Of all the diseases to which mankind is heir there is none more loathsome than leprosy. The individual lives for years with this dread disease slowly eating away portions of the body, until he longs for death as a release.
Leprosy is a very fitting type of the loathsome spiritual disease of sin, which destroys the soul of the individual that violates his conscience again and again until he loses all power to resist, and becomes wholly surrendered to evil. From earliest times, leprosy has been a type of sin. When Miriam became jealous of her sister-in-law, and she and Aaron murmured against Moses, "the anger of the Lord was kindled against them; . . . and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow." After God had taught the lesson that the sins of jealousy, murmuring, and faultfinding are to the spiritual life what leprosy is to the physical being, then in answer to Moses' prayer she was healed. Num. 12:9-15.
When Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, coveted the treasures of Naaman, and told a falsehood and dissembled to obtain them, the decree came to him from the Lord, "The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee." 2 Kings 5:20-27. It is not strange that with the recorded experiences of Miriam and Gehazi before them, the Jews should look upon leprosy as a judgment from the Lord. The leper was not allowed to mingle with the people. There was no exception, from the king on the throne to the lowliest bond-servant. The command of the Lord was, "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. . . . He shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be." Lev. 13:45, 46. The priest was the one who examined the leper and pronounced him unclean, and he alone could pronounce him clean.
As leprosy was a type of the worst sins, the ceremony for the cleansing of the leper embraced more than any other offering. The priest went outside the camp and examined the leper, and if the leprosy was healed, then the healed man was to bring "two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop" unto the priest. One of the birds was killed in an earthen vessel held over running water; the living bird, the scarlet, and the cedar were then all dipped into the blood. The priest sprinkled the blood seven times upon the one who was to be cleansed, and pronounced him clean.
Leprosy is an infectious disease, and everything the leper touches is contaminated. Sin also is a dreadful disease, and the earth, air, and water are all cursed by the sins of humanity, and must be cleansed by the same blood that cleanses man. Therefore, after the leper was pronounced clean, the live bird, with its feathers scarlet with the blood, was let loose to fly through the air. The blood was sprinkled on the person who had been unclean, and was carried through the air that was laden with germs of disease and sin, in type of the blood of Christ, which will give a new heaven, a new atmosphere, to this sin-cursed earth. Before man sinned, there was no decaying vegetation; the beautiful trees were not destroyed by insect pests, but all was free from the curse. Nothing but the blood of Christ can restore vegetation to its Eden beauty. In type of this wonderful power a piece of cedar, the giant of the forest, and of hyssop, the small plant which "springeth out of the wall," were dipped in the blood. These were chosen to represent the two extremes in vegetation, thus embracing all. 1 Kings 4:33.
The animal life is cursed by sin, but through the redeeming power of the blood of Christ the time will come when the wolf "shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." Isa. 11:6. The scarlet wool dipped in the blood in type represented the animal kingdom. Heb. 9:19. The blood of the bird was placed in an earthen dish held over running water. In the type of the cleansing of the leper we see that the blood came in direct contact not only with the leper, but with all else cursed by sin,—with the earth, air, water, vegetation, and the animal kingdom.
These wonderful types were but compact prophecies of the far more wonderful Antitype. When Christ knelt in agony upon the cold ground of the garden of Gethsemane, the great drops of blood fell down from his face to the5ground. Luke 22:44. Four thousand years before, when Cain slew his brother, the earth had first felt the touch of human blood, which fell as a withering curse, blighting the fruitfulness of the land. Many times since has the bosom of the earth not only been spotted with the blood of man, but rivers of blood have deluged the ground as armed hosts of human beings, led on by Satan, have slaughtered one another. Every drop of this blood has added to the curse. But how different the effect of the blood of the blessed Saviour! In it was healing, cleansing power. Num. 35:33.
The curse of sin rests heavily upon the atmosphere, which is so laden with disease germs that "death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets." Jer. 9:21. In the type, the blood of the offering dripped from the bird as it flew through the air. From the great antitypical Offering, as he hung on Calvary, the precious, healing blood dripped from his wounded hands and feet through the air, and fell upon the rocks beneath. The types of the old Levitical service were not a meaningless ceremony, but a prophecy of the wonderful Antitype.
Water has been affected by the curse of sin from the earliest times. Ex. 15:22. The bird killed over the running water was a type of the death of Christ, which would remove the curse of sin forever from the waters of the earth. The blood of Christ came in direct contact with water; when the soldier thrust the cruel spear into the side of the Saviour, "forthwith came there out blood and water" (John 19:34), not a mixture of blood and water, but blood and water, two copious streams.