03.05. Chapter 5. Discipline and Restoration to Communion

Chapter 5. Discipline and Restoration to Communion Leviticus xiii., xiv.

"Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by the dead. Both male and female shall ye put out, without the camp shall ye put them, that they defile not their camps, in the midst whereof I dwell." (Num. v. 2, 3.) Relationships however close, and friendships however strong, could raise no plea on which disobedience to this command might be justified. "Without the camp," spoke of the divinely appointed place for such; "shall ye put them," expressed the responsibility which rested on all to act aright; and none could excuse themselves from submission to this order, who shared in the privileges belonging to that nation. To the nations around them God gave no such injunction; for none but Israel stood before Him on the ground of redemption, and in none but Israel could it be said He dwelt. His presence among them necessitated the removal of the unclean; their position as redeemed involved prompt obedience to the word. "How unnatural," it might have been said, "thus to act against members of one’s family;" "How uncharitable to put outside the camp one’s dearest bosom friend;" "A merciful God could never require such an act to be done in His name." Such thoughts as these might have passed through many a mind, and the natural man might have endorsed them as correct; but the one taught of God would see they were wrong. Jehovah had spoken, and He must be obeyed. Claims of kindred and affection must give way before the paramount claims of His holiness.

Deeply solemn was this matter. Certainty, therefore, as to the case was to be arrived at, before the terrible sentence went forth against the individual, or even the garment, or the house; but when the case was clear, no word in mitigation or extenuation could be received. How the disease had been contracted, by wilful or accidental contact, was nothing; its hated presence had been manifested, and judgment must accordingly take its course. The priest saw, and pronounced sentence, and forthwith it had to take effect; but, till he could pronounce with certainty, the case was watched. In doubtful cases, after seven days’ confinement, the individual, or garment, or house was examined again. If the plague on the man or in the garment had not spread, another week’s confinement was ordered, and the garment was washed. If, after this, the plague was found, to be known by the marks given of it in God’s word, the awful words pronounced by the priest, "It is a leprosy," betokened the cessation of further forbearance. The man was put outside the camp, and the garment was burnt in the fire. In the case of the house, the diseased stones were taken out, new ones were put in their place, and the house plastered with new mortar. If, after that, the disease still manifested its presence, the whole house was to be pulled down, and its stones, timber, and mortar carried forth outside the city into an unclean place. Thus most careful was the priest to be, that none should be excluded from the camp who ought to be in it, and none be kept inside who ought to be put forth; for with the priest, as having the mind of God, rested the duty of pronouncing that sentence against which we read of no appeal. But what, it might be asked, was there in the leprosy which drew forth such stringent regulations? It was a contagious disease, committing frightful ravages, destroying by slow degrees, and in a loathsome manner the body of its victim. Is this all that we see in it? Were these laws concerning it mere sanitary regulations for the bodily welfare of that large encampment, and quarantine directions, as it were, for the people when settled in their land? Doubtless there was that in them, but there was more, as the sacrifices to be offered up when the house was clean, or the leper was to be received back, clearly set forth. Leprosy betokened the working of the flesh. In the case of the man it might be an old sore breaking out afresh (chap. xiii. 11), or a new one for the first time displaying itself. But it was the working of evil within which thus manifested itself, and, whilst it continued to work, the man was unclean. When, however, he was covered all over with the disease, the priest pronounced him clean. "It is all turned white, he is clean." The evil within had worked itself out; its activity had ceased. He was clean. The leprosy in the house broke out in the stones thereof (chap. xiv. 40), typical, it would seem, of evil in an assembly, and was connected with the dwelling of the people in the land. (Ver. 34.) Leprosy in a garment, that which wraps round the individual, typified something evil in the circumstances in which the man might be moving. This might occur in the wilderness, or in the land. At all cost the evil must be got rid of; yet nothing more was to be destroyed than was needful to attain that end. But if the cutting out of the diseased part, and the washing of the garment, sufficed not to arrest the plague, the whole garment had to be burnt; so, if need be, all one’s surroundings must be got rid of, by the individual getting out of the circumstances in which he has been involved. In this there was something analogous to the dealing with the house, the diseased stones being first taken out, their places supplied with fresh ones, and the whole plastered anew with mortar, if possible thereby to avert the destruction of the whole building; but should that measure prove ineffectual, the disease having spread among stones hitherto free from it, the whole house had to go — the priest broke it down. Now, as the garment typifies circumstances surrounding us, and the house an assembly of believers, we can see why, for the cleansing of the garment, washing was ordered without sacrifices; and why, for the cleansing of the house, sacrifices must be offered up. And, whilst the sacrifices the leper had to bring, were more numerous than those offered up for the house — as both represented God’s people cleansed, either an individual or an assembly — we can understand why there were sacrifices common to both, having reference to the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And here God’s grace manifests itself. Had the laws concerning leprosy stopped with the injunction for excluding the leper from the camp, and for shutting up the house, God’s holiness would have been cared for; but the individual or house must have been left in perpetual and irremediable uncleanness. Such, however, was not His mind. No compromise could be admitted between holiness and defilement, but He worked that the leprosy should be removed, and the individual reinstated into all the privileges of God’s redeemed people. These chapters then illustrate the exercise of discipline on the people of God. It is not the sinner in his natural distance from God that we have before us, for we meet first with the man inside the camp, but put out of it, whilst the leprosy was working in him. It might have been an old leprosy breaking out afresh, or the plague appearing for the first time. Outside the camp must then be his place, though he had his tent inside it all the time (chap. xiv. 8), till the priest was satisfied he was healed, and all the rites connected with his cleansing had been duly performed. For the garment and for the house there was a provision for the plague proving irremovable; for the individual we read of nothing of the kind. "All the days wherein the plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled," was God’s provision for the preservation of the camp from his uncleanness, whilst the opening words of the following chapter speak of the days of his cleansing. There might be special cases for which there would be no cure, for example, Gehazi, Uzziah; but none could sit down in an ordinary way and say their case was hopeless. And who healed him? Physicians could not do it. The priest, too, in this was powerless. God must deal personally with the leper and effect the cure; for observe, the sacrifice was to be offered up after the priest was satisfied he was healed, and not in order to heal him. "Offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them." (Mark i. 44.) How the leper was healed is not stated, that was a matter between him and God, as it must always be in what we believe leprosy to prefigure. Restoration of the soul with God must precede the restoration to one’s place in the assembly. But restoration of the soul with God is a private matter between the soul and God; restoration to the assembly, as to the camp, is public and before all. The priest pronounced the leper clean, after he saw God had healed him, as he had pronounced him unclean when the evil of the flesh was working. He pronounced on his state, but could not alter it, but God could. So the leper, shunned by his fellowmen, as he cried, "Unclean, unclean," found an eye resting on him whilst outside the camp, and a heart occupied with him unceasingly. For God was working for his healing.

