THROUGH THE BIBLE - Leviticu..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Leviticus chapter 15. This is the words of God.

The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean. And this is the law of his uncleanness for a discharge. Whether his body runs with his discharge or his body is blocked up by his discharge, it is his uncleanness. Every bed on which the one with discharge lies shall be unclean, and everything on which he sits shall be unclean. And anyone who touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.

And whoever sits on anything on which the one with the discharge has sat, shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. And whoever touches the body of the one with the discharge, shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. And if the one with the discharge spits on someone who is clean, then he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. And any saddle on which the one with the discharge rides shall be unclean. And whoever touches anything that was under him shall be unclean until the evening.

And whoever carries such things shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. Anyone whom the one with the discharge touches without having rinsed his hands in water shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. And an earthenware vessel that the one with the discharge touches shall be broken, and every vessel of wood shall be rinsed in water. And when the one without discharge is cleansed of his discharge, then he shall count for himself seven days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes. And he shall bathe his body in fresh water, and shall be clean.

And on the eighth day he shall take two turtle doves, or two pigeons, and come before the Lord, to the entrance of the tent of meeting, and give them to the priest. And the priest shall use them, one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and for his discharge. Verse 16. If a man has an emission of semen, he shall bathe his whole body in water and be unclean until the evening.

And every garment and every skin on which the semen comes shall be washed with water and be unclean until the evening. If a man lies with a woman and has an emission of semen, both of them shall bathe themselves in water and be unclean until the evening. When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge is in her body's blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. And everything on which she lies during her menstrual impurity shall be unclean. Everything also on which she sits shall be unclean.

And whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. And whoever touches anything on which she sits shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. Whether it is the bed, or anything on which she sits, when he touches it, he shall be unclean until the evening. And if any man lies with her, and her menstrual impurity comes upon him, he shall be unclean seven days. And every bed on which he lies shall be unclean.

Verse 25 If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness. As in the days of her impurity she shall be unclean, every bed on which she lies, all the days of her discharge, shall be to her as the bed of her impurity, and everything on which she sits shall be unclean, as in the uncleanness of her menstrual impurity. And whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. But if she is cleansed of her discharge, she shall count for herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean. And on the eighth day she shall take two turtle doves, or two pigeons, and bring them to the priest, to the entrance of the tent of meeting.

And the priest shall use one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her before the Lord for her unclean discharge. Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst. This is the law for him who has a discharge, and for him who has an emission of semen, becoming unclean thereby. Also for her who is unwell with her menstrual impurity, that is, for anyone, male or female, who has a discharge, and for the man who lies with a woman, who is.

unclean. And this is the perfect, glorious word of our Lord, our Savior, our Redeemer. Very good, brothers and sisters, we are arriving to this very important chapter, chapter 15. This is, as I've said before, this is going to be the end of this section of purity. that is started in chapter 11.

So we have chapter 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15, and everything that we have studied in those chapters, beloved of Christ, everything is about these laws, these regulations of purity, ceremonial purity for the people of Israel. Now, there's going to be lots of details here in this chapter 15, so I require much of your attention, so I will be able to structure the chapter, and then by God's grace and the Spirit of God point you to Christ. Now, brothers and sisters, this section from chapter 11 to chapter 15 of these laws of purity, remember that the main purpose of it was to show the people of Israel, the covenant members of the people of Israel, that they needed to be ceremonially clean or ceremonially fit to be presented into the tabernacle and then just to perform the different ceremonies according to the priestly system. So that means that being fit does not necessarily mean to be a sinner, to be a sinful person, but simply that person is fit for the ceremonies that the Lord has given to the people of Israel. So this whole process of these laws of purity would have pointed the people of Israel to the truth, to the necessary truth of the holiness of the God of Israel, as we have said it many times.

This is the perfect preface, or this is the perfect introduction to chapter 16, which, by God's grace and Lord willing, our brother is going to be explaining to us next week, in which we're going to have the Day of Atonement, which will be, in a sense, like the major, the big purification of the people of Israel which will take place once per year and will be a purification of everything including the tabernacle in the covenant people of Israel. So this is this whole section here. Now we are finishing now this section of purity in this chapter 15 and now we are going to have this loss of purification for bodily discharges. That's at least the word that you have in English or in the English Standard Version for these bodily discharges, discharges that come from the body. And when I say bodily discharges, when we have these bodily discharges here in chapter 15, these are emissions of the body, but more specifically, these are discharges from human genitalia.

