The Gospel According to Mildew
Introduction: God of the Grout
We come now to a passage that causes many modern Christians to quietly shuffle their feet. We are talking about mold. Fungus. Leprosy in the drywall. This seems, to our sophisticated minds, to be a matter for a contractor with a spray bottle of bleach, not for the high priest of Israel. We are comfortable with a God who deals in salvation and damnation, in the lofty principles of justice and mercy. But a God who has strong opinions about the state of your plaster? A God who legislates about greenish streaks in the mortar? This can feel a bit mundane, a bit earthy, a bit strange.
But this is precisely the point. Our God is the God of the grout. He is the Lord of the laundry pile and the King of the kitchen. The great error of the modern world, an error that has seeped into the church like damp rot, is Gnosticism. It is the idea that God is concerned only with the "spiritual" realm of souls and ideas, while the material world of dirt, bodies, and houses is either irrelevant or evil. The Bible utterly repudiates this. The God who created the heavens and the earth is interested in the heavens and the earth. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And here, in the heart of the Levitical code, God demonstrates that His holiness, His standards for purity and order, extend to the very stones of our homes.
This passage is not fundamentally about mildew. It is about the insidious, pervasive, and corrupting nature of sin. Sin is a spiritual leprosy. It does not just infect a soul; it works its way into the very structures of our lives. It infects our families, our churches, our communities, our nations. These are all "houses" in the biblical sense. And God is teaching His people, in this graphic, architectural parable, how to identify corruption, how to deal with it radically, and how to find cleansing and atonement through a bloody sacrifice.
The Text
Yahweh further spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying: "When you enter the land of Canaan, which I am giving you for a possession, and I put a mark of leprosy on a house in the land of your possession, then the one who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, ‘Something like a mark of leprosy has become visible to me in the house.’ The priest shall then command that they empty the house before the priest goes in to look at the mark, so that everything in thehouse need not become unclean; and afterward the priest shall go in to look at the house. So he shall look at the mark, and if the mark on the walls of the house has greenish or reddish depressions and appears deeper than the surface of the wall, then the priest shall come out of the house, to the doorway, and put the house under isolation for seven days. And the priest shall return on the seventh day and look again. If the mark has indeed spread in the walls of the house, then the priest shall command them to tear out the stones with the mark in them and throw them away at an unclean place outside the city. And he shall have the house scraped all around inside, and they shall pour out the plaster that they scrape off at an unclean place outside the city. Then they shall take other stones and replace those stones, and he shall take other plaster and replaster the house.
"If, however, the mark breaks out again in the house after he has torn out the stones and scraped the house, and after it has been replastered, then the priest shall come in and look again. If he sees that the mark has indeed spread in the house, it is a leprous malignancy in the house; it is unclean. He shall therefore tear down the house, its stones and its timbers and all the plaster of the house, and he shall take them outside the city to an unclean place. Moreover, whoever goes into the house during the time that he has put it under isolation becomes unclean until evening. Likewise, whoever lies down in the house shall wash his clothes, and whoever eats in thehouse shall wash his clothes.
"If, on the other hand, the priest comes in and looks again, and the mark has not indeed spread in the house after the house has been replastered, then the priest shall pronounce the house clean because the mark has not reappeared. To cleanse the house then, he shall take two birds and cedar wood and a scarlet string and hyssop, and he shall slaughter the one bird in an earthenware vessel over running water. Then he shall take the cedar wood and the hyssop and the scarlet string, with the live bird, and he shall dip them in the blood of the slaughtered bird as well as in the running water, and he shall sprinkle the house seven times. He shall thus cleanse the house with the blood of the bird and with the running water, along with the live bird and with the cedar wood and with the hyssop and with the scarlet string. However, he shall let the live bird go free outside the city into the open field. So he shall make atonement for the house, and it will be clean."
This is the law for any mark of leprosy, even for a scale, and for the leprous garment or house, and for a swelling and for a scab and for a bright spot, to instruct when they are unclean and when they are clean. This is the law of leprosy.
(Leviticus 14:33-57 LSB)
Sovereign Contamination and Gracious Inspection (vv. 33-38)
The first thing we must notice is who is ultimately responsible for this domestic crisis. God says, "I put a mark of leprosy on a house." This is not an accident. This is not bad luck. This is a providential act of God. Just as God claims sovereignty over disaster in Amos 3:6, "If a calamity occurs in a city has not Yahweh done it?", so too He claims sovereignty over the fungus in the walls. This is a trial from God, a test, a form of fatherly chastisement designed to get the homeowner's attention.
