One of the most striking of the miracles of Jesus is told in the following few words: "And it came to pass when He was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy; who seen Jesus, fell on his face, and besought Him, saying, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. And He put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him." (Luke 5:12-13)
Leprosy was one of the most loathsome diseases known to the ancients, and the one the most dreaded. The leper was an outcast, compelled to keep away from even his own family. The disease was a slow, progressive death, the victim's members dropping off one after another until death ended his misery.
An Illustration of Sin
No other disease more aptly illustrates the defilement of sin; and this man, who was full of leprosy, very closely resembled the description given of the people, by the prophet Isaiah: "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores; they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." (Isaiah 1:5-6)
So as we study the miracle of the cleansing of the leper, we may know that we are to learn how we can obey the direction, "Wash you, make you clean." (Isaiah 1:16)
In the first place, the leper had confidence in the power of the Lord to heal him. He said, "You can make me clean." (Luke 5:12)
That is a great point. Very few really believe that Jesus Christ can cleanse them from sin. They will admit that He can save from sin in general,--that He can save others,--but they are not convinced that He can save them.
The Power of God
Let such learn a lesson from the power of the Lord. Hear what the prophet Jeremiah said by inspiration of the Holy Spirit: "Ah Lord God! behold You have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for You." (Jeremiah 32:17)
He who brought the heavens and the earth into existence by the power of His word, can do all things. "Our God is in the heavens; He has done whatsoever He has pleased." (Psalm 115:3) "His Divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness." (2 Peter 1:3) "He is able also to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him." (Hebrews 7:25)
Christ has been given "power over all flesh." (John 17:2)
The Will of God
So much for His power. Of that the leper was assured; but he was not sure that the Lord was willing to cleanse him. He said, "Lord, if You will, You can make me clean." (Luke 5:12)
We need not have so much hesitancy as that. We know that He can, and He has given us ample assurance of His willingness. Thus we read that: "[Christ] gave himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father." (Galatians 1:4)
It is the will of God that we should be sanctified: "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification." (1 Thessalonians 4:3)
Christ comprises everything. "[He is] the power of God, and the wisdom of God." (1 Corinthians 1:24)
All things in heaven and in earth are in Him. Therefore the Apostle Paul says, "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)
The willingness of God to cleanse us from sin, is shown in the gift of His only begotten Son for that purpose. "These things have I written unto you, that you may know that you have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the boldness which we have toward Him, that, if weask anything according to His will, He hears us; And if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of Him." (1 John 5:13-15,RV)
So we may "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need," (Hebrews 4:16) knowing that "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
The Touch of Jesus
But the most striking feature of this miracle is the fact that Jesus touched the leper. There was not another person in all the land, who would have come within a yard of him. But Jesus "put forth His hand, and touched him." (Luke 5:13)
With that touch the hateful disease vanished. It is worth noting that in very many cases Jesus touched those whom He healed. When Peter's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, "[Jesus] touched her hand, and the fever left her." (Matthew 8:15)
That same evening, "All they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto Him; and He laid His hands on every one of them, and healed them." (Luke 4:40)
In His own country the people were so unbelieving that "He could there do no mighty work, save that He laid His hands on a few sick folk, and healed them." (Mark 6:5)
In Matthew we are assured that this healing of the sick was "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities, and bore our diseases." (Matthew 8:17,RV)
A Sympathizing Saviour
We know that healing went from Him to the suffering ones who thronged round Him to touch Him; (Luke 6:19) and this Scripture assures us that He received into His own person their diseases, in exchange for His healing power. Now we have the blessed assurance that although He is "passed into the heavens," (Hebrews 4:14)
He has not lost His sympathy with us, but is still "touched with the feeling of our infirmities." (Hebrews 4:15)
He comes close to us in pity, because: "He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust." (Psalm 103:14)
In all our sin and degradation, we may have the inspiring thought that Jesus does not despise us, and is not ashamed to come into the closest companionship with us, in order that He may help us. The prophet, speaking of God's dealing with ancient Israel, said, "In all their afflictions He was afflicted." (Isaiah 63:9)
Even so it is now. As an eagle bears her young on her wings, so the Lord puts himself under His people, bearing all our sin and sorrow. He takes it upon himself, and in Him it is lost, by the same process by which at the last: "He will swallow up death in victory." (Isaiah 25:8)
Christ took upon himself the curse, in order that the blessing might come upon us. (Galatians 3:13-14) Although He knew no sin, He was made to be sin for us, "that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21)
He suffered the death to which we were doomed, that we might share His life. And this exchange is made when we come into touch with Him, by confessing that: "Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." (1 John 4:2)
How much we lose by holding Jesus off as a stranger, or by regarding faith in Him as a theory. When we know that He identifies himself with us in our fallen condition, taking upon himself, and from us, our infirmities, how precious becomes the assurance, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." (Matthew 28:20)
The healing of the seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in life's throng and press,
And we are whole again.
--John Greenleaf Whittier, Hymn: Immortal Love, Forever Full.
--Present Truth, March 29, 1894.