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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).
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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. |
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