Healed in mercy, he had to show himself to the priest; and now he has to feel keenly his helpless condition, induced by the leprosy. As yet he is outside the camp, and the priest must go out to him. He knew he was healed, else the priest’s inspection would be of no avail; but the mere fact of his having been healed by God did not give him the right to re-enter the camp of Israel. It is well to see this — a rule which still holds good in the government of the assembly of God on earth. There is the secret intercourse between God and the soul, and there is the public acknowledgment of having judged oneself, and the owning before all the only ground on which one can stand in the assembly. This is shadowed out in the action, and in the sacrifices which the leper brought. On the first day we read in his sacrifices what the standing is, and the identification with Him who has died and is risen. On the eighth day we see typified the acknowledgment of failure in walk, and consecration, as it were, afresh to the service of Him who died for us on the cross. Sovereign grace can restore, as sovereign power healed the leper; but only on the ground of sacrifice was there then, and is there now, a road for outward reinstatement into the place and privileges of the redeemed company. The priest, satisfied that he was healed, commanded to be taken for him that was to be cleansed two birds, alive and clean, and cedar-wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. One bird having been killed over running water, the other was dipped in its blood with the cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop, and the individual was sprinkled with blood* seven times, after which the living bird was let loose into the open field. To the cleansed leper this may have been a mysterious rite — even the priest may not have been able to interpret it — but to us it has a language, and its voice is one of no uncertain sound. It speaks of death and resurrection — even of His who died and rose again, and of the application of that death in power to the soul by the Holy Ghost, through the word. The living bird became identified, by dipping it in the blood of the one which had died; and, flying away from the scene of the death of its fellow, shadowed forth the Lord’s resurrection from the dead. The cedar-wood and hyssop seem to be emblematic of the products of nature — comprising, as the two ends of a long chain, all that grows on the earth (see 1 Kings iv. 33); the scarlet is an emblem of the glory of the world. All that was of nature, and the glory of the world, he was to view dipped in the blood of the slain bird; as now, what answers to those emblems should be viewed through the medium of the cross. The cedar-wood, and hyssop, and scarlet were not destroyed, but they appeared, when dipped in the blood, in a new light: so should it be with us. That death as a practical truth, when forgotten, must be brought home afresh to the soul in power. If nature has been allowed to work where death should practically have been known, that failure must be judged, and the soul, reminded of it, confess the need of the Lord’s death and resurrection first, and the need, too, of their application to its walk on earth.

