How very good God has been in giving us such plain pictures in His Word, setting forth man’s moral condition and great deliverance through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
What a terrible picture of sin leprosy is–a living death of wretchedness and desolation. The disease is loathsome–the person covered with sores, wandering alone, or with others in like wretchedness. Those most dear to him were not allowed to come near. His food was left for him by a brook or under a tree, or he lived as best he could from wild fruits. And what heart-rending longings for home!
One thing was very remarkable: if the leprosy had covered him all over, from head to foot, then all turned white, he was clean (Lev. 13:12-13). The priest was appointed by God to express God’s judgment in the case. The manner of his cleansing is described in 14:4-7.
The priest comes down to this poor, anxious leper by the brook in the valley. Solemn moment! Will he be rejected and left in his wretchedness or cleansed and restored to his longed-for home?
He watches every movement of the priest. One bird is killed. Its blood falls into the earthen vessel–how expressive of the death of Christ. Now the priest takes the other bird in his hand. He dips it in the blood of the dead bird. You see the blood on its feathers. Then he sprinkles the blood on the poor leper seven times, the perfect number.
He is about to speak the sentence of God on the poor, anxious leper. The leper listens with breathless silence. He fixes his eyes on that live bird, held captive in the priest’s hand, and thoughts of home rush into his mind. His liberty is bound up in that little captive bird. If it is let go, the leper is free.
The priest pronounces him clean. The bird is let go loose into the open field. Tears of joy course down the cheeks of the cleansed leper as he gazes on the flight of the blood-stained bird, a living witness of his liberty.
Ask him how he knows he is cleansed, and his reply would be: The priest of God pronounces me clean. The bird is free, and flown away; that is how I know. Yes, as certain as the living bird is flown away, so certain is it that he is cleansed. For this is the way God has made known His mind to the poor leper. The bird could not be set free until he was pronounced cleansed.
Nothing could be more plain, or more precious than this truth. One bird could not be killed, and then let fly, so there had to be two to show the death and resurrection of our blessed Substitute.
Do you believe Jesus died on the cross, bearing your sins in His own body on the tree? Just as the bird could not be let go unless the leper was pronounced clean, so Christ our Surety could not be let go from the prison of death if His blood had not purged our sins. But God, by the very raising of our Substitute from the grave, pronounces every believer justified from all things.
I repeat, the leper knew he was cleansed. The priest said so, and the bird was free in the open field. I know I am forgiven and justified from all things. God says so, and my Surety, the blessed Jesus, is risen and free in the highest heavens. God could not give me a greater proof of the certainty of my justification than He has in raising Jesus from the dead.
Ponder this well. It was an awful event when Jesus became the Surety for all. But God raised Him from the dead, completely cleared from all our sins, no more to be forsaken, but to be received up to the highest glory. He rose from the dead as our representative.
Is He perfectly and forever clear of all sin? Of course! Even so God justifies every believer. If you have real faith in Jesus, looking entirely away from yourself at Christ, you will not ask for anything to make you more certain that you are justified from all sin than this one triumphant answer: Christ is risen and at the right hand of God.