The cleansing of the leper in Leviticus 14 portrays the rich, complete, and extensive salvation God has prepared and accomplished for us in Christ – this is an all-inclusive salvation!
Hallelujah, we who are born in sin and rebellion, who are leprous to the core, even we can be cleansed and healed by the Lord’s rich salvation. In this all-inclusive salvation Christ is the all-inclusive One who has passed through a number of processes and is now everything that we need for our cleansing.
What is leprosy and how does it relate to us? We may not be physically full of leprosy, but we need to realise that in the spiritual realm we are leprous, for we have sin and rebellion in us.
Leprosy signifies the serious sin issuing from man, sin such as willful sin, presumptuous sin, and opposing God with determination.
Sin comes out of our rebellious nature, which we received by birth. By nature and in our natural man we rebel against God, against His authority, against His deputy authority in the church and in society, against God’s regulation, and against God’s economy.
Whenever we live in the self, in the flesh, and in the natural man, though we may not sin outwardly, we live in rebellion against God and His regulation.
We may be about to cross the street and we are in a hurry, and we will cross it in a proper way or in a natural way, like the others, having no law. Oh Lord Jesus!
In the way we talk to others, in the way we live and behave, in the way we do our shopping or travel, we may do things in such a way as if we have no fear of God, as if there’s no God. We may also not agree with the decisions of our leaders, either in the church life or in society, and we may have rebellion in us.
Even more, toward God we may do things without Him telling us to do, we may take the initiative to say things and start things without His leading, or we may simply be passive and let the tide of the age flow us away…
In the biblical sense, sin is rebellion, that is, sin is lawlessness, and leprosy is sin.
We live in a society that doesn’t fear God or even acknowledge the existence of God, a society where everyone does what is right in his own sight, and many people live in the principle of not having God rule over them.
This rebellion was invented and brought in by Satan, who was put in a high position by God when he was an archangel, but rebelled against God because he wanted to be like God, even to replace God on the throne. The principle of rebellion is dethroning God and enthroning ourselves.
Satan’s rebellion eventually entered into us through Adam’s fall, and now many kinds of sins, as manifestations of rebellion, come out from us. Oh Lord Jesus! Even without thinking or setting our mind to sin, sin comes out spontaneously.
Through one person’s disobedience sin came into all men, and even after we receive the life of God in us, we still have the rebellious nature of Satan in us which fights and struggles with God and His ordination.
Such things as unruliness, friction with others, pride, and self-exaltation are like the swelling, eruption, or bright spot on the skin of a leprous man.
Our acting by the flesh, our losing our temper, our justifying ourselves, and our not being willing to forgive others are also a sign of spiritual leprosy. Oh Lord Jesus, how we need to be cured, healed, and cleansed from spiritual leprosy!
The Lord Comes to us with His All-inclusive Salvation to Cleanse us from Spiritual Leprosy
In Lev. 14-15 we don’t see the cure for leprosy, and there’s no clear way ordained here for a leper to be cured. What we see, however, is the cleansing of the leper, which shows us the all-inclusive salvation God has prepared and accomplished for us.
In the ordinances and types here we see a Christ who is all-inclusive, a Christ who has the blood to cleanse us, the Spirit to wash us, and He has everything for us to be cleansed. In this One and in His all-inclusive salvation we have a rich, complete and extensive provision of God’s salvation.
We need to have a spiritual view of the Lord’s way of salvation and cleansing from spiritual leprosy, and we need to know this cleansing, this salvation, and experience it in full.
First of all, the leper was brought to the priest (Lev. 14:2), which shows that the unclean person is first brought to the Lord. The Lord Jesus is our real priest, even our High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our weaknesses, and He came down to our level to heal us.
When we preach the gospel, we bring sinners, unclean persons, to the Lord. When we receive the gospel, we are brought to the Lord with all our uncleanness.
The priest went outside the camp to examine the leper (Lev. 14:3), showing us that the Lord Jesus left His original place and humbled Himself to come to where we are, outside the camp, a place of uncleanness.
We see this in Matt. 8, where, after the Lord spoke the decree the kingdom of the heavens, He came down from the mountain and was met by a leper, who asked Him to heal him.
Instead of the Lord simply healing this one, the Lord stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
We are unclean, sick, leprous, and contagious, but the Lord Jesus came to us in His full and all-inclusive salvation, and He touched us, He is with where we are, and He heals us of our leprosy.
Even after we are cured and healed from spiritual leprosy, we still need to have our shortcomings and defilement dealt with before God so that we might be cleansed.
