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Leviticus Chapter 15
CHAPTER 34.
FLUX IN MEN AND ITS DEFILEMENT.
Lev_15:1-12.
In 2Th_1:8, when the Lord appears in vengeance on guilty living men, the Gentiles are distinguished as those that know not God, the Jews as those that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus. It was the privilege of Jews to have God in the world entering into every need and difficulty, every responsibility and danger, as the Gentiles had not. They had even the visible sign of His glory in the tabernacle till their apostasy. Hence they had Him enjoining what was due to His presence in their midst, although in a way altogether inferior to that enjoyed by the Christian and in the church.
But earthly and temporal as it was, it accounts for such requirements as we read here and elsewhere. We have had its application to human birth (in Lev. 12) and (in Lev. 13) to sin in the life, as a deadly and defiling thing, a living death, which necessitated exclusion from tent, camp, and worship, and (in Lev. 14) the striking means required for cleansing him when cured without telling us how cure could be. Here we have other and lesser sources of defilement on which we may say a little. They indicate the sad and shameful effects of sin.
The principle is a great one. All is judged, even for fallen man, according to His presence who deigned to dwell there. A human standard, if indeed any pretended to have it, was well enough for a heathen. An Israelite was to submit to the God of Israel regulating the entire life, public and private, of His earthly people. Impossible, if Jehovah were their God and they His people, to evade those terms. Piety would welcome them with heart and soul.
So it will be finally under Messiah and the new covenant when He will write His law in their heart; and they shall know Him from the least to the greatest, for He will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. Alas! they, ignorant of their sin, had at Sinai forgotten to plead His promise, end even taken their stand on their own obedience; so that ruin soon befell them, and all went on worse and worse, till there was "no remedy" on that footing. Then came the rejection of their only hope. A brighter day awaits them when their heart turns to the Lord (2 Cor. 3), and He will save them with a divine salvation.
" 1 and Jehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2 Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, If any man hath a flux from his flesh because of his flux, he [is] unclean. 3 And this shall be his uncleanness in his flux: whether his flesh run with his flux, or his flesh be closed from his flux, it [is] his uncleanness. 4 Every bed whereon he that hath the flux lieth shall be unclean; and everything whereon he sitteth shall be unclean. 5 And whosoever toucheth his bed shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 6 And he that sitteth on [anything] whereon he that hath the flux sat shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 7 And he that toucheth the flesh of him that hath the flux shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 8 And if he that hath the flux spit upon him that is clean, then he shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 9 And what carriage (or saddle) soever he that hath the flux rideth upon shall be unclean. 10 And whosoever toucheth anything that was under him shall be unclean until the even; and he that beareth those things shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 11 And whomsoever he that hath the flux toucheth without having rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 12 And the earthen vessel that he that hath the flux toucheth shall be broken; and every vessel of wood shall be rinsed in water " (vers. 1-12).
Man is not as God created him; he is fallen: and here we read how God instructed the Israelite of old to judge his state. It was not nature, but nature ruined and unclean; so are its unclean emotions. They are tainted and defile. So Jehovah spoke to Moses and Aaron. The physical uncleanness speaks to us of a deeper evil. So the Lord taught even the multitude: "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth the man " (Mat_15:11). And when Peter, feeling Pharisaic opposition, asked more, the Lord replied, "Do not ye understand that all that entereth into the mouth goeth into the belly and is cast out into a sewer? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth out from the heart; and those things defile the man. For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, theft, false witnessing, blasphemies: these are the things which defile the man." The outside satisfies those who have not faith and count God as themselves. For as the Lord pointed out, Every plant which My heavenly Father planted not shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they are blind leaders of blind; but if blind lead blind, both will fall into a ditch.
But a holy God will have us take account of the humiliating truth, if the uncleanness flow out, or even if suppressed within by night or by day (3, 4) as to things or persons (5-12). Every case demanded purifying. To the Jew it was water; to us the washing of water by the word, the water that flowed from Christ in death, to which the apostle who saw bears record in Gospel and Epistle.
