2 This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest:

There was a possibility of a leprous man being cured of his malady. What then? Was he to resume his place in the congregation forthwith? Not so: a special process of atonement was provided for his case, as if to mark off with a special sense of reprobation the class of sin signified by leprosy, and to magnify the grace that extends reconciliation to such a class of offenders. It was more elaborate than all other individual atonements, and had some features not to be found in any other.

The Law of Moses Ch 27

3 And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper;

The advantage of such a law as a hygienic protection, is self-manifest, but it is the spiritual significance we are in search of. There are moral lepers and men whose mouths are a fountain of uncleanness -- men comparable only to running sores in the community.

"Avoid them", says Paul: "turn away" -- "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them".

Their company -- their very touch -- is defiling. Men of God may be thrown into contact with them, as the Mosaic type contemplates: but they have a resort for cleansing which is also figured in the type: they bathe themselves in the water of the living word, and wait with a sense of contracted uncleanness till the next day, when sleep and prayer will bring a return of the purity that is native to the mind in which God dwells.

The Law of Moses Ch 27

That leprosy and issue, as distinct from ordinary infirmity,should be treated with a spiritual meaning seems appropriate in view of the infectious and destructive nature of these diseases as compared with ordinary human ailments. Man, as the propagation of Adam's condemned earthy nature, is by nature a mortal and afflicted being: but there are degrees in the afflictedness.

There is such a thing as a healthy mortal, and there is such a thing as a diseased mortal. The law of Moses deals with both — both literally and typically. For the healthy mortal, it prescribes circumcision and sacrifice; for the unhealthy, separation and special treatment. It is the spiritual or typical meaning we are concerned with at present.

We have discerned this in its treatment of the heahhy: the healthy, though mortally healthy, are recognised as "all under sin,' to use Paul's expression (Rom. 3:19), because the descendant of the sinner of Eden, and the individual transgressors of (he divine law, and are therefore held at arm's length, as we might say, unless they humble themselves and confess and approach in the way appointed, and then they are received for blessing and ultimate healing.

Their mere mortality is no bar when the divine conditions of reconciliation are complied with. But here are diseased mortals whose cases not only receive special, treatment physically, but whose connection with special sacrifice appointed,shows they have a special significance typically.

"The distinction is a natural one physically, and it seems a natural one spiritually,for there is a great difference between human frailty by natural constitution,against which a man may be struggling in the way of righteousness; and human wickedness which a man may be following from taste and preference and wilful bent. The one, we may take it, is represented

by healthy human nature under the ordinances of the law, and the other by diseased human nature in the same relation . . ."

The Law of Moses

7 And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy 7 times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field.

Proximately, no doubt, the priest would understand the liberated bird to represent the restored leper. But there was a wider significance to the Mosaic parable which they did not discern. "The body (or substance) is of Christ." Saved sinners are represented by the liberated bird in so far as they are saved in Christ and in Christ alone, who is made "sanctification and redemption" for all who shall at the last be found acceptably in him....

...It points to both birds as referring to Christ (and only to sinners in so far as they afterwards come unto him). Both were clean birds. Cleanness as foreshadowing character could only apply to Christ. Both were the natural denizens of the air, which earth-cleaving man is not, but which might in a sense be affirmable of him who said,

"I am from above .... I came down from heaven to do the will of him that sent me",

This heavenly bird of the air was killed in an earthen vessel--the very flesh and blood of the fallen human race; over running water --that is, in juxtaposition with the Spirit of God, which inhabited him, which begat him, and fashioned him all his life long, as "righteousness, wisdom, sanctification, and redemption" for us "of God".

In the living bird, we have the same kind of bird, and therefore not the type of a sinner, but of the man represented by the first bird in the second phase of his redeeming work: resurrection, proclamation, and intercession. Why should the living bird be dipped in the blood of the dead bird on this view of matters? To represent the truth declared by Paul when he says that

"by his own blood he obtained eternal life.

The Law of Moses Ch 27

8 And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean: and after that he shall come into the camp, and shall tarry abroad out of his tent 7 days.

The process of re-instatement was only half accomplished. For seven days he remained in semi-exile in the midst of the camp.

The Law of Moses Ch 27

9 But it shall be on the 7th day, that he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows, even all his hair he shall shave off: and he shall wash his clothes, also he shall wash his flesh in water, and he shall be clean.

Aaron was forbidden to enter into the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle without being adorned and glorified with garments of splendor and holiness, and therefore styled, "Holy Garments." Nor was he permitted to enter even when habited with these, unless he had been previously baptized, upon pain of death.

The law said, "He shall wash his flesh in water, and so put them on." He was not permitted to officiate as high priest in his ordinary attire. He must "put off" this, and "put on" the Holy Linen Robe; and had he put this on without bathing his flesh in water, and proceeded to officiate, this unbaptized High Priest of Israel would have been struck with death.

When legally invested and arrayed the Aaronic High Priests were "Holiness to Yahweh," and the representatives of the Holy and Just One in his character and priestly office; though oftentimes, as in the case of Caiaphas, by practice unjust and wicked men.

