|
HIS
SERVANTS' MINISTRY
www.godcannotlie.org
Welcome to our website
Birth of Sin and Its Developments
Leviticus 12 & 13 Chapter 11
Complaints on the doctrine of native Depravity . . . The doctrine explained . . . Sin a disease . . . Sin symbolized by Leprosy . . . The likeness traced.
Leviticus Chapter 12 is interesting to Christians because it contains the Law for the purifying of mothers, which the mother of Jesus so meekly obeyed when she brought the two doves as an offering in her poverty for a sacrifice unto the LORD
Lev. 12:8 And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons; the one for the burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean. (KJV)
Luke 2:22 And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord; (KJV)
SIN is the theme of the Chapter 12 . . . as it was in Chapter 11 and also Chapter 13. The subject is sin is portrayed by symbols. In the division of the animals into clean and unclean, we had the nature of sin in its over-all character and outward displays. Sin is a vicious attack on humanity, bringing on all kinds of deadly, hateful, savage and vile corruptions. When we look at all the different forms of sin and vileness which are all around our world, we see it touching the paths and defiling the actions of every human being . . . we saw this in the last chapter.
Some questions: From where does SIN come? How do we to account for SIN? WHY is it that some specific time periods, nations, families or individuals are more depraved and vicious than others?
What are the answers? Bad instruction, bad government, bad religion, bad associations and bad habits, might be the reasons, but the records of inspiration and experience assure us that "all have sinned and come short" (Rom.3:23), and that "if any man say he hath no sin, he deceiveth himself, and the truth is not in him "(1 John 1:8-10). There is not any place on Earth, and not even one member of the human race that has not been touched by the great contamination of SIN! Sin is upon EVERY conscience, EVERY mind and EVERY heart. What is the cause of this unholy fact? It cannot be the structure of society; because society (civilization) is just the mere collection of human life, our feelings, our opinions, our interaction, our agreement and our actions. It is MAN that corrupts society, NOT society that corrupts man. SIN is not only a beast-likeness and groveling cruelty assumed or taken upon a man from this evil world . . . it is also an exhibition that comes from within each and every one of us. It is a deceitfulness that controls our nature, mingles with every part of our life, and stains the vital forces as they are passed down from parent to child, from generation to generation. We are unclean, not only by contact with a bad world, but we are naturally impure, from the moment we are born (Ps.58:3) . . . going way back to our first parents in the Garden. We were conceived in sin, we were shapen in iniquity (Ps.51:5). It is this (sin) that forms the actual subject of Chapter 12. SIN is the type of the source and seat of all human wickedness.
The uncleanness spoken of here, is no more a real uncleanness, than that ascribed to certain animals in Chapter 11. The entire instruction is ceremonial, and not at all binding upon us . . . even though a remnant of it is still found in some of the churches, known by the name of "The Churching of Women," which is the custom of blessing a woman after childbirth, such as the Purification of the Virgin Mary mentioned in Luke 2:22. The Jewish practice was based on Lev.12:1-8, which specified the ceremonial rite to be performed in order to restore ceremonial purity. It was believed that a woman becomes ritually unclean by giving birth, because of the presence of blood and/or other fluids at birth.
It shows that our very birth involves uncleanness. It reveals defilement as the state in which we receive our being. For "who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one." (Job 14:4). Because of this, it seems that all men who are conceived and born in sin; meaning they all are, from their mother's womb, full of evil desires and tendencies; and that this is the fountain-head of all evil thoughts, words, or deeds.
Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. (KJV)
Psalm 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. (KJV)
Mark 7:21-23 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: 23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man. (KJV)
Rom. 1:29-32 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (KJV)
1 Tim. 4:1-2 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; (KJV)
Consider: IF people have on them a tendency to sin from birth, WHY did a Holy, just, and loving God create us with this nature to sin?
How can we to solve this difficulty? If our Creator never creates any being with an evil nature, WHY is it that all men are born in corruption, and inclined to sin from their very birth? Possibly a very few words will clear up the matter.