So that is from the genitals of male and the genitals of the woman. discharges from the genitals of all the covenant members who were both men and women. Bodily discharges that comes from their genitals. Now, we are going to have in this chapter 15, now pay attention to this, brothers and sisters, just so you have clear the structure of these bodily discharges or these bodily emissions that were both for men and for women. we have two types of discharges that you will see them if as we read and as we went through the through the chapter you can even after this study that we're doing here you can review the chapter and with with the audio you can see the structure of this chapter we have two different types okay so we have on one side we have those bodily discharges that were for both women and men that were natural That means that they were according or in alignment to the natural design of the body that God had created.

So we had natural discharges for the men and we have natural discharges for the women. And these natural discharges for the men were just simply natural emissions of semen. of the seed of the men. These were natural emissions or natural discharges of that. And also for the woman, the natural emissions or these natural discharges would be the menstruation, the monthly menstruation of the woman.

That would be a discharge that was natural in nature. I call it natural because it is according to nature, according to the design of God. Now, the other ones, I call them unnatural. And I call them unnatural because it is outside of the alignment of nature. That it is that both men and women could have had unnatural discharges that would have caused primarily by ITCs.

So that means that the men would have had unnatural emissions from his genitals that would have gone for a long period of time. And because they went for a long period of time, that was unnatural. And on the same line of thought, for the woman, she also could have unnatural discharges or unnatural emissions. And these would be unnatural emissions of blood from her genitals due to a disease that would have gone for long period of time, or the Bible says for many days. Okay, so have that in your mind.

This chapter is speaking about these bodily discharges, or these bodily emissions, both for men and women, and those could be natural or unnatural. When we speak about natural discharges, or natural emissions, this is the semen for the men, or the menstruation for the women, and then on the unnatural side, we have just simply diseases that will be emissions or discharges from the genitals of both. men and women, and those will go for many days. This is the important thing that we need to have in our mind. Now, what are the important things that we need to understand from this chapter?

Before I go into the teaching of this chapter, okay? Pay attention to this because this is going to build one upon the other, beloved of Christ. So the first thing that I want you to pay your attention to from the chapter that we have just read is that both natural and unnatural bodily discharges make a person unclean. It doesn't matter that it's natural or unnatural according to the definition that I have given you. both of them make the person unclean.

That is, that natural and unnatural discharges for men and women make them unfit for the ceremonies of the tabernacle, namely, in the vocabulary of Leviticus, they are made unclean. But now, when we go into a little bit more detail, when it comes to the uncleanness that is due to natural discharges, natural discharges, the uncleanness that is the result of either the emissions of semen for the men, the natural, normal emissions of semen for the men, or the emissions of blood in the menstruation for the woman, these are the natural discharges of the body. When the uncleanness is the result of that, the way that the person made themselves clean is just by simply washing with water. So there's no sacrifice involved, there's no priest involved, this is just the way that the natural discharges that make a person unclean will be solved if you want, will be made clean, just simply by washing with water, okay? That's the way that these ones, natural ones, will be made clean.

Now, on the other hand, beloved of Christ, when it comes to the unnatural ones, and I hope that you understand what I mean by unnatural, the unnatural now bodily discharges both for men and women, because these ones were caused by a disease, right? Something that was not natural to the nature of men and women, this would have gone for many days. So for the person to be made clean, two things had to happen. And these two things are the same two things that I explained to you for the lepers. Remember last week that I said to you that for the leper to be made clean, two things had to happen.

The first one was miraculous. It was the intervention of God, healing that person. And then once God had intervened in healing that person, because there was, you know, no treatments or things like that. Then, the next step was just to follow the ceremonies of the tabernacle to be made ceremonially clean. Exactly the same thing happened for this unnatural, or the uncleanness better, that is the result of unnatural discharges.

So remember, these unnatural discharges would have been emissions from the genitals of the men that would have gone for long periods of time, contrary to that which is natural. And in the case of the woman would have been just emission of blood from her genitals that would have gone for many days. So they are made unclean, and in order to be made clean, first of all, they need to be healed. You can see that in verses 13, for instance, if you pay attention quickly there to verse 13, it says, speaking of the unnatural discharge of the men, in verse 13 it says, and when the one with a discharge is cleansed, And when the man, when the person in verse 13, and when the one with the discharge is cleansed, in other words, when the man is healed from this unnatural discharge, then he would follow the priestly ceremony so that he could become clean. And in the case of the woman, if you go to verse 28, again, we have the same vocabulary.

