Our reading today deals with the dreaded
disease, leprosy. Rather than study the disease itself,
we shall compare leprosy with sin. Leprosy was not
merely a surface eruption; it was deeper than the skin.
What a picture of sin! The problem is not on the
surface; it is deeper than the skin. It is in the heart.
In
Psalm 51:5, David said, “Behold, I was shapen in
iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” And in
Jeremiah 17:9 we read, “The heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

In these chapters we also see that leprosy
spreads. Sin also spreads. It begins with a thought,
then a desire, then an act. The results can be, and
often are, devastating. Remember how David left his army
when he should have been fighting? He then allowed his
eyes to wander to his neighbor’s wife. He lusted and
then committed adultery. He lied, made Uriah drunk, and
finally had him murdered.

Leprosy not only spread, but it defiled; and it
isolated those who were lepers. Sin also defiles and
isolates. It defiles the mind, the heart, the body and
all that it touches. It isolates from family, friends,
and ultimately, from God.

Chapter 14 explains the ceremony for cleansing
the leper, making it possible for him to go back to
normal society. There are several comparisons between
the sacrifice offered by the Priest for the cleansing of
leprosy, and the supreme sacrifice, Jesus Christ,
offered for sin. The blood comparison is probably the
most significant. In the cleansing of leprosy there was
no substitute for the blood of the sacrifice. In the
cleansing from sin there is no substitute for the blood
of Christ. Without His shed blood applied to the
sinner’s heart, there is no redemption. Because of His
mercy, His goodness, and His love for mankind He gave
His life’s blood that all who, by faith, accept Him may
have cleansing from the defilement of sin.