The Contagion of Sin and the Grammar of Grace Text: Leviticus 15:1-12
Introduction: Our Awkward God
We live in an age that is simultaneously obsessed with and terrified of the human body. On the one hand, our culture worships the body, flaunting it, indulging it, and deifying its appetites. On the other hand, it is deeply embarrassed by the body's realities: sickness, decay, aging, and, as we see in our text, its various discharges. Modern man wants a sanitized spirituality, a religion of the head and the heart that never has to deal with the messy, biological facts of our creatureliness. He wants a God who is respectable, who talks about lofty principles but who would never bring up something so indelicate as a bodily fluid in His holy law.
But the God of the Bible is not a tidy, abstract philosopher. He is the Creator of heaven and earth, and that includes our bodies, with all their functions and frailties. The book of Leviticus, and this chapter in particular, is a profound offense to our modern sensibilities. It is earthy. It is clinical. It is, to our delicate ears, awkward. And that is precisely the point. God is intentionally dragging our noses through the dirt of our physical existence to teach us a spiritual lesson of the highest order.
These laws concerning ceremonial uncleanness are not, first and foremost, about hygiene. While there are certainly hygienic benefits to God's law, as there always are, the primary purpose here is theological. This is what we might call a divine audio-visual aid. God is teaching Israel, and us through them, a fundamental truth about the nature of sin and holiness. He is showing them that sin is not just an abstract idea; it is a contagion. It is a defiling power that corrupts everything it touches. And just as a physical discharge renders a man unclean and spreads that uncleanness to his bed, his chair, and anyone who touches him, so also does our sin issue forth from us, defiling our world and separating us from the presence of a holy God.
So we must not be embarrassed by this text. We must not skip over it on our way to the more "spiritual" parts of the Bible. To do so is to miss the very grammar of redemption. For if we do not understand the nature of defilement, we cannot possibly understand the nature of cleansing. If we do not grasp the pervasive contagion of sin, we will never marvel at the pervasive power of Christ's atoning blood.
The Text
Yahweh also spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean. This, moreover, shall be his uncleanness in his discharge: it is his uncleanness whether his body allows its discharge to flow or whether his body obstructs its discharge. Every bed on which the person with the discharge lies becomes unclean, and everything on which he sits becomes unclean. Anyone, moreover, who touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening; and whoever sits on the thing on which the man with the discharge has been sitting shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. Also whoever touches the person with the discharge shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. Or if the man with the discharge spits on one who is clean, he too shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. Every saddle on which the person with the discharge rides becomes unclean. Whoever then touches any of the things which were under him shall be unclean until evening, and he who carries them shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. Likewise, whomever the one with the discharge touches without having rinsed his hands in water shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. However, an earthenware vessel which the person with the discharge touches shall be broken, and every wooden vessel shall be rinsed in water.'"
(Leviticus 15:1-12 LSB)
The Nature of Ritual Uncleanness (vv. 1-3)
The Lord begins by establishing the basic principle directly with Moses and Aaron.
"Yahweh also spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 'Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean. This, moreover, shall be his uncleanness in his discharge: it is his uncleanness whether his body allows its discharge to flow or whether his body obstructs its discharge.'" (Leviticus 15:1-3)
First, notice that this is a word from Yahweh Himself. This is not Moses's personal hang-up or Aaron's liturgical preference. The Creator is defining the terms of engagement for His creatures. He is establishing the categories of clean and unclean. This is foundational. We do not get to define holiness. We do not get to decide what separates us from God. He tells us.
The subject is a "discharge from his body." The specific issue here is likely an unnatural, diseased discharge, something other than normal seminal emission, which is dealt with later in the chapter. But the principle is what matters. Something that is supposed to be contained within the body is now flowing out of it uncontrollably. This is a picture of brokenness. It is a physical manifestation of a world that is not the way it is supposed to be. Death, disease, and decay have entered the world through sin, and these discharges are a constant, tangible reminder of that fact.
The man with the discharge is declared "unclean." It is crucial to understand that this is not a moral judgment. The man has not necessarily sinned to get this condition. Job's friends made that mistake. Rather, he is in a state of ritual impurity. This means he is unfit to approach the tabernacle, the dwelling place of God. He is temporarily barred from the holy things. Why? Because a holy God cannot dwell with that which is corrupted by the fall. This law is a physical parable. The discharge represents the sin that flows from our corrupt nature, and that sin creates a separation between us and God.
The Contagion of Uncleanness (vv. 4-11)
The subsequent verses detail the radical and pervasive nature of this uncleanness. It spreads.