Verse 28, it says, but if she is cleansed of her discharge, speaking of the unnatural discharge, then she can follow the ceremony. So those two things would have to happen for the person that was made unclean due to this unnatural discharge. And then once the person was healed, let's say, or was made cleansed, from the unnatural discharge, then the person, man or woman, would have followed the ceremony, which was very similar for both of them. Both of them needed to count seven days. Now, once they were healed, let's say, or cleansed, they needed to count seven days.

In the case of the man, he was to wash himself with living water, And then on the eighth day, both men and women, they would have presented themselves to the priest and they would have brought two turtle doves or two pigeons and would have offered one for a sin offering and the other one for a burnt offering. So that's how the person, the man or woman, that was unclean, because of unnatural bodily discharges would have made unclean. First of all, divine intervention, healing that person, and then second of all, following the ceremony. So that's why sometimes, you know, like people that study this chapter, they will have different opinions about if people with bodily discharges would have been taken outside of the camp or not. And this is because in Ambrose chapter 5, the introduction says, includes people who are not clean according to bodily discharges that they are to be taken out of the camp.

I would say that, according to my understanding, that people who were unclean from unnatural discharges would have been the people that would have been taken outside of the camp. But that's not quite relevant to what we are going to point here. The important thing here is that, first of all, both of natural and unnatural discharges would have made the person unclean, and that natural uncleanness, if you want, or natural discharges that produce uncleanness was treated differently to the way that that uncleanness that was the result of unnatural discharges would have been treated. Unnatural discharges required intervention, healing, and then following the sacrificial system. well, the ceremonial system better.

In this case, offering two sacrifices. Now, the other thing that I want to point your attention to, that we have just read the Beloved of Christ, is that both of them, the uncleanness that was due to bodily discharges was very contagious. I don't know if you picked all of the things there, but any object or any other people that they would have touched, they would have become unclean. And this other person or this other object would have needed to be washed so that they could be restored to be clean. So that means that these bodily discharges made a person not only unfit for the ceremonies of the tabernacle, not only made them unclean, but also very contagious, if that is a word that I could use in English.

to speak about this uncleanness. You know, that you can transfer better, perhaps, is a better word. You could transfer the uncleanness onto objects and to other people, that if you touch, if you see it, if you... whatever, all of these things, then you would have transferred the uncleanness. Okay?

This is the structure of the chapter and this is perhaps what you need to remember intellectually speaking from chapter 15 and the things that we have just said. But now, Beloved of Christ, let me just point, not your minds, but your hearts, to what I think is going to be the spirit of this law that is given here. Remember that the law was fulfilled by Christ. The ceremonial law was fulfilled completely by Christ. And there's no need of any of these ceremonies that were given to the people of Israel.

But the fact that Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law does not mean that He came to eliminate the law. Actually, the law is now fulfilled in Christ, and the substantial spiritual power of the law is that what carries on unto the New Testament, and that is what benefits us as Christians. And the substantial spiritual value of the law is not only typological to Christ, it is also the heart of the righteousness of God, which we need to see. Like, I could make a whole case just by Paul and Peter and the apostles about that. But now, let me just point not only your mind from the data that I have given you, but brothers and sisters, now your hearts, okay?

What is this chapter 15 teaching us? We have spoken about these bodily discharges, natural and unnatural, different processes for natural and unnatural to be made clean. What can we see? Now, let me just present these in building arguments, one on top of the other, so we can see what I think the Lord has for us. Brothers and sisters, first of all, I just want you to see the simple fact.

Glorious fact. It's a glorious fact, but now because of Satan and his demons and the schemes of Satan in this world, it's something that is attack. But I want you to simply see that the law of God made clear distinctions of gender. The law of God made clear distinctions of gender for male and female. So that means that when it comes to gender, as we all know by God's grace, humans can be only male or female.

There's no other gender. Okay? So it's a clear thing that we can see that is of course rooted in creation. So that means that the totality or the completeness of the population, not only of the world, but in this case of the people of Israel, the covenant people of Israel, were only male and female, and you can see those distinctions when it comes about this particular loss of purity. But now, let me just add on to that.

