Suddenly all these healed lepers! And just when this rabbi from Nazareth claims Messiahship!
When we began this study of the subject of leprosy nine lessons ago, I mentioned that some of the verses in Leviticus 13 and 14 would be like time-release capsules. I suggested the application of them wouldn’t take effect until the Lord Jesus came to earth. Listen to His own words as He announced the beginning of His ministry in the synagogue of Nazareth at age 30. “And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian” (Lk 4:27). Imagine that! This made the townsfolk angry enough to try to kill Jesus, because they understood His point. He had also told them that the only widow God could find to look after His servant Elijah was not in Israel; she was from Lebanon. As Elijah and Elisha performed miracles, showing God was able and willing to heal them, not one Israelite suffering from leprosy came for help. Only Naaman came, and he was a Syrian. The Lord was saying, I know how this will turn out. To a large degree, My own people will reject Me. It will be Gentiles who will ask for My help. Yet there were some Jewish lepers who did ask for healing, and their stories are told in part throughout the Synoptic Gospels. But we can only imagine the interaction between the cleansed lepers and the priests. Talk about a conflict of interest! Jesus would tell them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests” (Lk 17:14). The priests had no doubt wondered what use Leviticus 14 was. After all, no healed lepers ever showed up—that is, until Jesus came! So here were the priests who rejected His claims now having proof before their eyes that He really was the Messiah! No wonder, in the end, “a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).