Scripture Daily

Context No. 3315 of 4322 · Leviticus

Context · Reflection

Leviticus 15:1-6: in context

1The LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2“Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘When any man has a discharge from his body, because of his discharge he is unclean. 3This shall be his uncleanness in his discharge: whether his body runs with his discharge, or his body has stopped from his discharge, it is his uncleanness. 4“‘Every bed on which he who has the discharge lies shall be unclean; and everything he sits on shall be unclean. 5Whoever touches his bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. 6He who sits on anything on which the man who has the discharge sat shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.

This law deals with bodily discharges and the ritual uncleanness they spread, so that the bed a person lies on and the seat he sits on become unclean, and anyone who touches them must wash and wait until evening. To modern ears it seems strange, even off-putting, but the underlying lesson is about how uncleanness spreads.

In this system, contamination was contagious; what was unclean made other things unclean by mere contact. It taught Israel to take seriously that impurity does not stay neatly contained; it reaches out and defiles. And that makes the gospel's reversal all the more striking. When Jesus touched lepers and the sick and the ritually unclean, cleanness flowed the other way; instead of being defiled by them, he made them clean. Where the law showed uncleanness spreading from the impure to the pure, Christ shows holiness spreading from himself to the impure, healing and cleansing what he touches. The direction of contact is reversed in him.

Do I see how Christ reverses the flow, so that his cleanness reaches out to make me clean, rather than my uncleanness defiling him?

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