If everyone, so that means that everyone is either male or female, and that means that that for a person to be fit for the ceremonies of the tabernacle, that person did not need to have or could not have a bodily discharge, either natural or unnatural. And this is something that I need to quote, something that our brother explained or taught us in Leviticus chapter 12. When he was speaking about childbirth, he taught us that this concept of cleanliness, brothers and sisters, it is more than only fitness, but it speaks about wholeness, about being complete. So that means that this bodily discharge is either natural or unnatural. It doesn't matter if it's natural or unnatural.

they will make a person unwhole before God, uncomplete before God, independently that it is male or female. Now, this should create a little bit of a concern in the mind of the flesh, because one person would say, How come, if it's natural, if it's something that is being created and designed by God, if it's something that God instituted in creation, how come something that God has instituted, the emission of semen for the men and the discharges of blood in menstruation for the women, which are naturally bodily discharges, how come can that make a person unwhole or unfit when it comes to the ceremonies of the tabernacle. You see, I think that that's the whole point of what the law is trying to point here. This is the whole point. And now I'm lacking of words and thoughts to explain this very well, so try to be with me here, brothers and sisters.

Every single person in Israel, either woman, or men, would have known that it did not depend on themselves, or their works, or their deeds, or the keeping of the law, to keep themselves completely whole and complete for the entirety of their lives before the Lord. They would have known that even by nature, male and female, is never completely whole or completely fit during their lives, the duration of their lives, to be presented before the Lord. They would have always seen in themselves how, even through natural or either unnatural, which of Both of them, they did not have control on, because, you know, you don't control when you get sick or when there is a disease. You don't have power to control those things. They would have known that just by virtue of who they were before God, this holy and perfect God, they were not whole and complete.

This would have pointed them to the deficiency or how they were falling short from the standard of God that God required. And this, I think, brothers and sisters, this is what this law is trying to do. This law, not only here in chapter 15, but also in the book of Leviticus, is trying to point not only to the holiness of God, but also pointing to the people of Israel of how they fall short from the standard of God, how they fall short from the perfections of God, how they fall short from the glory of God. So we have here that this law is bringing this remembering to their minds that Even when something natural comes in your body, then you are not whole or complete to present yourselves before the ceremony. So I want you to see here how the law would have been pointing to the person their natural condition of I'm falling short from the standard of perfection of God.

And this would have been very interesting, brothers and sisters, because the person would have been convicted by the law. There was no other way for the covenant member of Israel to know that the natural bodily discharges would have been reasons for them to be unfit before the presence of the Lord. for them would have been just simply natural things that corresponded to their nature and they would have seen it as okay. But when the law came, when the law was given to them, they were made aware that even in who they are, just by nature of who they are, they fall short from the standard of wholeness or completeness. But this is not the whole thing, because this law would have not only taught them and showed them that this was the reality, that they fall short from the standard of perfection that was needed for them to present before the Lord, but the law would have also convicted them to do something.

I don't know if you thought about it, but these bodily discharges are things that happen in the secret place. It was very difficult for other people, for others, to know when a person would have had a bodily discharge, a bodily discharge, either natural or unnatural. It was impossible for others to know, because that happened in the secret parts, in the intimate parts of both men and women. So that means that the conviction of the law would have The role was simply just to bring to the conscience of the person the fact that just by this thing that is going on and it's happening to them, they needed to make this scene public, not public, but at least say not clean due to this particular thing. Very different to what happened with the leper, because the leper, you know, you would have you would have been able to either to see that a person was a leper or that there was a case of leprosy.

And also when the person was pronounced to be unclean, that person needed to to scream and to say, I am unclean, I am unclean. But when it came to bodily discharges, then the conscience of the person was pierced by the commandment given to Moses and to Aaron. And the following of the law, or the following of the procedures of the law would have been left to the person knowing that the law of the Lord demanded that this person would have made a clean, either if it was natural or unnatural. I hope that you see that because If a person, either man or woman, was made unclean due to any of these ones, even if it's natural, man or woman, then they would have, out of their conscience, out of their heart, followed the procedures, if it was for natural discharges or if it was for unnatural discharges. And also, this would have given them, brothers and sisters, this sense, not only of the holiness of God, but also this sense of the holiness of the dwelling place of God.

If they just simply didn't say anything, and if they were going to hide these bodily discharges and not do anything about it, and they would just simply go outside and touch people and things, they would have known through the law that they were spreading uncleanness through the camp and through other people. So this would have given them this sense of the holiness of God, but also the holiness of the dwelling place of God, and the importance of the holiness of other Israelites, of other members of the covenant. That the holiness of God was something precious, not only in the tabernacle, but in the whole camp. And all of that would have been done through the convicting power of the law of the Lord. And I think this is what is pointed to Christ.

