 "When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling or a scab or a bright spot, and it becomes an infection of leprosy (tsara’at) on the skin of his body, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests. 3 "The priest shall look at the mark on the skin of the body, and if the hair in the infection has turned white and the infection appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is an infection of leprosy; when the priest has looked at him, he shall pronounce him unclean.
In both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark we have read the accounts of Jesus healing a leper and then warning him not to tell anyone, but instead to go show himself to the priest, “and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” (Matt 8:2-4; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16).
The ceremonial law underscored the importance of being pronounced ‘clean’ before the Lord.
In Leviticus 14 we learn what it would have meant for that leper to satisfy the requirements of the Law and experience the joy of being pronounced ‘clean’. What good news that would be! No longer would he have to live as an outcast of society, separated from his family and perpetually kept at a distance from others. If pronounced ‘clean’, he would be fully reinstated to all the privileges of the people of the covenant.
Prior to being healed by Jesus, the leper would have had to tear his clothes, uncover his head, and with his hand over his mouth and beard, identify himself by his announcing aloud his condition, “Unclean! Unclean!” (Leviticus 13:45)
The leper was banished from his family tent and would have to live alone, ostracized outside the camp of Israel (13:46). These regulations symbolized that the leper was ritually dead.
LEPROSY REFLECTS THE CONDITION OF SIN
We can see that the description of this disease reflects the condition of sin. The leprosy was recognizable to the priest even if it was only yet manifested as a tiny spot on the skin or a hair in the diseased area turned white. Soon the infection could spread to cover the whole body. God recognizes sin for what it really is. It is a departure from His order. It is a sickness of the soul. It only takes one sin to make a person a sinner. The Scriptures tell us that all of us, when examined under the scrutiny of God’s holy light, have the incurable heart disease of sin (Jer 17:9). We are all convicted as sinners under the law (Romans 3:23). The disease of sin leaves us all separated from God, and, to some degree, isolated and distant from one another. Sin has a contagious impact in society. Sin cuts us off from fellowship with God (Isaiah 59:1) and His people. Sin keeps us from the tent of meeting. Just as the leper is considered by the law of Israel as being judicially dead, the sinner is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1).
In the gospels we read of the desperation of ten lepers who called out to Jesus from a distance:
Luke 17:12-13 (NASB) 12 As He entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him; 13 and they raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"
The only hope for these lepers was the mercy of God.
THE LAW OF THE LEPER IN THE DAY OF HIS CLEANSING
The leper’s hope, in Leviticus 14, is called “the day of his cleansing.”
Leviticus 14:1-2 (NASB) 1 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 "This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing.
There are two ceremonies that ratify the cleansing of the leper. One takes place outside the camp (Lev 14:2-9) and the other, in front of the tent of meeting eight days later (Lev 14:10-32).
CLEANSING OUTSIDE THE CAMP
Notice the parallels. The priest goes outside the camp. (This is a picture of Jesus going outside the camp to be identified with those condemned under the law and numbered among the transgressors. There, outside the camp, He was crucified.)
The priest goes where the leper resides. The leper cannot go to the tent of meeting. So Christ comes to meet us where we are outside the camp. His love compels Him to go the distance. The priest leads the leper to a source of fresh ‘living’ water.
The priest takes two live birds considered ‘clean’ according to the law of Moses. One of the birds is to be killed over an earthenware vessel with its blood mixing with the fresh water. The priest would take the live bird and dip it in the vessel with the hyssop, cedar wood and scarlet yarn.
Hyssop was the plant used for applying the blood of the Passover Lamb to the post and lintels of the Israelite homes when the angel of death came to strike the first born son of any home that did not have that protection (Exodus 12:22). When Solomon spoke wisely of all the vegetation of creation, he spoke of trees, “from the cedar to the hyssop” (1 Kings 4:33). Scarlet speaks of both the obvious nature of sin (Isaiah 1:18) and the promise of salvation (Joshua 2:18). Hyssop, cedar wood and scarlet were put into the earthen vessel with the blood and water in a similar manner to when they were cast into the midst of the red heifer offering we will read about in Numbers 19. Such a mixture may also be what is called ‘purifying water’ in Numbers 8:7.
The priest sprinkles the mixture seven times on the leper who has been cleansed. The priest then pronounces him clean and lets the bird fly free in an open field. The cleansed man then washes and shaves and is restored to the camp, living outside his tent for seven days as a testimony.
The two birds represent the two natures of Christ and the two aspects of His provision in the atonement, His death for us, and His life in us. Jesus was both God and man. Both birds are designated by the Law as clean and holy. One bird was killed as a substitutionary sacrifice outside the camp, with the evidence of its shed blood being mingled with water in the earthen vessel. The bird had to be killed before the leper could be legally pronounced clean. The bird was killed at the command of God. It was in obedience that Jesus went to the cross. The bird was slain in an earthen vessel. This speaks of Jesus taking the earthen vessel of humanity for the purpose of suffering death. (Heb 2:9; 10:5).
The bird was killed over ‘living’ water, fresh from a running stream, in an earthen vessel. Jesus spoke of Himself as being a source of living water. Let Him who is thirsty come to Him and drink (John 7:37-38). When Jesus died, the apostle John witnessed water and blood coming from His side (John 19:34). Water is symbolic of eternal life (John 4:14) the Word (Eph 5:24) and the Holy Spirit (John 7:38-39). Both the Word and the Spirit are living (John 6:63; Heb 4:12) and pure witnesses to the death of Christ as our perfect substitute.
