"Then the priest shall look, and if the leprous disease has covered all his body, he shall pronounce him clean of the disease"
Leviticus 13:13

The Old Testament Law had strict guidelines on how to handle those with leprosy, a disease that ravaged peoples bodies to the point of extreme deformity before ultimately taking their lives. The one with leprosy was told to be declared as "unclean." They were told to wear tattered clothes and cry in the streets "Unclean! Unclean!" It was no small thing to have leprosy back in these times; there was very little, if any, hope for the one who did. If you're ever bored, go read Leviticus 13 and 14 to get a good grasp on what was going on with the lepers---how the priests were to handle them, how they were to try to cleanse them, etc. Those chapters make for great Saturday readings =).

Diseases, especially in the context of Old Testament Scriptures, represent the ugliness of sin. John Piper makes the connection to disease, terrorism, and other tragic life things, saying that they are portraits of what sin looks like to God. So these disease-ridden people, these lepers, are types and pictures of what all of us are spiritually. We are all born spiritual lepers (original sin is discussed in this blog) and only have the disease spread more and more as we continue in life; we only grow more spiritually ill until we one day die.

But what hope is created by this verse! It is when we have a full realization of our sin that we are declared CLEAN!!! As long as we think that it's not consuming us, that it's "not that bad", that it is something we can live with, and that our lives are not in danger, we are subject to inevitable, certain death. But, when God opens our eyes to seeing that we are already as good as "dead in our trespasses" (Ephesians 2:5), it is that instant that we recognize our plight and therefore our need for the Great Physician and are "pronounced...clean of the disease"! The great pastor of old, Charles Spurgeon, comments on this verse saying, "Though dishonest as the thief, though unchaste as the woman who was a sinner, though fierce as Saul of Tarsus, though cruel as Manasseh, though rebellious as the prodigal, the great heart of love will look upon the man who feels himself to have no soundness in him, and will pronounce him clean, when he trusts in Jesus crucified."

Christ has made a way to be cleansed. He is our "great High Priest" (Hebrews 4:14), the priest that looks at our horrible condition, our leprous heart and soul, and declares us to be clean, washed by His own blood. May we be humbled by the realization of our depraved condition and the totality of it, and may we look to Jesus as the "founder and perfecter of our faith." (Hebrews 12:2), the one who cleanses us of all disease. Amen.