Our word of confession is due to God; but Christ's word has virtue in it through the Spirit and His own advocacy. Thus is communion maintained. To be born again and forgiven is not enough. We are brought into divine fellowship, and all that is unsuitable in us God will-have us to judge. It would be hard if He had not provided all that sustains or restores. It is careless or unholy, now that He is at all the charge for our blessing, if we avail not ourselves of it conscientiously. Vigilance as well as dependence on Him and the heart's submission to His word with confidence of His love in Christ are ever needed. Weak, exposed with such a nature, and a subtle foe to take advantage, we are only kept by God's power through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
But the way is ordained of God as surely as the end is made secure. It is not enough to put to death our members that are on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil lust, and the covetousness (or, unbridledness) which is idolatry; on account of which things cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience, among whom we also once walked when we lived in these things. But now, as it is added, put off, ye too, all the things, wrath, fury, malice, blasphemy, shameful language, out of your mouth, no less than deceit. Lie not unto each other, as having put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new, that is being renewed unto true knowledge according to His image that created him; wherein can be neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond, free, but the all and in all [is] Christ.
The principle is as simple as it is sure. As He that called us is holy, so are we also to be in every manner of life, because it is written, Be ye holy, for that I am holy. Grace has brought us into our new and near relationship to God, and has even given us His nature in the life we have in Christ. We come therefore under His fatherly dealing henceforth, Who without respect of persons judges according to the work of each.
CHAPTER 35.
THE ATONEMENT FOR FLUX.
Lev_15:13-15.
It is of great importance and instruction to see how Israel were taught to regard these loathsome experiences according to their relationship with Jehovah. Other nation. were occupied with second causes. They were taught that, as God had to do with them in these marks of humiliation, so had they to do with Him. And He condescended to signify His sense of their defiled condition by entering into every little detail of their movements by day and of rest by night, so as to impress them with what sin had brought on the guilty. Their wisdom was to heed these lessons, if strangers to Him despised His word and them also for submission to it.
When the day of Jehovah comes, how will they not rejoice in what grace will give them! Israel will then sing, "Bless Jehovah, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who heareth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." As His earthly people they will enjoy the reversal of their old uncleanness, and infirmities, along with soul blessing and external power. As heavenly, the Christian is called to suffer now, yet knowing himself one spirit with the Lord, and awaiting His coming to be with Him in the mansions of the Father's house, as well as to share His exaltation over all things. The contrast is great: God has provided concerning us some better thing, not only than Israel's millennial place, but even than the elders who receive the promise in that day, though they will be perfected together in the bright day of blessing on all sides.
" 13 And when he that hath a flux is cleansed of his flux, then he shall count seven days for his cleansing, and wash his raiment, and bathe his flesh in living water, and he shall be clean. 14 And on the eighth day he shall take two turtle-doves or two young pigeons, and come before Jehovah unto the entrance of the tent of meeting, and give them unto the priest. 15 And the priest shall offer them, one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him before Jehovah for his flux " (vers. 13-15).
Still more distinctly does the recognition of Jehovah rise when the flux ceased. A complete term ensued for his cleansing. His clothes were washed, and his flesh bathed in running water. Thus only did he become truly clean. Then on the eighth day he took an offering, expressly in other cases adapted to the poor in Israel, but here for all alike, when any were to be cleared from this defilement. He took to him two turtle-doves or two young pigeons, and came before Jehovah unto the entrance of the tent of meeting, and gave them to the priest. And the priest was directed to offer them, small as they were with all due reverence, the one as a Sin-offering, and the other as a Burnt-offering. Nor was the offerer to doubt of the issue: the priest shall make atonement for him before Jehovah for his flux. It was due to Jehovah, and it was available for the cleansing of the flesh meanwhile: the shadow of that unfailing and everlasting atonement which the Lord Jesus alone could effect. For Him faith had to wait. But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, come of woman, come under law, to redeem those that were under law, that we [Jews who believe] might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye [Galatian or other Gentile believers] are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts [that is, of both], crying Abba, Father.
How fitting that the day of resurrection should be the epoch of deliverance! Thenceforward the defilement was a thing of the past. If we need to feel the days of shame over uncleanness, God would have him who rests on Christ both for his own sin and for Christ's acceptance to enter into the joyful assurance that all is clear. But on the face of the ordinance while we have what typifies the washing of water by the word, which only the Holy Spirit makes effectual by recalling Christ to us, nothing avails without the one great sacrifice. And this is both to efface the evil and to impart full acceptance in all the worth of Christ. What grace is in God to turn what is so humiliating into a deepening sense of what His work secures to faith!