The symbolism relative to the high priest was the "righteousness" to be fulfilled by Jesus before he could enter upon his functions by "the power of an endless life" as High Priest, first over the Household of God, and afterwards over the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

John the baptizer, a greater prophet than Moses (Luke 7:28, ), but not so great as Jesus, preached and administered "the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins."

Jesus came to him to be baptized of this baptism; for as Moses baptized Aaron and his sons, so the greatest of all the prophets was appointed to baptize Jesus and his brethren.

But some may object that Jesus had no sins to be remitted, and had no need of repentance, and was therefore not a fit subject for such a baptism.

It is admitted without reserve, that he had no sins of his own, having never transgressed the law: nevertheless, as the Sin-Bearer of the Abrahamic Covenant through whom it was confirmed (Rom. 15:8), Yahweh made the iniquity of all "the children of that covenant" to meet upon him, that by his bruise they might be healed.—Isa. 53:5, 6.

He was not the Sin-Bearer of every son of Adam that ever lived; but of the true believers from Abel to the Day of Pentecost, and of the obedient believers of the truth constituting his Household, separated by "the obedience of faith," from Pentecost in the year of the crucifixion to his future appearing in Jerusalem; and of the living Twelve Tribes when their transgressions shall be blotted out as a thick cloud at their ingrafting into their own Olive Tree; and of that family of nations of which Abraham is the constituted father when they are made righteous; so that the sins of the whole of that world, which shall dwell upon the earth in the postmillennial eternal ages, and which will all of it have been separated from Adam's race by "the obedience of faith"—will have met upon Him, and been borne away into everlasting oblivion.

This is the world so beloved of God, "that he gave his only begotten son, * * * that through him it might be saved."

Herald of the kingdom and age to come, March 1855

17 The dead praise not Yahweh, neither any that go down into silence.

Walk through a cemetery, for instance, and read the tombstones. There you have a sleeping congregation of people, who have done with life. There are all sorts -- from the grey-haired captain who acquired military or naval honours in various parts of the world, and in the language of Parliamentary compliment, "deserved well of his country," to the unknown pauper who drivelled out his inglorious days in the workhouse.

There are merchants under these sods, who, in their day, had risen to the top of the social scale by their industry and by talents which were highly applauded as their own, and who died in the lap of luxury.

And there are beautiful daughters of rich men, who pined away in the surfeit of luxury, when, perhaps, a fair battle with the rough responsibilities of life might have saved them from an early grave. And there are also strong young men and beautiful children, with whom parents had to part, and whom, too, notwithstanding breaking hearts, they have had to follow into the grave. There they lie a common mass of corruption, "unknowing and unknown," forgotten in the land of the living.

... Everyone would say, it was most reasonable that people who lived for themselves should reap what they had sown. The great majority of the dead lived for mortal life; and they cannot complain that they get and perish for what they worked. All they worked for was to have good things to put into their mouths, fine clothes to put on their backs, and the satisfaction of "respectability" in their day and generation.

They got what they worked for; they had their reward; therefore, what would you bring them forward into the kingdom of God for? The kingdom of God is for those only who seek it first, and work for it in a practical, enthusiastic way, and are considered fools for their pains.

Let us then, brethren, never listen for a moment to those who would hinder in the good fight by recommending what is called "temperance" and "moderation" in the things of Christ. Their exhortations are altogether misplaced, and altogether uncalled for. The tendencies of the sluggish beast of the natural man are sufficiently powerful in that direction to render it quite needless for anyone to exhort us in that line.

We need exhorting the other way. We want continually to be pulled up in the direction of the path which the Captain of our Salvation himself has trodden before us, and in which he is, so to speak, leading us on. We know what sort of path that was. We know he was no "mild" and "moderate" man in the things of God. We know he had no schemes in hand but the one scheme of God's purpose.

We know that he was never found trimming his sails to worldly breezes, or emulating or inculcating worldly principles; he devoted himself solely to the work which the Father gave him, and his relation to the world was one of continued antagonism. Our work, and our attitude, if we are his brethren, will be the same. The work may be different now in its external form, but it is the same work for all that, based upon the same testimonies and the same principles, and aiming at the same end - - the purifying of a peculiar people for the inheritance of the kingdom of God.

Let us not fear to give ourselves to it with all our hearts. We shall not regret it when that day comes to us, or when we shall gasp out the vital energy which keeps us going for the time being. We shall look back with satisfaction on our little course if we are able to say,

"Well, I know my efforts were weak, and I know my shortcomings were many, but I have sought to serve Christ to the extent of my mortal possibilities as circumstances allowed, and although it has been a toilsome career, hard work, and unsatisfactory in some respects, I am glad to look back upon it, and would do as I have done if I have to live it over again."

On the other hand, the men or the women who have merely mild notions of Christ, and who have been devoting themselves to personal aims connected with this mortal life, as the object of their exertions, when they get through their comfortable drive and come to die, will be far other than satisfied with the account they will have to look upon; they will be filled with consternation when they come to present it.

Seasons 1: 32.