Because brothers and sisters, when a person, when a person is convicted by the law, when a person is convicted by the law, and of course, you know that Paul and Peter in the New Testament, they speak that the role of the law is to convince of sin, is to bring the condemnation, is to bring that you have broken the law. This is the role of the law. So in that sense, the law is a servant of the gospel. Because without pointing to the breaking of the commandment of the law, then the good news of salvation sometimes are covered with the self-righteousness of people. So once the law has brought this conviction to the heart and to the mind of the person, then they would have to follow the processes given in the law, not so much with the purpose of being cleansed, but rather with the purpose of being restored to a relationship with the Lord God of Israel.

Brothers and sisters, the law can have three destinations, as I was thinking about this when I was preparing just a couple of hours ago. The law of God can have three destinations. Once the law is presented to a person, that person can be either hardened by the law and not pay attention to the conviction that the law is bringing to that person and just simply continue in the unrighteousness, continue in the state of uncleanness, continue in the state of hardening. The law is bringing conviction and then just hardening and hardening and hardening. to a point that in Romans 1 says that people like this are given over to their sins and their immorality and their wickedness and unrighteousness.

That would be kind of like the Israelite in the camp who would have just hidden the fact that he was or she was unclean. The Lord would have not allowed that, by the way, but that would be that case. But the other case is the person that once he or she is convicted by the law, does not harden his or her heart, but rather pay attention to the law. But when they act, they act only about the law. So they want to do everything that the law says, so that they will make things right.

And they follow the stipulations of the law, and then they love the law, and they become righteous according to the law. They do not pay attention much to the Giver of the Law and the requirements of the Giver of the Law, but rather they just simply pay attention to the Law and they want to be Law Followers, Law Fulfillers, and they become self-righteous. They are under the righteousness of the Law. But then there is another type of people, brothers and sisters, that when the Spirit and the Law brings conviction of sin, they see that they have fallen short of the glory of God and the standard of God. Not so much of the standard of the Law, but rather through the standard of the Law they cannot access and enter the presence of God.

So, once they have been convicted by the Law, they want to fulfill or follow the requirements of the Law. Not so much for the Law itself but rather because of the giver of the law and these people will come to the source of the law by faith they will come by faith knowing that they approach the law there will be no condemnation on them not because of what they can do but rather because the one who gives the law has promised and given this as ways for them to be restored. This is the destination of the law. It could be self-righteousness, or it could be the hardening of the heart, but it could be Christ. And I think this is the example of the woman.

Perhaps you had this story from the very beginning when you started to read this chapter. The woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years, as we read it in the Gospels, that this woman, she had attempted everything to be cleansed from this disease. She had an unnatural bodily discharge for 12 years. She was unfit to be ceremonially presented to the priest. She was ceremonially unfit to be in the tabernacle 12 years of her life.

But she had heard that this Jesus Christ had the power of God to make a person whole, to clean a person. So by faith, she comes into the crowd of many people that were around the Lord. And then she tries to reach the Lord Jesus Christ. And only she knows that if I touch him, I'm going to be made clean." And by faith, this woman comes to the source of the law, the Lord Jesus Christ, and touched him.

And the Lord Jesus Christ, being God himself, knew that someone had touched him and that virtue and power had come out of him. So he asked, who touched me? And his disciples said, look, Lord, there are so many people around you that are touching you. But the woman knew what the Lord was asking. She knew that he was asking who touched me because power has come out of me.

And then she comes in fear, trembling before the Lord and says, I touch you. The Lord Jesus Christ does not answer with a command, but answers with salvation. Your faith has made you clean. Your faith has made you clean. This woman, knowing that under the law had been despised and being condemned as unwhole, this woman now, by faith, came to the lawgiver, the source of the law, to find life and fulfillment of the law.

The law was a servant to this woman. All of these 12 years in which she was excluded from the ceremonial system would have been, after she saw Christ, a blessing because the law and the convicting power of the law and what the law did on her was now bringing her to the final destination of the law, the good destination, the resting place of Christ. Brothers and sisters, that many more sinners are on death, when they are convicted by the law, and when they are shown that even naturally they are unwhole, that they have fallen short of the glory and the standard of God, that once the law convicts them of their sin, that they might not run, to the mountain of self-righteousness, or that they might not run to the mountain of hardening their heart, but rather that they might run to the tabernacle where Christ abides, where He comes and says, I wish, and I will touch you, and I will make you clean. And my touching does not make me unclean, because I am the one that is above the law. I'm the law giver.

so that when they come, sinners come to the Savior, they are not only made healed and clean, but they are forgiven of their sins, because the path of the law has taken them to the celestial city where Jesus Christ dwells, and now they can dwell with Him, not only for that time in which they touched Him, but for eternity. That this is the glory of the Gospel, and this is the glory of salvation, brothers and sisters. Amen.