And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be. Lev 13:45, 46
How would you react if you heard that someone in your church had AIDS?! Would you wonder who it is so you could avoid them? What thoughts would you have about their lifestyle and reputation?
People’s ideas about leprosy in those long-ago days were sort of like many of our thoughts about AIDS today. Think of how you would react if you were shaking hands with someone and they told you that they had AIDS. You would probably gulp, blink, let go of their hand, back up, avoid them, etc. We immediately think about how contagious it is, how terminal it is, and of course the lifestyle that is usually associated with it. It was the same with leprosy except with the added concept that “this person is obviously a terrible sinner that God is punishing. I don’t dare have anything to do with them.”
Of all diseases known in the East the leprosy was most dreaded. Its incurable and contagious character, and its horrible effect upon its victims, filled the bravest with fear. Among the Jews it was regarded as a judgment on account of sin, and hence was called “the stroke,” “the finger of God.” Deep-rooted, ineradicable, deadly, it was looked upon as a symbol of sin. By the ritual law, the leper was pronounced unclean. Like one already dead, he was shut out from the habitations of men. Whatever he touched was unclean. The air was polluted by his breath. One who was suspected of having the disease must present himself to the priests, who were to examine and decide his case. If pronounced a leper, he was isolated from his family, cut off from the congregation of Israel, and was doomed to associate with those only who were similarly afflicted. The law was inflexible in its requirement. Even kings and rulers were not exempt. A monarch who was attacked by this terrible disease must yield up the scepter, and flee from society.
“Away from his friends and his kindred, the leper must bear the curse of his malady. He was obliged to publish his own calamity, to rend his garments, and sound the alarm, warning all to flee from his contaminating presence. The cry, “Unclean! unclean!” coming in mournful tones from the lonely exile, was a signal heard with fear and abhorrence.” DA 262
There are at least three cases in the Bible where God used leprosy as a punishment for sin: Miriam (Numbers 12); Gehazi (2 Kings 5); King Uzziah (2 Chronicles 26). But I would like to suggest that God did not invent leprosy just for that purpose. It’s a result of living in a sinful world. God required that this type of problem be put under strict quarantine to protect the rest of the people from an epidemic.
I would like to share several lessons from leprosy and how it is a good symbol or metaphor for sin.
Sin and evil is contagious–it spreads very easily.
When Lucifer invented his rebellious ideas in heaven, he was able to infect 1/3 of the other angels with them. When Adam and Eve had a family, the sin problem spread to all of them. And there are many examples all through the Bible and in history when anger, rebellion, and other kinds of evil spread like wildfire through whole groups of people. Sin is extremely contagious.
Sin is ugly in its process just like leprosy .
We can see all kinds of awful stuff around us that is a result of the sin epidemic. Isn’t it interesting that the things that God designed to be so good and beautiful when they are done His way can be so terrible when they are done Satan’s way.
Sin is terminal.
God told Adam and Eve that they would die if they disobeyed. He designed it that way; not that He designed sin, but He designed His system in such a way that sin would destroy itself. He designed us to live and function under the complete direction of His spirit in all aspects of our lives. When Adam and Eve did that, things were great. When they didn’t and when we don’t, everything deteriorates. Turning away from God, doing things our way instead of His way will always result in death and destruction. Sometimes that result comes immediately, sometimes it is slower; but it will come.
For the wages of sin is death . . . Romans 6:23
There is no hope of recovery from this plague without God’s direct intervention. We are born with a sinful nature and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it by ourselves.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. Jeremiah 13:23
When you go out to some of the old cemeteries, you can find many grave stones with the same year marked on them, like 1918. Many of them are the graves of young people, some just babies. They died in the flu epidemics that came through the area. Sometimes whole families were wiped out. If only there could have been some way to isolate and control the germs early, it would have prevented so much trouble and sorrow.
Drastic action is sometimes necessary to control sin.
God had to take drastic action to quarantine sin and control its spread just like leprosy had to be strictly quarantined in Bible times and maybe other diseases should have been. It is because sin is contagious and awful and terminal that God threw Lucifer and his followers out of heaven, Adam and Eve were sent out of the garden, and this earth is isolated from contact with other sinless beings in the universe. It’s terrible, but it had to be that way in order to protect others.
Drastic action may be required in your own personal life where sin is discovered.
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. Matthew 5:29, 30
Jesus is basically saying that if there is something that you are seeing or doing that you recognize as a moral problem–as sin, as something that comes between you and God–do whatever is necessary to get it out of your life even if it is a really drastic measure. In the verse just before this He was talking to men about looking at women.