The living bird would be marked with the stains of blood from the bird that was slain. The Lord Jesus rose from the dead and appeared with the marks of His death by crucifixion on His resurrection body, evident in His nail pierced hands and wounded side (John 20:27).
The living bird once marked by death is taken to an open field to fly free. So Jesus having died for sin, once and for all, is alive forevermore, free from the hold of death.
He who has died is freed from sin. (Romans 6:7)
8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. (Romans 6:8-9)
Once free the bird took to the skies. So Jesus ascended into heaven and we eagerly await His return. (Acts 1:11)
The blood of the slain bird was sprinkled on the leper seven times. The Hebrew word for seven means ‘enough’. It is the number of perfection. It was applied with hyssop, as was the blood of the Passover lamb to the post and lintels of the doors of the Israelite homes in Egypt as a provision to avert the judgment of the angel of death. The use of hyssop in the Bible is a consistent type of applying faith in God’s Word. It signifies believing with your heart.
After the personal appropriation by faith of what has been provided for the cleansing of the leper, the sprinkling of the water and the blood that testifies to the death and resurrection of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, the person who was judicially reckoned dead, cut off, unclean and unfit for fellowship, is legally pronounced ‘clean’.
He has witnessed both the death and the liberation of a Substitute. He has looked upon One who died for him and rose alive. Now the cleansed man is given access to his family and can enter the camp. He lives outside his tent as a testimony to the fact that He has been cleansed.
Romans 10:9 (NASB) 9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
CLEANSING BEFORE THE TENT OF MEETING
On the eighth day, the first day of a new week, signifying ‘a new beginning’, the cleansed person acknowledges he is a new creation by taking two male lambs without blemish and a ewe lamb, with a grain offering mixed with oil and a log of oil. He is going to provide for four of the five major offerings (the burnt offering, grain offering, sin and trespass offering, Leviticus 1,2,4-5).
At the entrance to the tent of meeting the priest “who cleanses him” presents the man and his sacrifices before the Lord. Even though he has been cleansed, there is One who cleanses him. Christ who has cleansed us from our sin continues to keep us clean before the Lord (1 John 1:7).
One lamb is a guilt (trespass) offering belonging to the priest. The blood of the guilt offering is put on the right ear lobe, the right thumb and the big toe of the right foot of the cleansed leper. The priest then takes some of the oil and sprinkles it with his right finger before the Lord and then he applies it to the right ear, the right hand and the right toe, over the blood that has just been freshly applied. The blood that cleanses us is the blood that purchased, redeemed and ransomed us. It is because of the blood (Jesus accomplishing the work of our redemption) that we can receive the anointing, the oil of the Holy Spirit.
The priest is to make atonement by offering the sin offering and then the burnt offering and the grain offering. All five offerings are involved and the leper shall be clean.
Leviticus 14:21-32 describes a poor man’s cleansing ritual with a male lamb for a guilt offering to be waved, and its blood applied to ear, thumb and toe, with a smaller rationed grain offering, oil, to be sprinkled seven times before the Lord and applied to ear, thumb and toe. For the sin and burnt offerings he can offer two turtledoves or two pigeons , “which ever he can afford”.
NEW TESTAMENT READING: Mark 6:1-29
Jesus is rejected in his hometown. He is amazed at their unbelief (Mark 6:1-6)
Jesus sends out the twelve giving them authority to cast out evil spirits. (6:7-12)
The death of John the Baptist and the fear of Herod Antipas (6:14-29)
PSALM 39
Considering how transient we are, the brevity of our pilgrimage and its fleeting pleasures and treasures that cannot compare to what is offered us in Christ of an incorruptible and eternal inheritance, we can say with the Psalmist,
Psalm 39:7 (NASB)
7 "And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.
PRAY FOR THE NATIONS TODAY.
You may think of it only as a popular vacation destination, but the Lord sees it differently. Aruba is an island 28 kilometers north of Venezuela with no fresh water or natural resources. It is a self-governing part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. A greater evangelistic impact is needed, especially among the Asian immigrant population. Pray for unity among the believers. The greatest threat to this unity, according to the book, “Operation World” is the import of alien theology, false gospels, televangelists and prosperity preachers. Needed are preachers who will tell the good news of what God has done in Christ, truth about sin and the Savior who offers us forgiveness, reconciliation and eternal fellowship with the Triune God. Pray for the work of the Holy Spirit to bring conviction and conversion among the people of Aruba. (See page 116 of “Operation World”. The Book can be purchased here: http:\\www.operationworld.com )
Pastor David
So, naturally, we proclaim Christ! We warn everyone we meet, and we teach everyone we can, all that we know about him, so that, if possible, we may bring every man up to his full maturity in Christ. (Colossians 1:28, J.B. Phillips paraphrase)
New Life Community Church, Concord, MA 10742
Meeting Sundays at 10:30 AM at the Emerson Umbrella for the Arts, 40 Stow Street, Concord MA
Mailing Address: Post Office Box Five, Concord, MA 01742
Church Offices: 35 Bypass Rd. Lincoln, MA 01773 978-369-0061
Home Office: 978-371-3176
New Life Fine Arts
"Theater you can believe in."