What is a person as he comes into existence? Is he a new creation, separate and distinct in himself? I don’t think so. Modern man is not an original product of God’s creative power. Man is not now first created. He is simply a result of primitive humanity which was created nearly six thousand years ago. He advances from principles of life which were established in the Garden of Eden. Humanity flows from one original fountain, from one original pair of parents . . . Adam and Eve! God, in the beginning never made more than one man and one woman; and ALL other men and women are but come from that original creation. No one today is created, in a true sense of that word, BUT are begotten and born of God’s Creation made thousands of years ago. To think that any idea of humanity that differs from this, is Scripturally false. The Creation of the first pair of our parents was a self-continuing Creation; and so, it is the only Creation, in regards to human existence.
SO . . . there is a very important sense in which we were made in Adam. We are simply a repetition of the first pair, according to laws which were located in them. Our whole being, body, soul and spirit (1 Thes. 5:23), are derived from and through Adam. Our humanity is what has grown out of him. ALL the whole human race (red, yellow, black or white) goes back to Adam.
We are more or less, the branches and streams issuing from Adam. And as is the seed, so is the tree; and as is the tree, so is the fruit. "A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit" (Mat.7:18).
You may plant a good seed, and give it all the best conditions needed for a good plant; but all its fruits show the adversities that befell it in the beginning. You may open a pure fountain, giving forth nothing but pure good water; but the issuing stream may touch upon poison, and take up chaotic mixtures at its first departure from its source, and carry pollution wherever it goes. So, it has always been with humanity. It WAS created pure and good by God; but by the power of free choice, which belongs to us humans, damaged its original qualities. Our free choice absorbs all evil and vileness from our very beginning . . . IF we are not very careful!
It was hurt when we were conceived, and from then all its following developments have upon them the taint of that first mishap and contagion. It is worse in some lines than in others. IF we could just reclaim complete holiness, it might disappear altogether in the course of generations . . . but, the way things are, ingrown sin to some extent taints every one that is born of humans.
It is just to this universal taint of human nature, derived from the disobedience of Adam, that the whole effect of this world's iniquity is to be traced. Because of our relationship to an infested parentage, we come into the world with more or less compassion for evil. We seem to have an inborn disposition to do wrong. Psalm 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. (KJV) As soon as we are born, we begin to LIE! And it is not long, that we have an awakening of the power of lust that is temptation, which we should reject, but most often do NOT!
When the power of temptation sets the heart on an object of sordid desire, and gained the consent of the person’s will to do it, that person moves toward that evil, and SIN is born. There is an inborn defect to which the objects of evil desire involuntarily to excite lust; and from this streams the flood of evil that has flooded the entire Earth. It is this "sin of the world" (John 1:29; 16:8), that the Lamb of God has to take away . . . NO one else can do it!
The Jewish mother's uncleanness could only be removed by a lamb, or a pair of doves, offered as a burnt-offering; and even then, it continued for seven days, an entire period of time. So, this original inborn deformity and contamination of our nature, shall not be perfectly rooted out until the period of our appointed time has been completed . . . until our stay in this world has ended.
Leprosy
In Leviticus Chapter 13, we have to some degree, a medical dissertation, on the subject of leprosy. It is the oldest description existing on any disease, although it is not introduced into this ritual for medical reasons. There were other diseases in the Eastern world that were more painful, more fatal, more contagious and just as afflictive; but nothing is said about them. Leprosy is specifically singled out from all the ills of Earth, and made the subject of actual regulations. You will see that it was to be treated by the priest, NOT by the physician. It had strange disabilities connected with it. Its entirety shows that something much more than ordinary attaches to it. It is dealt with in a way that cannot be accounted for in the nature of the disease itself. So, leprosy is to be regarded, like all the other provisions of this Law, as a type. This is yet another parable of SIN . . . standing as the illustration of the workings, developments and effects of inborn depravity.
