No Room for Doubt

Leviticus 14:1-32

Yesterday, we read about leprosy representing sin. Today, we read a foreshadowing of how the cross completely cleanses us from the leprosy of sin. Our reading may appear to be a strange ritual for declaring someone clean from leprosy, but when we set it side-by-side with the story of the cross, we see a beautiful picture that once again proves Jesus is the Messiah and was planned from the beginning.

Verse 4: “The priests hall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two living clean birds and cedarwood and scarlet stuff and hyssop.

Verse 5: “And the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in the earthen vessel over running water.”

· Birds are “heavenly beings” because they fly or are “of the heavens”. Hence, a heavenly being is killed in an earthly vessel. Jesus, a heavenly being – God’s own Son – was wrapped in the flesh of an earthly vessel when he was killed as a sacrifice.

· The killing of the bird over running water symbolized that the animal was clean. Jesus was without sin when he died.

Verse 6: “He shall take the living bird with the cedarwood and the scarlet stuff and the hyssop, and dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water.”

· Cedarwood is important because it represents the cross. Many scholars believe the cross was made from cedar.

· Hyssop was mentioned in the crucifixion account in Matthew 27:48. Jesus was offered a drink from a hyssop branch as he hung on the cross.

· Lastly, we have the living bird. We know that death could not hold Christ. As he rose from the dead and ascended once again to heaven, so the living bird flew away and return to the ‘heavens’.

After being sprinkled in the blood, the once infected man was now clean… just as we are completely clean after being washed in the blood of the Messiah. The comparison doesn’t quite end yet, however.

Verse 9: “And on the seventh day he shall shave off his beard and his eyebrows, all his hair. Then he shall wash his clothes, and bathe his body in water, and he shall be clean.”

· This shaving of the body symbolized a new start – a new birth. In John 3, Jesus taught Nicodemus that he must be born again to see the kingdom of God.

Here, subtly disguised as a bizarre ritual, God laid out the final moments of His plan for mankind’s sanctification. His Son, fully God, would step down into an earthly body and become fully human. Though he never sinned, he would be offered up on a wooden cross as a sacrifice for the leprosy of sin which infected all mankind. Then, though once dead, he would rise again and return to the heavens from whence he came. His blood would be the atoning sacrifice that healed God’s children once and for all. Those who were washed by the sprinkling of his blood would be brand new and forever changed.

“He destined us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us. For He has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of His will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:5-10) God wanted us to know His plan. He showed the people every detail over a thousand years before Mary received a visit from the angel Gabriel so that, when the time came, there could be no mistaking the Messiah. We can trust in the sacrifice of Jesus because no other person could have fulfilled every detail of the prophesy concerning the coming Messiah. God didn’t want us to be unsure. Because He cares for us, He left us no room for doubt.