The homeowner's duty is not to get out the paint or the putty. His first duty is to confess. He must go to the priest and say, "Something like a mark of leprosy has become visible to me." He does not self-diagnose. He reports what he sees to the appointed authority. This is the first step of repentance: honest confession to the one God has authorized to deal with the problem. We cannot deal with the sin in our lives or our homes by covering it up. It must be brought into the light and submitted to the judgment of God's Word, ministered by His church.
And notice the grace in the procedure. Before the priest even inspects the house, he orders it to be emptied. Why? "So that everything in the house need not become unclean." God is not eager to condemn. He is not looking for an excuse to throw all your furniture on the burn pile. He graciously provides a way to contain the damage. This is common grace. He makes a distinction between the house and its contents, between the sinner and all his relations and possessions. He is a God who seeks to save, not to destroy.
Radical Surgery (vv. 39-42)
If, after a seven-day quarantine, the priest determines the mark is spreading, the response is not cosmetic. It is surgical. "The priest shall command them to tear out the stones with the mark in them and throw them away at an unclean place outside the city."
This is a picture of true repentance. Sin is not to be managed. It is not to be painted over. It is to be mortified. It must be torn out by the roots. Jesus uses this same kind of violent, surgical language in the Sermon on the Mount. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. He is not speaking literally, but He is speaking seriously. You must be ruthless with the sources of sin in your life. That infected stone, that habit, that relationship, that subscription, that secret indulgence, must be torn out and cast away "outside the city," away from the holy community.
But the work is not done. The surrounding wall must be scraped, and new stones and new plaster must be applied. This is the other half of repentance. It is not enough to stop doing evil; you must learn to do good. You put off the old man, and you put on the new. You tear out the stone of bitterness and replace it with the stone of forgiveness. You scrape away the plaster of deceit and replaster with the truth. Repentance is demolition and reconstruction.
The Incorrigible House (vv. 43-47)
But what if the surgery fails? What if, after all this work, the leprosy breaks out again? The text is clear: "it is a leprous malignancy in the house; it is unclean." The corruption is not superficial; it is structural. It is in the very foundation. At this point, there is no remedy but total demolition.
The entire house, stones, timbers, plaster, everything, must be torn down and hauled to an unclean place. This is a terrifying picture of final judgment. It is a picture of a person, or a church, or a nation that is given over to a reprobate mind. After many warnings, after much gracious surgery, they persist in their corruption. The entire structure is condemned. This is what God did to the Canaanite cultures that inhabited the land before Israel. Their houses were full of leprous malignancy, and God commanded them to be torn down completely.
And the contagion is highlighted. Anyone who even enters the quarantined house becomes unclean. Sin is never a private affair. A corrupt house defiles all who enter it. A corrupt church poisons its members. A corrupt father infects his family. We must take the spreading nature of sin with the utmost seriousness.
Atonement and Resurrection (vv. 48-53)
But the passage ends with grace. If the house is healed after the surgery, it is not enough for it to be merely free of mildew. It must be declared clean through a sacrifice. Atonement must be made for the house.
And here we have the gospel in miniature. Two birds are taken. One is slaughtered in a clay pot over running water. This is Christ in His humiliation. He is the bird, killed in an earthen vessel, His human body. The running water, or "living water," speaks of the life-giving Spirit. His blood is shed for the cleansing of the house.
Then the living bird, along with cedar wood for incorruptibility, scarlet yarn for the color of blood, and hyssop for purification, is dipped into the blood of the slain bird. This living bird, now marked by the blood of another, is then set free to fly away into the open field. This is Christ in His exaltation. He was delivered over to death for our sins (the slain bird), and He was raised to life for our justification (the living bird, flying free). His resurrection is the public declaration that the atonement was successful, the price was paid, and the house is now truly clean.
The priest then sprinkles the house seven times. Seven is the number of perfection, of covenant completion. The blood is applied, and the house is restored to fellowship. God does not just fix the problem; He makes atonement for it and brings it back into a right relationship with Himself.
Conclusion: Your Heart, His Home
This law is for us. Your heart is a house. Your family is a house. This church is a house. God has given them to you as a possession. And because of our sin, they are all susceptible to the leprosy of corruption.
The call to us is clear. First, be vigilant. Do not ignore the first signs of spiritual decay, the greenish tinge of envy, the reddish blotch of anger. Second, be honest. When you see it, do not hide it. Go to your great High Priest, the Lord Jesus, in confession. Bring it to the elders of the church if need be. Do not try to fix it yourself.
Third, be radical. Submit to His surgery. Let Him tear out the compromised stones and scrape away the defiled plaster, no matter how painful. And fourth, rejoice in the atonement. Your house is not made clean by renovation alone, but by the blood of the slain bird and the flight of the living one. Your cleansing was purchased at Calvary and declared at the empty tomb. Because of the blood of Jesus Christ, God does not just repair you; He makes atonement for you, He declares you clean, and He comes to dwell within you.