SIN is a humiliating and confusing disease, along with it being a brutal degradation and hereditary uncleanness. It is a loathsome rottenness of the whole human nature. It is a disease of the whole head and a faintness of the whole heart (Isa.1:5). Deliverance from SIN is called a cure and a healing, as well as a pardon. He who relieves us of it is called a Physician. Only JESUS can forgive your sins. Deliverance from SIN is called a cure and a healing. 1 John 1:9-10 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (KJV)
SIN is a disturbance, corrosion, disorder and evil fretting in all mankind, as we shall see in the Laws regarding leprosy. The Jews regarded leprosy as a judgment for sin, and so it was called “the stroke” (Ps. 39:10) and “the finger of God” (Ex.8:19; 31:18; Lk.11:20). The Jews believed that such sickness is the direct punishment of some kind of sin in the life of the person suffering with it.
In leprosy and the regulations concerning it, God has pointed out the most vivid and impressive exhibition of the nature and consequences of sin that has ever come under the inspection of humans.
In Its beginning, leprosy was, for the most part, hereditary. After doing its work in the parent it was very likely to break out in the child. Sin began in Adam, and having worked nine hundred years in him, he died; but the taint of his sin was left in ALL who sprang from him. But . . . leprosy was not always hereditary, so the need of a special symbol on the subject of inborn depravity, such as we have just considered in the preceding chapter. The germ of all human sin is derived from our connection with our fallen parentage.
Leprosy, whether hereditary, contracted by contagion or otherwise, began far within. Its seat is in the deepest interior of the body. It is often in the system as many as 3 to 12 years before it shows up. Does this not exactly describe sin?
Nero and Caligula were Rome's most scandalous emperors, and certainly the worst of Augustus's successors in the first century AD. Incest, sadism, matricide (killing of one's mother), persecution of Christians and Jews, were just a few of their many transgressions.
Nero and Caligula were once babies, seemingly the very images of innocence. Who that saw them resting upon the bosoms of their mothers, would ever have suspected, that those gentle forms were dormant seeds which finally developed into bloody butchery, tyranny and vice? Who that saw Judas Iscariot in the duties of his evangelic mission among the citizens of Judea, would ever have suspected the treachery that lurked in his soul . . . unknown even to himself? Who would have thought, that the bold and daring Peter, when he volunteered to die for his Master, there lived the source of the oaths and lies which came from him on the porch of the high-priest's palace?
Little do we know of the seeds of deceit that we ALL carry in ourselves, or to what horrible crimes we may be liable to commit one day. 1 Cor. 10:12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. (KJV) The stain of leprosy is within us, so we must be ever so watchful, for only the grace of God can keep it from breaking out in all its destructive and wasting power. The first visible signs of the leprosy are often very tiny, and not easily detected. A small eruption or rising of the flesh, a little bright red spot like that made by a puncture from a pin, a very trifling eruption, indentation, or scaliness of the skin, or some other very slight symptom, is usually the first sign which it gives of its presence. From these small beginnings the whole living death of the leper is developed. How vivid the picture of this fact, that the worst and darkest evils may grow out of the smallest beginnings!
It is the same with the leprosy of sin! A look of the eye, a desire of the heart, a thought in our mind, a touch of the hand, a single word or move of submission . . . and the door opens and lets Satan and his hellions in. ALL the guilt that ever stained the Earth can be traced to ONE look . . . that of Eve upon the forbidden fruit. NO one can tell to what an issue the smallest sins may lead.
Leprosy is also gradual in its development. It does not break out in full violence all at once. It works unseen for a while. Its first appearances are so small, that if you did not understand, you would consider it nothing at all. It is only by degrees, running through the course of years, that it transforms its victim into a living embodiment of corruption and death. No one is an outbreaking and confirmed villain at once. Character, be it good or bad, grows, growing faster in some situations and in some persons more than in others . . . but there is always gradation and progress from the less to the greater. Those doing wrong at first are very timid and restrained. Sin formed in them long before it showed itself, and its first displays were rather small. But, once started in the way of evil, one easy transgression makes it easier for the next one by an ever-increasing momentum, and if not checked by repentance, it will result in the travesty of vileness.