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Matthew 5:28
Men, what goes through your thoughts when you are going down the street on a hot day and you see her walking there? How much do you look? Or you are watching TV and a commercial comes on? What happens in your mind when it’s flashed in front of you? Do you linger for some mental enjoyment? or do you choose to turn away from it? Or for anyone, what about the TV with its soap operas, sports, news and other violent or corrupt shows. Or maybe it’s books, magazines, internet or DVD’s that are the source of corruption in our hearts and thoughts. We just get used to it and soon come to enjoy it and become addicted to it. These are just a few examples of some leprosy problems that can be a part of our lives. We may overlook them, but God doesn’t.
For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, 1 Peter 3:10, 11
“Let him eschew evil.” That word eschew means “avoid, be startled and turn away, shy away from” like you avoid approaching a skunk, or you get very startled and probably run for your life when you hear a rattlesnake, or a horse will shy at something and jump to the side. That is how we should respond to evil. We can’t stop temptations from coming, but we can decide what we are going to do when they pop up. We can’t stop the devil from displaying his stuff and urging us to take it, but we don’t have to make the purchase.
When temptation shows up, the choices we make will have eternal consequences. Whatever we do or think that follows God’s ways will build us up into His image. But anything we do or think that is outside of His plan will do some kind of damage in our lives. We may not recognize or understand it but the damage is done. We may have to take some drastic action to keep our minds pure, to protect our relationships with God and our spouses and other people.
Sin is contagious, ugly, and terminal; and may require some difficult and severe measures to bring it under control. God doesn’t want anything in our lives that will separate us from Him or create problems with other people. He doesn’t want the leprosy–the cancer–of sin to destroy us, so He tells us to do whatever is necessary to protect ourselves, to guard our minds, and guide our choices.
Leprosy was usually terminal as Jesus implied in Luke 4:27, but it was not necessarily that way because God made provisions in Leviticus 14 for the cleansing and restoration of a leper if he was healed.
There is another aspect to this leprosy issue that teaches me something very important about God.
And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. Mark 1:40, 41
Imagine this man, coming in his rags (remember, he was supposed to tear his clothes), looking like parts of him were already dead, and smelling like that, too. Everyone tried to get out of his way or to stop him from coming too close without actually touching him. He didn’t care, he just wanted to get to Jesus to make that desperate request. I like what it says–Jesus was filled with compassion and reached out and touched the man and healed him. Everyone else was scared and avoiding him and thinking, “What a terrible sinner!” But God didn’t hate him, He hadn’t struck him with the plague because of some sin. He loved him, He didn’t want him to suffer, He wanted him to be well and happy again. That’s what Jesus was saying when He answered him, “I want to heal you.”
Here again we can compare leprosy to sin. God hates sin but He loves the person and He wants the sin problem to be cleared up. He loves people no matter what kind of sinner they might be. Sin causes us all sorts of trouble and sorrow and pain, and it will ultimately destroy us. It has caused Him a lot of trouble, too, but He doesn’t hold it against us when we want to get right with Him. He doesn’t have the attitude, “You have offended me and I don’t like you because of what you have done.” He doesn’t think like that. He tells us that all types of sin can be forgiven. Even those who killed Jesus were forgivable because God has a forgiving attitude toward us.
You might have broken any of the commandments 500 times in a row, but when you recognize your condition–that you are separated from God, that you have made bad choices, that you have been part of Satan’s rebellion against God, and that you will ultimately be destroyed–when you choose to turn back to God and get right with Him, YOU ARE FORGIVEN. He has compassion, you are not too corrupt for Him to accept, even though others might reject you or you might hate yourself for what you have done. You might feel like you are totally worthless because others have treated you like that all your life, or maybe someone has even said to you something like, “You worthless, no-good scum. You will never amount to anything.” But to God, you are worth a lot. It might seem like nobody could ever love you because nobody ever has before, but God loves you. He’s not like us humans. God is like Jesus who forgave prostitutes and thieves and murderers. He healed leprosy and I bet He would have healed AIDS, too, if someone had come to Him with it.
We can learn a lot about God’s forgiveness from seeing how he treated those with leprosy. And it is a reminder to us of how we should treat those who appear “unclean,” the scum of society, the rejects of the community, those whose lifestyle includes things we don’t approve of. We ourselves have done a lot of things that God doesn’t approve of but He loves us anyway. Can we learn to look beyond people’s actions, the stuff they have done or are still doing, and see value in them personally? Can we overlook the fact that they don’t keep their home the way we keep ours, or they smell a little different, or they have a prison record or a shady reputation? Can we see them as a person in need of acceptance and love and care, and just as valuable to God as we are? I hope so.
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matthew 25:40
The lessons we can learn from leprosy are:
Sin is terrible in every way and will destroy us if we don’t take care of it with God’s help.
We need to do whatever it takes to keep sin out of our lives even if it means some drastic action like getting rid of something we actually enjoy.
God overlooks all of the garbage in our lives and sees the value in us personally and loves us with an incredible love.
We need to do that for others–every human being desperately needs that kind of love and caring.
I am looking forward to the time when all this leprosy of sin will be cleared up and we won’t have to be under quarantine anymore.