From God’s side, He heals us and cleanses us but from our side, we need to cooperate and coordinate with the Lord, seeking for cleansing. Our seeking is our cooperation with God’s grace and love.
How much we love the Lord and thank Him for His all-inclusive salvation which He gives us to cleanse us, heal us, and cure us from our spiritual leprosy!
Knowing that we are leprous, we praise the Lord and thank Him from our heart for the all-inclusive salvation which He has prepared. We see what our situation is and we come to Him, asking Him to cleanse us and heal us.
He has already passed through a number of steps and processes to become and bring in an all-inclusive salvation for us to be healed and cured from our spiritual leprosy. Thank You Lord!
Lord Jesus, if You’re willing, cleanse us of our spiritual leprosy. Thank You for opening our eyes to see that we are sinful and rebellious, and we simply sin and live in rebellion against You and Your ordination. Lord, heal us and cleanse us. We want to cooperate with Your all-inclusive salvation to be healed and cleansed and become Your people. Amen, Lord, keep us coming to You and enjoying You and Your salvation in detail until we are thoroughly healed and fully cleansed of all our leprosy. Thank You for Your wonderful redemption and salvation!
Christ Died for us to Cleanse us from Sin and He Resurrected to Deliver us from our Weaknesses
In Lev. 13:4-7 we see a detailed procedure ordained by God for the cleansing of the leper.
The priest shall command that two living clean birds and cedar wood and scarlet strands and hyssop be taken for the one who is to be cleansed. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be slaughtered in an earthen vessel over running water. As for the living bird, he shall take it and the cedar wood and the scarlet strands and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was slaughtered over the running water. And he shall sprinkle it on the one who is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times and shall pronounce him clean. Then he shall let the living bird go into the open field.
If we read this we may wonder, What do all these signify, and what do these have to do with us? What on earth does the living birds, the cedar wood the hyssop, the scarlet strands, the running water, and the blood of the birds have to do with us?
We praise the Lord for His word, and we thank Him for the proper interpretation of the word of God, and for its application to our experience. The two living birds are a type of Christ, who is clean without any defilement, and He’s full of the life that is able to fly above the earth.
The birds here signify that Christ came from the heavens and that He belongs to the heavens and transcends the earth. Hallelujah, Christ as the transcendent One came to us, and He’s the reality of the two birds. He came from heaven to earth.
This One who is transcendent, who soars, and who is totally clean, undefiled, and unblemished, this one is Christ who came to us with an all-inclusive salvation.
The bird that was killed signifies the crucified Christ, who died for us that our filthiness might be taken away (1 Pet. 2:24). How we thank the Lord that He was crucified in our stead and took away our filthiness of sin, and He healed us in the process – by His wounds we are healed.
The second bird, which was let go in the open field, signifies the resurrected Christ, who rose from the dead that we might be delivered from our weaknesses by the power, strength, and energy of His resurrection life (Rom. 8:2).
He has a resurrected life which is the divine, eternal, uncreated life of God, and He not only cleanses us but also heals us and strengthens us to overcome any weakness and live the Christian life for God’s purpose.
We have not only a crucified Christ but a resurrected One, not just the slain Lamb of God but also the life-giving Spirit as the power, strength, and energy within us to free us from the law of sin and death! This One, the resurrected Christ, can free us from the principle of unruliness and rebellion!
Thank You Lord Jesus for coming to us where we are and touching us in Your compassion. You touched us and You healed us. Thank You Lord, You are the living One, the One who soars above all things, and You are clean, undefiled, and unblemished. Thank You for being crucified in our stead and taking away our filthiness of sin. Thank You for healing us. Thank You for entering into resurrection and becoming the life-giving Spirit as the power, strength, and energy within us to free us from the law of sin and death! Hallelujah!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Leviticus, msg. 42 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (2), week 5, The Cleansing of Leprosy.
- Hymns on this topic:
# How wonderful redemption is, / My gracious Lord, in Thee! / Not seen, nor heard, nor e’er conceived / What Thou hast done for me! / Thou art divine, mysterious, / Beyond my grandest phrase! / Redemption is so marvellous, / Beyond all pow’r to praise! (Hymns #116)
# Oh, Lord, how dry my heart is, / It yearns and pants for Thee; / The filling of Thy Spirit / Is now my fervent plea. / Within the smitten Rock, Lord, / I would entirely hide; / Pour thru Thy living water, / Till I am satisfied. (Hymns #280)
# Make this poor self grow less and less, / Be Thou my life and aim; / Oh, make me daily through Thy grace / More meet to bear Thy name. / Each day let Thy supporting might / My weakness still embrace; / My darkness vanish in Thy light, / Thy life my death efface. (Hymns #395)