Sin may start with an affection outwardly lawful, excited by unintentional curiosity, but little by little turns the mind to sexual desire. Uneasiness follows and indefinite wishes form in the soul, and before the person is aware of it, a restless and fatal passion takes control of him, as he hurries on to the deepest dishonor and the blackest hell. No one ever intends on becoming a drunkard. No one ever dreams of becoming the degraded object he now is. A little drink because it was in style, or maybe friendly enjoyment, or on special occasions, is what laid the foundation of his ruin. From small beginnings, harmless in themselves, but serving to create an appetite and getting into a habit, there came that ravenous passion, which made him a bleary-eyed, foul-mouthed and disgusting wretch . . . a disgrace to his name, a pest to his neighborhood, a mill-stone on the neck of his family, and a blot upon the Earth.
People are often shocked, and hold up their hands in horror, at the great and shocking crimes; for they forget that these are only the necessary and easy sequences of little indulgences and little sins of which they take no account. They forget that the bright spot and the little livid eruption are just as much the signs of leprosy as all the laziness and rottenness which follow afterward. They need to consider, that these little scales and tumors are the things of which comes all the abominable corruption at which they show so much feeling of disgust. They need to consider, that there is a close interior association and unity between sins, and that he who takes one to his favor is at risk for all the rest.
David, looked where he should NOT have looked, and was already far on the way to his adultery; and because of that . . . a sort of needed result proceeded . . . his murder of Uriah. Pharaoh the king, easily becomes Pharaoh the tyrant; and out of this, by natural effect, proceeds one more step, and he is Pharaoh the defiant blasphemer. Judas becomes the money-lover, and so it was an easy transition for him to become his LORD'S treacherous betrayer. The boy who disobeys his mother, is far on his way to being the man who tramples his country's laws under his feet. The young man who loves conversations of the lewd and profane more than his books and his home, is well on his way to crime, dishonor and prostitution. And what about the professing member of the Church who visits the beer-joints and the gaming tables and feels that religious duty is annoying . . . he is far down the raging rapids that will cause his ruin. ANY one sin, no matter how small it may seem, is a seed and root for another! And dear one . . . it is by the same easy steps by which a person commits his FIRST LITTLE SINS, he can very easily go on to the most massive iniquities. SIN IS PROGRESSIVE . . . and IF we give ourselves to it in any way, there is no telling to what deeds of wickedness we may come.
Remember, leprosy is in itself an exceedingly loathsome and offensive . . . a kind of lasting smallpox, but more deeply seated, and is joined with inward corruption. But what about the leprosy of sin? It is a filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, a degrading deformity and corruption of the whole man. An established sinner is covered and pervaded with putrid uncleanness. Isaiah describes it well: Isaiah1:4-6 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. 5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. (KJV)
The leprosy of sin causes every vital impulse to be weakened, every power of the soul shrunk and corrupted and every spiritual activity
immobilized. The soul becomes a fountain teeming out with corruption. The eye is sickly, reflecting no more of the light of a pleasing Heaven. The heart pulsates only with quarrelsome absurdities. There is a kind of life; but it is clothed with all the uncleanness and rottenness of the grave. From such a soul God turns away His Face, for He cannot look upon it. There are NO words that can tell how offensive SIN is to God’s Holy and pure Eyes.
Sin, in God’s Eyes, is such a foulness, that it cannot be put into words. All the cancers, leprosies, consumptions, scrofulas (tuberculosis), horrible diseases, ugly deaths and graveyard decays in the world, are simply the outward effects and shadows of SIN . . . the visible indicators of the moral corruption that is in man . . . so, what must it be like in its interior essence? IF the sinner could just have his eyes opened to see, feel and know it, as it is known in Heaven, he would despise himself, and cry out in agony , "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me!" (Mk.10:47-48).
