Under the Law: Jesus and the Unclean

Just outside Warwick there's an old leper hospital, dating from 1275. Between 1050 and 1450, leprosy was common enough that England had over 300 of them.

It's a cruel disease. It can take anywhere from a few months up to twenty years or more to show itself - often starting as nothing more than a small white patch, or numbness in the fingers or toes. From there it spreads across the body, attacking skin and nerves, sometimes causing blindness and deformity, and eventually death. It spreads through coughing and sneezing, though it takes prolonged, repeated exposure to catch. By around 1600 it had died out of most of Europe. Worldwide, though, there are still roughly 200,000 new cases a year, concentrated mostly in India, Brazil, and Indonesia.

The most-mentioned disease in the Bible

Leprosy appears more than any other illness in Scripture, and the Law was strict about it. Anyone with it had to live outside the camp, apart from everyone else, and call out a warning if people came near (Leviticus 13:45–46).

That was still in force in Jesus' day.

In Luke 17, Jesus heals ten lepers who call out to him from a distance, then sends them to the priests - the only people with authority to diagnose leprosy, and to run the cleansing ritual afterwards: two birds, one killed, one released; on the eighth day, a lamb sacrificed.

The man who broke the rules to reach Jesus

In Luke 5:12–13, a leper pushes through a crowd to get to Jesus - breaking the law just by leaving the leper colony, and having to call out a warning as the crowd pulls back. He says: 'Lord, if you're willing, you can make me clean.'

Healing wasn't enough on its own - he needed restoring, back into community and worship. Jesus doesn't hesitate. He reaches out and touches him: "I'm willing. Be clean."

He's healed instantly, then sent to the priest - though interestingly, the Old Testament never records anyone recovering from leprosy naturally. Miriam was healed by God, Naaman by Elisha. Perhaps no priest had ever actually had to declare a leper clean. This man walked into the temple whole.

Two more who were unclean

In Luke 8, Jesus is heading to heal Jairus's dying daughter when a woman who's suffered twelve years of bleeding - also unclean under the Law (Leviticus 15:25) - touches his coat from behind. The bleeding stops instantly; Jesus feels power leave him and asks who touched him. She could stay silent and risk the healing reversing, or confess and risk the crowd's anger. She tells the truth. Jesus tells her that her faith has made her well.

Then word comes that Jairus's daughter has died. Jesus tells him not to be afraid. He reaches the house, takes her hand, and she's restored to life - though touching a corpse should have made him unclean too (Numbers 19:11).

What these three have in common

The leper, the woman, and the dead girl were all unclean by the Law (Numbers 5:2) - and touching any of them should have made Jesus unclean. He touched all three anyway. Matthew 8:17 says he carried our weaknesses and took on our sicknesses. He reversed the Law: instead of becoming unclean by contact, he made them clean. He took their uncleanness onto himself.

What this means for us

We don't have leprosy, but we're unclean too, under a death sentence from our sinful nature. The parallels run deep: both start small, both are progressive, both can affect anyone, both cut us off from God.

Cleansing required a priest - Jesus is ours. It required blood and a male lamb - and John calls Jesus 'the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world' (John 1:29).

Matthew 8:17 is drawing on Isaiah 53, which describes one who carried our suffering and pain, was wounded because of our wrongdoing, and by whose wounds we are healed.

Jesus was willing to die on the cross, so that we could have life.