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The flesh and the world are the two great sources of spiritual defilement, and nothing
but the cross of Christ can deliver the believer from their contamination:--
"They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh" (Gal. 5: 24).
"The world is crucified unto me" (Gal. 6: 14).
By nature we are all defiled and unclean. "In the flesh . . . . . and in the world" is the
centre and circumference of the natural man (Eph. 2: 11, 12). The combination of cedar
and hyssop makes one think of I Kings 4: 33, where the whole range of the vegetable
kingdom seems comprehended in the words: "He spake of trees, from the cedar tree that
is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall." Scarlet is what we
know as cochineal, and the combination may indicate the world and the flesh, the
contaminating agents, being placed under the power of the death and resurrection of
Christ. However this may be, the great feature of this offering is found in the two birds.
It is not often that we have, in one offering, so vivid a picture of both the death and
resurrection of Christ as we have here. One of the birds was taken and killed in an
earthen vessel over running water (the same word as "living" in verse 6), and then the
living bird, together with the cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop, were dipped into the blood
of the bird that was killed: the leper was then sprinkled seven times, and the living bird
let loose into the open field.
The two aspects of cleansing.
As a result of this, the man is "pronounced clean". Here is the initial cleansing. All
this while the leper has done nothing. He is brought to the priest. The priest goes out of
the camp to inspect him. The priest commands to take for the leper the two birds. The
priest kills the one bird, the priest dips the bird, the priest sprinkles the leper, the priest
pronounces him clean. But immediately following this extremely passive attitude comes
one of personal activity:--
"He shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that
he may be clean" (Lev. 14: 8).
"That he may be clean." What does that mean? He had been pronounced clean
already, yet upon his own washing and shaving the words are added, "that he may be
clean". The same idiom and the same explanation are found elsewhere:--
"Love your enemies . . . . . that ye may be the children of your Father" (Matt. 5: 45).
Does any one understand this to mean, that a man may bring about his own
regeneration by loving his enemies? No, it is understood to mean "that ye may be
manifestly the children of your Father". The lesson is this. First our cleansing is entirely
the work of God in applying to our need the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Then when this is done, and we are "pronounced" clean, the newly awakened
soul begins to stir itself, that it may be in act, what it is in fact. This is set forth by
the washing of the clothing--the habits, and the flesh--by our own act, and the shaving