We must remember that leprosy, under this Law, carried with it a most miserable condemnation. A Jewish leper was not only horribly diseased, but also terribly cursed because of his disease. He was pronounced unclean by the Law and by the priest, and that cut him off from all the Holy services, and communication with worshipers. Leprosy is the most intense of all uncleanness that is upon him, and he is doomed to a special affliction. The law says: Lev. 13:45-46 And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. 46 All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be. (KJV)
IF the leper had a home, he must leave it. If he had friends, he must be completely separated from them. If he had a wife and children, they were after this to think of him as dead. If he had any hopes or prospects on Earth, they were suddenly and forever cut off. All his joys would turn to mourning and his honor is stripped off, giving way to anguish. A leper was someone cut off from the assembly of living men, lingering around the gates of death, waiting for entrance there. No one thought of a leper with any love or kindness. He had to live alone. He could come up and at a distance see the camp, but he could not approach, and NO one would ever come near him. With all the dreadfulness of leprosy, it brought no sympathy, and was loaded with additional woes, almost unbearable. Such is the type, and it is the same with the antitype. Every sinner is condemned as well as diseased; and condemned for the very reason that he is diseased. There is a sentence of uncleanness and exclusion upon him. He has no fellowship with the saints, and no share in the Holy services of God's people. He is as one dead to all sacred joy, and all spiritual good. A sinner may at a distance look at happy Israel (Gal.3:26-29), and their peaceful tents; but he cannot enter them, or partake of the blessings within. He is a spiritual outcast, a moral leper, unclean and ready for the realms of everlasting banishment and death.
It seems that there was no earthly cure for leprosy. The prophet of God, by his miraculous power, could remove it; but no human power or skill could. It was beyond the reach of physician or priest. And so is it with sin. SIN is a consumption which cannot be cured, a cancer which cannot be extracted, a leprosy which cannot be cleansed EXCEPT by the direct power of God’s Divine grace. All the waters of Damascus, all the balm in Gilead, all the penance and suffering in the world, CANNOT remove it. Once sin is in the system, God must purge it out, or it will remain there to fester and rot in the soul forever. Without this cleansing grace from God, all the sinful corruptions and woes of the present, are just preludes and shadows of a decay that NEVER stops, and of an exile in Hell which knows no end.
Much has been said about the condition of the lost. Some cults try to tell us that there is NO future Hell, NO lake of fire, NO outpouring wrath of God on the souls of men in another life. That is NOT what the Holy Word of God tells us! SIN is an ocean of fire, a superstorm of continued flames. SIN is incurable to the disobedient and impenitent, who are corrupt and soul-sick. Their souls are like fountains gushing out streams of disgusting and destructive corruption, which shall never be stayed or dried up. They are without heavenly intimacy, and they shall never have heavenly unity. They are as good as dead, unclean, condemned, cut off from the camp of God, and without hope of ever being any better. They are gloomy and putrid wanderers in the regions of death; and they shall wander there forever. They are miserable lepers on their way to the lazar-house (leper colony) of eternal decay.
LISTEN . . . all ye leprous ones . . . the Great Prophet and Chosen Priest of God is passing near you, healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, and binding up the brokenhearted. Ask that His healing Hand be laid upon you. He is not afraid of your uncleanness. His invitation is to all, "Come." His Touch is healing. Call to Him, He will hear you. Look to Jesus now while He is at hand, and He will relieve you. Call upon Him while He is near, and He will save you. Stop your unbelief, for His stay is limited. Your time is short. Your opportunities will soon pass away. The possibility of cure will soon be forever gone. The day is rapidly fading away. The night of death is near. Time is growing short.
2 Cor. 6:2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) (KJV)
James 4:14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. (KJV)
Mat. 24:36-39 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. 37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (KJV)
Tomorrow may begin eternity for you. Fall down on your knees before Him. Let the deep fountains of your spirit be poured out in this one short prayer: "LORD, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean!" (Lk.5:12). When you pray that prayer in earnestness, there is also Jesus’ effective response, "I will; be thou clean" (Mat.8:3).
Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!
Moses clearly brings the GOSPEL in the Book of Leviticus!
He brings us a crystal-clear picture of Jesus!
The Gospel most certainly is in Leviticus.
Leviticus
Leviticus, intro . . Leviticus, Ch.1 . . Leviticus Ch.2 . . Leviticus, Ch.3 . . Leviticus, Ch.4 . . Leviticus Ch.5 . . Leviticus Ch.6 . . Leviticus Ch.7 . . . Leviticus Ch.8 . . Leviticus Ch.9 . . Leviticus Ch.10 . . Leviticus Ch.11 . . Leviticus Ch.12 . . Leviticus Ch.13 . . . Home Page
|