Leviticus 13:15

And the priest shall see the raw flesh, and pronounce him to be unclean: for the raw flesh is unclean: it is a leprosy.

The priest was to look at the raw flesh in the case described and declare the person unclean, because the raw flesh itself was unclean and was leprosy. The direction belongs to the laws in Leviticus 12-15 regulating uncleanness and cleansing, and specifically to the sanitary instructions concerning leprosy. Those instructions included guidance about contagious or infectious diseases and the precautions they required, even though God declared Himself a healer.

Physical uncleanness had first to be removed and the object made visibly clean, clean in human sight, to prepare it for its real cleansing with blood by which atonement was made and it was reconciled or cleansed. These cleansing laws of Israel served as examples of cleansing truths that believers must not abandon. The Mosaic law of examination and pronouncement still stood at the head of sanitary law, above what up-to-date physicians understood, and its excellence proved that divine inspiration guided Moses.

Observing sanitary law preserved life and prevented disease when rigidly enforced, even where men were thought unable to live. Thus the American colony in the Panama Canal Zone at the high tide of occupancy passed August 1913 without a single death from disease and with only two deaths by accident. Leprosy was a horrible, unclean disease that infected and polluted its victim. It was a fitting type, figure and prefigure of sin as a terrible moral disease embracing every kind of evil thing, even mortal sin.

As an object lesson it emphasized the exceeding sinfulness of sin, its universal reach, and its pollution of the heart and life, from which people needed healing. Like leprosy, sin was incurable by human means and never got well of itself. Like leprosy it spread through contact and was contagious, consumed its victim, and had its chief seat within while also bringing outward shame.

The sinner contaminated the very atmosphere and introduced pollution where all before was comparative purity, and the society of the sinner led others to sin. There was therefore more reason to fear sinful influence than to fear infection from a leper. The picture showed that pride must die, for sin could not be removed while self remained unwilling to be humbled, and conversion meant putting off the old self and putting on the new. Jesus Christ's healing of lepers showed His power to heal this dreadful disease.

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