CHAPTER 36.
OTHER IMPURITIES.
Lev_15:16-33.
There remains a still larger portion of these uncleannesses which divine wisdom did not scruple to notice, however humbling to men and women; for as we have had the one sex, so now follows the other. Jehovah would compel His people to feel that He takes account, not merely of sin as typified in its most destructive shape as well as in the very ushering into the world of a child, male or female, but of such impurities as are of a more ordinary nature and frequent recurrence, proceeding from men and women as they are, and connected with that which is lawful and necessary. If the latter was for the earthly people, Christians are entitled to read these outward ordinances in the spirit. To the pure all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.
" 16 And if any man's seed of copulation pass from him, then he shall bathe his whole flesh in water, and be unclean until the even. 17 And all raiment and every skin, wherein the seed of copulation shall be, shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the even. 18 And a woman with whom a man lieth with seed of copulation, they shall bathe in water, and be unclean until the even.
19 And if a woman hath a flux, and her flux in her flesh be blood, she shall be seven days in her separation, and whoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the even. 20 And every thing that she lieth upon in her separation shall be unclean; and every thing that she sitteth upon shall be unclean. 21 And whoever toucheth her bed shall wash his raiment, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even. 22 And whoever toucheth any thing that she sitteth upon shall wash his raiment, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the even. 23 And if it be on the bed or on any thing on which she sitteth, when he toucheth it, he shall be unclean until the even. 24 And if a man lie with her at all, and the uncleanness of her separation come upon him, he shall be unclean seven days; and every bed whereon he lieth shall be unclean. 25 And if a woman have her flux of blood many days out of the time of her separation, or if she have the flux beyond the time of her separation, all the days of the flux of her uncleanness shall be as the days of her separation: she is unclean. 26 Every bed whereon she lieth all the days of her flux shall be to her as the bed of her separation; and every thing on which she sitteth shall be unclean, according to the uncleanness of her separation. 27 And whoever toucheth these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his raiment, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the even.
28 And if she be cleansed of her flux, then she shall count seven days, and after that she shall be clean. 29 And on the eighth day she shall take to her two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, and bring them to the priest, to the door of the tent of meeting. 30 And the priest shall offer the one as a sin-offering and the other as a burnt-offering; and the priest shall make atonement for her before Jehovah for the flux of her uncleanness.
31 Ye shall separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, that they die not in their uncleanness, when they defile my tabernacle that is in their midst.
32 This is the law of him that hath a flux, and of him whose seed of copulation goeth from him, whereby he is defiled; 33 and of her who is sick in separation, and of him that hath a flux; of the man and of the woman, and of him that lieth with her that is unclean " (vers. 16-33).
Through law is knowledge, right knowledge, of sin (Rom_3:20), though Christ and the cross gave us it, as all else, still more and perfectly. And this was intended for Israel's good. No other people had God taking pains to show them where the race is through sin. No doubt it was a burdensome yoke: how could it be otherwise till a Saviour was given to save from sins? Those who confided in God, feeling their utter defilement, voluntary and involuntary, looked according to His word for Him who should come, defeat at all cost the enemy, atone for sin before God, and bring in everlasting righteousness. Those meanwhile were objects of His mercy and gracious care. Such as felt only the present and saw no more than their uncleannesses, with sacrifices through the priest, rose not above the purifying of the flesh.
But the profit abides for those who through faith read Christ in what without Him are but ordinances of flesh (Heb_9:9-10). They can pity and deplore the unbelief which is shocked that a divine revelation should lay bare Jehovah's notice of the vile and offensive workings of our fallen nature. But here was at least a testimony, though by no means a complete and final one, to man's innate evil. Israel stood in a relationship to Jehovah which required the serious acknowledgment of the sad facts, but with a provision of His direction which cleansed them for the then present time, till grace and truth came in perfection.
How infinite His love and work who bore our sins in His body on the tree! His death has for faith completely effaced the evil and cleared the conscience; and His resurrection has given us a new life and place into which evil cannot come, which the Holy Ghost strengthens as we lean on Christ to walk as He walked, judging as flesh (to which we died with Him) every working of the old nature.
LONDON:
F. E. RACE, 3 & 4, LONDON HOUSE YARD,
PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E C.
1902.