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James 4:6
"God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." At a time when Elishah was prophet in Israel Naaman, a proud general of the Assyrian Empire, was afflicted with leprosy. A young Israelite girl in the service of his wife told him about the prophet in Israel that could heal him. The Assyrians looked down at Israel and at what seemed to them their backward religion, so this must have been a hard saying for this proud general. If that was not enough, Naaman also had to ask permission from his enemy the King of Israel before approaching Elishah. But Naaman, desperately seeking healing decided to give it a try. He took with him monies and rewards and set himself to visit the prophet in Israel but to the general's great humiliation, Elisha did not even come and see him, but rather sent Gehazi his servant. Here is how the story goes, 'And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean." But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, "Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?"' Somehow it seems that Naaman's leprosy was related to his pride. What leprosy does to the flesh, pride certainly does to virtue. The story continues and says, 'So he turned and went away in a rage. But his servants came near and said to him, "My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, 'Wash, and be clean'?" So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean (2 Kings 5:10-14).' What a miracle! But the greatest miracle of all is that Naaman 'returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, "Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel (2 (Kings 5:15)." God always seems to get good mileage out of things, and these are just a few 'miles' He got associated with that event. God did heal the general of his sickness, He addressed the pride issue that created the disease, and he got the Naaman toi recognize the God of Israel. That my friend is complete healing!
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Mark 1:40
And there came a leper to him, beseeching … saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. The Torah spends a considerable amount of time detailing a condition called ‘leprosy’. It tells us about people’s leprosy, but also about leprosy in beards, fabrics, and houses (Leviticus 13:18-59). Leprosy in the Bible seems to relate not only to the loathsome disease by that name, but also to all sorts of corruption and decay. The term seems to be used to refer to the advance of death and corruption in matter (Leviticus 13:4-8). On a metaphorical level, Jewish sages referred to leprosy as the disease the snake inherited as part of the curse. Uncleanliness and mortality is part of the curse brought on man because of sin so the metaphor is certainly befitting. Leprosy is also associated with one of the most important sin in the Bible, the one called ‘lashon harah’ which literally means ‘the evil tongue’ and which refers to gossip and slander. After slandering Moses her brother, Miriam was afflicted by this ‘leprosy’ (Numbers 12). Leprosy and the state of ritual impurity is irrelevant today because it only relates to the Temple in Jerusalem which does not exist at this present time. At the time when religiosity accorded undue emphasis to ritual purity, Yeshua came to put it back in its proper perspective. In the days of the Master, Priests and Levites were so obsessed with ritual purity that they would forget the commandments about mercy and helping those in need for fearing defiling themselves. We can see this in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:33). Yeshua on the other hand was not afraid of being defiled by leprosy. On some occasions he even voluntarily touched a leper to heal him (Matthew 8:2-3). He even entered the house of Simon the Leper to eat with him, and this is where He met Mary-Magdalene (Matthew 26:6-7). The Talmud tells of one called: The Leper Messiah. It "records" a supposed discourse between the great Rabbi Joshua ben Levi and the prophet Elijah. The rabbi asks "When will the Messiah come?" And "By what sign may I recognize him?" Elijah tells the rabbi to go to the gate of the city where he will find the Messiah sitting among the poor lepers. The Messiah, says the prophet, sits bandaging his leprous sores one at a time, unlike the rest of the sufferers, who bandage them all at once. Why? Because He might be needed at any time and would not want to be delayed (Sanhedrin 98a). While this may seem to be a far-fetched story, it is not the only Jewish text which associates Messiah with leprosy. One of the names of the coming Messiah in the Talmud is: ‘The Leper Scholar’. Unlike the exclusive religious leaders of His days, as He came to us, Yeshua voluntarily put on the decaying condition of mortality. He touched our ‘leprosy’, and even entered our house to fellowship with us while in our mortal decaying condition. As He goes back to His father and our God, He takes us with Him to partake of His resurrected body. What a wonderful Messiah we have. Amen and Amen. May it be soon, even in our days! 1Timothy 2:15