{*When cleansing the house the living bird was dipped in the blood and the water, and the house sprinkled, it would seem, with both. This may have been done in the case of the leper, though the text does not state it.} But this work of restoring an individual to outward communion with God’s saints, is one for which we must be indebted to the ministrations of others. "Restore such an one in the spirit of meekness." ’’Confirm your love toward him." So the leper stood by whilst the bird was killed for him, and he was sprinkled with its blood. But, this service performed, he was able to act, and the first thing he did was to wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he might be clean: after which he could enter the camp. This was the work of the first day, and this the happy result. Thus, as exhibited in type the death and resurrection of the Lord and the individual’s identification with him being acknowledged, cleansing himself is the next and proper work.

Thus far, as regards the sacrifices to be offered up, the cleansing of the leper as well as of the house are accomplished in the same manner. In both what is the real standing is thus typified, as well as the need of that death, and the application of the word by the Spirit to cleanse from the uncleanness which necessitated such stringent measures of isolation. For the individual other sacrifices had to be offered up, as he typified one who had transgressed. But for the house, as we here see, though there were none but clean stones in it, because the disease had manifested itself in the wall, the sacrifice of the bird was necessary ere it would be acknowledged as clean.

Turning back to the leper, he is in the camp a dean man, yet not at home there, having to tarry abroad out of his tent seven days. Whatever might have been his thought of the leprosy, God shows what He thinks of it, and of that of which it is the figure. So, besides the recognition of the standing, there must be typified the acknowledgment of the trespass, and how alone that can be forgiven. This work began on the seventh day, as the man manifested his willingness to cleanse himself by shaving all the hair from his head, beard, and eyebrows, emblems of natural strength and personal comeliness, and by washing his clothes and his flesh in water. That done, the special sacrifices of the eighth day remained to be offered up. On the first day the priest went out to the leper, on the eighth day the former leper took his place at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, but only with the appointed sacrifices. Without them he could have had no business there, for on the ground of sacrifice, and on that alone, could he again stand at the place where the people assembled to meet with God. Had he presumed to come there on the ground of having washed his flesh, and shaved off all his hair, would he have been received? Assuredly not. Unless he had washed and shaved it, it would have been presumption to have drawn near; but without the sacrifices as well, he had no right to approach; and even with these, he needed the priest to present him before the Lord. Now, however, rightly presented, he stood where he might often have stood before without the need of a sacrifice, or any priestly presentation, and learned that a way back into God’s presence there was, but death alone could open it. A trespass-offering, a sin-offering, a burnt-offering, and a meat-offering, the Lord appointed for his cleansing. "And the priest shall take one he lamb, and offer him for a trespass-offering, and a log of oil and wave them for a wave-offering before the Lord. And he shall slay the lamb," etc. The significance of the order of these sacrifices we can well understand, since the trespass-offering takes the precedence. The significance, too, of the action of the priest, we may note, as he brought near the trespass-offering with the log of oil, and waved them, the animal whole and still alive, before the Lord. After this it was killed. Nowhere else have we such an action as this, the waving of the whole animal before the Lord. Can we not interpret its meaning? The leper typifies one who has failed to own himself belonging to the Lord as a man on earth, that is, on this side the grave. This failure is in type acknowledged in the waving of the animal before death. Its death next took place, and the sprinkling of its blood; prefiguring to us in the waving what the redeemed ought to be, and in the death of the animal shadowing out the death of the substitute, and the atonement made, by His blood. The failure requires the death of the substitute that restoration may take place, but that same death God uses to re-consecrate, as it were, to His service the one who has been acting after the energy of his own will. Therefore the priest took of that blood, and put it on the tip of the right ear of him that was to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot; and then anointed each place, where the blood had been put, with the oil. "And 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." How richly God provides for the one who has so grievously sinned, does the leper’s offering teach us. Consecrated, as it were, afresh by the remembrance of the sacrifice, the full divine energy of the spirit of service, as seen in the type, is graciously poured out on his head. After this the other offerings were offered up as prescribed, the work of restoration was complete, the leper was clean. Healed by God outside the camp, the way for re-entering pointed out and conformed to, full restoration to his tent took place, with perfect competency for service. The leprosy itself was removed, and every disqualification it had entailed was removed likewise, and the man could feel himself at home in the camp; but only on the ground of sacrifice. In the sin-offering the words were, "It shall be forgiven him;" here it is, "He shall be clean" — each in its place significant of what it prefigures.

But, whilst we see God’s mercy portrayed, which will not rest satisfied till the leper is completely reinstated in his tent and position among the people, we also learn in the subsequent verses how God took knowledge of the circumstances of the individual. If he could not get all that was prescribed, God would receive smaller offerings for the meat, sin, and burnt-offerings. None should be kept outside because they had not the means of being fully reinstated. Yet all had to bring the sacrifice appointed for the first day, and the lamb for the trespass-offering. These could not be dispensed with, for all alike had to own by the type what the ground of standing is, and the need of a sacrifice for restoration. How true are the words of the woman of Tekoah — and this ordinance of the leper reminds us of them — "God deviseth means that his banished be not expelled from him." (2 Sam. xiv. 14.)