Yet she will be saved through childbearing The subject of ritual uncleanliness in Leviticus is very extensive and complicated. In essence it tells us that we are born to get close to God but that we can’t because we are born. It is the greatest paradox in the Bible, but yet, without a basic understanding of its workings, we do not fully understand several parts of the Gospels or even of Paul’s epistles. Because of the sin in Eden, humanity is born unclean and remains so all the days of its life. This uncleanliness raises an uncrossable wall between us and God. There are many stories trying to explain what happened in the Garden of Eden but the literal one is that Eve was tempted, and by acting on her temptation sent humanity away from the presence of God. Until today, we reap the results of this event. Some of the first Words from the Almighty preserved in the Scriptures tell the woman, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16), and to the man that “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life”. Since that time, things have not changed. Man may try to avert childbirth pain through anesthesia and caesarians, but this is just to circumvent what God has decreed. It is the same about mankind always trying to earn a living without working. It is not natural. About working Paul continues the “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread” rhetoric by advising the congregations of his days not to allow loafers in their midst. He says, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10). The early Teachings of the Apostles (The Didache) mention that even an itinerant Scripture teacher should not be at charge of congregations for more that two days. After three days he needs to work for his upkeep. For women things seem to fare a little differently. The apostle mentions that though she brought sin and impurity in the world, “Yet she will be saved through childbearing” if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with self-control (1 Timothy 2:15). It seems therefore that the suffering of a woman in childbearing has atoning values. It is remarkable to notice that it is through the process of child-bearing that the Messiah appears on the world’s sin to make His redemptive work manifest to mankind. Of all the stories I have heard about Eden here is the one I like the most. ‘Eve sinned and was rejected from the garden. Adam loved Eve so much that he did not want to be separated from her so he agreed to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil so he could stay with her and help her’. Whereas some so-called ‘modern’ minds may criticize this Jewish version of the story as sexist, it nevertheless stands as the earliest version of the Gospel. It is the story of a man made sinless accepting ritual impurity and sin upon himself for the sake of his beloved bride. It is not only a romantic story, but very messianic. Isn’t it what Yeshua whom Paul calls the ‘last Adam’ did for us His bride (1 Corinthians 15:45)? Paul even says that Adam was “a type of the one who was to come” (Romans 5:14). John 1:4
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Studying the Biblical laws of clean and unclean seem to take us to a world far removed from our present society. We cannot though, read these passages in the Book of Leviticus and judge them according to the dynamics of our present world; we need to understand them according to their own context. All the issues of ritual impurities in the Bible have to do with separating the holy from death, decay and corruption. All the regulations mentioned about ‘ritual purity’ in the Bible can be understood in the idea that God, being Life Itself, cannot and does not have anything to do with whatever decays and dies. All the earthly elements therefore that represent Him must be free from corruption. We easily see these ideas in the gold covered acacia wood that makes the Ark, a wood with the properties of cedar that fights corruption. Salt also, which is a preservative has to be added to meat offerings and the meat discarded within three days before it turns rancid. Of course, as long as we are in this mortal body and on this temporal earth, we cannot fully get rid of corruption; the whole idea is therefore a message from the Father to teach us about Himself. A woman has done nothing wrong when she enters her monthly time and even less when she has a baby which is to fulfill one of the greatest of God’s commandments but yet, at these times she is considered ritually unclean. One thing we need to realize is that being ritually unclean is not about having committed a sin. It is a mere acknowledgment of our mortal human condition, and these rules are mostly related to Temple service. All one needs to do is to take a ‘mikveh’ (ritual immersion/baptism) to be ritually clean again. The best way to understand it is to relate it to protocol. There is certain protocol to enter for example in the presence of the President of the U.S, and while it doesn’t mean that we are all criminals, this protocol has mostly to do with security. In the days of Yeshua, some people went overboard in their concerns with ritual purity. The Master tells this story about a dying wounded man on the road to Jericho. A levite and a priest pass him by choosing to not help him because they were concerned to stay pure (Luke 10:25-37). This shows a misunderstanding of the idea. The Master Himself who is sinless and coming from the halls of Heaven was not afraid to put on the impurity of humanity and make Himself impure in order to rescue us from our mortality. Again, ritual purity is not about having committed a sin One can obey every dictum of the Torah and still be impure. It is solely a condition. May we in our sense of righteousness not be found to be like the afore-mentioned Levite or priest who because they were so concerned about their own purity, failed to obey the commandment to reach out to those in need. The Master did not discard the practices of ritual purity which came from Him to start with, but He did say, These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others (Matthew 23:23). Hebrews 9:28
Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. The middle verse of the Hebrew version of the Torah, or the ‘Teaching’ says, Now Moses diligently inquired about the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it was burned up! (Leviticus 10:16). To understand what happens in this passage we must go back to chapter 9 when the grand-priesthood inauguration begins. God, being a ‘consuming fire’ (Deuteronomy 4:24) had established a very serious protocol whereby Israel was to approach Him and Moses gave very specific instructions about it. Nadab and Abihu, two of the sons of Aaron were careless in their application of the protocol and were utterly burned by the fire of God as they approached the Sanctuary in an unauthorized manner (Leviticus 10:1-3). Aaron was obviously devastated and in mourning but he and his other two sons were in the middle of the grand inauguration (Leviticus 9) so they couldn’t stop for mourning; Aaron therefore held his peace (Leviticus 10:3). Some may argue that God’s punishment of Nadab and Abihu was out of proportions and to be qualified as the tantrums of a capricious deity, but instead of reviewing God’s actions, maybe we should review our own sense of what is important and what is not. Intersection with God is not to be taken lightly. There may also be more to the event than meets the eye! Part of the priesthood’s inauguration was that Aaron and his sons were to eat sections of the goat offered as a ‘ollah’, burnt offering inside the Tabernacle precinct. Moses couldn’t find that goat so he searched diligently for it until he discovered that it had been fully consumed. The patriarch then got angry and asked for an explanation to which Aaron answered, "Behold, today they have offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD, and yet such things as these have happened to me! If I had eaten the sin offering today, would the LORD have approved?" (Leviticus 10:19). What happens here is that Aaron reminds Moses that it was unpleasing to God for a priest to do office while in sadness or mourning (Deuteronomy 26:14; 16:11), a theme even found later among Semitic kings (Nehemiah 2:1-2). So because he was uncontrollably saddened at the death of his two sons, Aaron felt he could not do proper justice to that part of the service which he then forewent. Moses was pleased with the explanation (Leviticus 10:20). What is to be noticed here is that this center verse of the Torah verse tells us to ‘search diligently’ for the goat of the sin offering which is an early representation of Yeshua’s atonement. Therefore the central goal of studying to Torah is the search for Messiah. The Talmud explains that the death of Aaron’s sons is not really justifiable, so that it can only be counted as the ‘death of the righteous which creates atonement for others’, a very prevalent theme in Biblical text. Whether we agree or not with the Talmud’s interpretation, since Yeshua is our High-Priest as well as our atonement (Hebrews 9:25), this is an idea that very much fits the theme of the priestly inauguration. May we also spend our lives seeking diligently to approach God through the atonement of Yeshua. Matthew 5:9
"Blessed are the peacemakers” As Aaron is anointed High-priest, he became a foreshadow of Messiah. The one time anointing of Aaron is remembered in Psalms 133 in the following words, Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the LORD has commanded the blessing, life forevermore(Psalms 133:1-3). Why did David compare Aaron’s anointing to peace and unity? It is said that when two man were at odds with each other, Aaron would go to one and said, “Hey, I know that you are having a quarrel with Benny, but wouldn’t you agree that he is a good father to his children?” The other man would then reply, “Oh, that’s for sure; he is a good father to his children!” Then Aaron would go to Benny and say, “Hey do you know what Ruben said about you?”, “I can imagine!” Benny would reply. “He said that you were a good father to your children”. “He did?” Benny would ask surprisingly, to which Aaron then added, “I know that you and him are having issues, but wouldn’t you say that he is an excellent carpenter?” “There is no doubt that whatever my issues are with him, Reuben is an excellent carpenter!” Aaron would then go and bring the precious report to Reuben. The next time Benny and Reuben met each other, they had a positive reference point about each other which helped repair their shattered relationship, all though Aaron’s efforts. Jewish sages taught that we should emulate Aaron in our efforts to bring peace within our families and communities. Let us learn not to concentrate on what divides us but what unites us; not on what we dislike but what we appreciate about each other; not to merely see each other but see Yeshua, the image of the Father in our brethren. Didn’t our Master say, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God (Matthew 5:9). 1 Corinthians 15:53
For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. ‘Three days’ is such a repeated theme in Scripture. It is on the third day that Abraham and Isaac climbed the mountain (Genesis 22:4); Israel had purify itself then God came in their sight on Mt. Horeb (Exodus 19:16); Jonah was spewed out of the fish after three days (Jonah 1:17); Joshua crossed the Jordan as on dry land on the third day (Joshua 3:2,17), and the remainder of the flesh of any offering needed to be burned after three days (Leviticus 7:17). The theme of the third day denotes of resurrection, of corruptibility putting on incorruptibility (1 Corinthians 15;53). It is also on the third day that the Master rose (Matthew 16:21), that there was a wedding in Cana (John 2:1), and after three day and half that the two witnesses are raised up (Revelations 11:11). On the other hand, Yeshua waited four days to go to Lazarus (John 11:17). The Master wanted to wait that long because the third day is actually the time when unrefrigerated meat starts to decompose (John 11:39). The disciples hesitated to open the tomb not only because of the smell, but it represented a desecration and exposure to uncleanliness. Even in the Temple, meat from peace offerings was not allowed to remain on the altar more than three days; after that it had to be burned (Leviticus 7:16-18). The Master did that so the people would know that Lazarus was truly dead and not just ‘sleeping’. The ‘three days’ theme speaks to us of the most wonderful process and miracle in our redemption program: that of corruptibility putting on incorruptibility. The corruptible is transformed into an incorruptible state before it is allowed to decompose. This also represents the greatest promise God has made to His people. Through the prophet Hoseah came the following words for an apostate Israel who was facing soon exiles and deportations, "Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him (Hoseah 6:1-2). One day for God is 1,000 years. In the third millennia of exile, Israel is resurrected to its former Salomonic grandeur as when nations brought their glories to Jerusalem and came to learn from the wisest king in the world. We can see the beginning of it even now. All these scriptural themes foreshadow our passing from mortality to immortality, from the corruptible to the incorruptible, from death to resurrection. May we always live in the understanding of these things. No matter what life throws at us in what seems at times tsunamis of troubles, may we as Children of the Most-High be perfect (Matthew 5:48) and not have a morbid attitude towards the ending of our temporal passage in this dimension. May we always remember that the end of the vanity of our sad temporal life is fullness of eternal joy, that the end of death is life and that in due time, corruptibility puts on incorruptibility and death is swallowed up by life. Hebrews 7:25
He always lives to make intercession for them. Contrary to what is commonly assumed, the five offerings described in the beginning of the Book of Leviticus are not meant for sin atonement. While some of them portray acknowledgment and confession of sin, others are simply statements of thankfulness, gratefulness, praise, and dedication. The main atonement offering in the Levitical system is what is called the 'Tamid', the daily perpetual morning and evening offering (Leviticus 6:8-13). Like two book ends, the 'Tamid' opened the day's offerings, and closed it. These two offerings are the foundation of the two main prayer services in the Temple, and are still today the origins of synagogue services. When Luke in the Book of Acts mentions, And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes … (Acts 2:46), he says that the disciples attended these services based around a lamb offering. Peter and John are also mentioned going to the temple’s evening service (Acts 3:1). This teaches us that the disciples continued to attend Temple services and liturgies after Yeshua’s resurrection. The two lambs offered one in the morning and one in the evening provided a continual 'lamb' presence on the altar before God. Those who did not come to the Temple prayed in synchronicity in their homes facing Jerusalem. It is important now to notice that at His last Passover on earth, our Master was nailed to the cross at the very time the priests were offering the morning offering. Then all day while Yeshua was on the cross, throngs of locals and pilgrims offered their Passover lambs. The Mishnah records that at the end of the ordeal towards mid-afternoon, the High-priest who worked hard in the hot Jerusalem sun says, 'I thirst', and is offered a drink. He then exclaims, 'it is finished'. Our Master concurred these very words while on the cross then remitted His Spirit to His Father at the very time of the evening offering that closed the day's services (Mark 15:25,33,34). On that evening, as Yeshua was put in the tomb just before dusk, Jewish families put their striped and pieced unleavened breads in ovens. The Tamid is therefore a perfect picture of the text in the Letter sent to the Messianic believers of Jerusalem, Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:25). Yeshua truly stands at the right hand of the Father always ready to intercede for us because, The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working (James 5:16). |
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