"Every bed on which the person with the discharge lies becomes unclean, and everything on which he sits becomes unclean... Anyone, moreover, who touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening..." (Leviticus 15:4-11)
This is where the lesson gets driven home. The uncleanness is not contained to the man's body. It is contagious. It contaminates his bed, his chair, his saddle. It is transferred by touch. If you touch his bed, you are unclean. If you sit where he sat, you are unclean. If he touches you, you are unclean. If he spits on you, you are unclean.
This is a powerful illustration of the nature of sin. Sin is never a private matter. Our sin always flows out from us and defiles others. A father's secret lust defiles his home and his children, even if they never know about it consciously. A mother's bitterness contaminates the atmosphere of the entire family. One person's gossip pollutes the fellowship of the church. Sin is a spiritual contagion. It spreads from person to person, from object to object, from generation to generation.
The remedy prescribed for this secondary contamination is washing and waiting. "Wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening." The washing points to the need for purification, and the waiting "until evening" signifies that a period of time is required. Cleansing is not instantaneous. It is a process. This is a picture of sanctification. When we are contaminated by the sin of others, or by our own sin, we must be washed in the water of the Word (Eph. 5:26) and wait upon the Lord.
Notice the principle: holiness is fragile, but uncleanness is aggressive. A clean person who touches an unclean thing becomes unclean. But an unclean person who touches a clean thing does not make it clean; he makes it unclean. This is the spiritual law of entropy. Left to ourselves, things do not get better. Things fall apart. Holiness must be guarded and cultivated, while corruption spreads all by itself.
Irreparable Defilement (v. 12)
The final verse in our section makes a crucial distinction that points us directly to the gospel.
"However, an earthenware vessel which the person with the discharge touches shall be broken, and every wooden vessel shall be rinsed in water." (Leviticus 15:12)
Here we have two types of vessels. A wooden vessel, which is less porous, can be rinsed and made clean again. But an earthenware vessel, a clay pot, cannot. If it is touched by the unclean man, its porous nature absorbs the impurity. It cannot be cleansed. It must be broken. Smashed. Utterly destroyed.
This is a picture of us. The Scripture tells us that we are "earthen vessels" (2 Cor. 4:7). We are clay pots. And in our fallen nature, we have been touched by the ultimate uncleanness of sin. Our very nature has absorbed the defilement. It cannot be merely rinsed off. The stain has gone too deep. The law can command us to wash, but it cannot change the porous, sin-absorbing nature of the pot.
What is the solution for a clay pot that is irreparably defiled? It must be broken. And this is precisely what God does in the gospel. On the cross, Jesus Christ, our substitute, was broken for us. He who knew no sin became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). He was treated as the ultimate unclean thing, cast outside the camp to suffer. He was the earthenware vessel, shattered under the wrath of God so that we might be made new.
The Greater Contagion of Christ
This entire chapter sets the stage for the glorious reversal we see in the New Testament. The law of Leviticus says that if a clean person touches an unclean person, the clean person becomes unclean. The contagion of defilement spreads.
But then Jesus Christ comes. And what happens when He walks the earth? A woman with an issue of blood for twelve years, a woman who under this very law was perpetually unclean and an outcast, pushes through the crowd. She knows the law. She knows that if she touches Jesus, she will make Him ceremonially unclean. But in desperation and faith, she reaches out and touches the hem of His garment.
And what happens? The law is turned on its head. Jesus does not become unclean. Instead, His cleanness, His holiness, His power flows out of Him and into her. The discharge of blood stops, and she is made clean (Mark 5:25-34). The contagion of grace is greater than the contagion of sin. With Jesus, the flow is reversed. Holiness is no longer fragile; it is aggressive. It is an invading power. He touches lepers, and they become clean. He touches the dead, and they become alive.
This is the gospel. We are the man with the discharge. We are the contaminated bed and the defiled chair. We are the porous earthenware vessel, stained through and through, fit only to be broken. Our sin is a constant, issuing stream that pollutes everything we touch. We cannot clean ourselves up enough to approach God. Our washings are insufficient.
But Jesus Christ, the perfectly clean one, has come and touched us in our filth. He did not shrink back. He took our uncleanness upon Himself at the cross, and He was broken in our place. And now, through faith in Him, His perfect cleanness is imputed to us. He does not just rinse us off; He smashes the old, defiled pot of our sinful nature and makes us a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). The old vessel is destroyed in the waters of baptism, and we are raised to walk in newness of life. His holiness is now the contagion, spreading through us to a world that is unclean, bringing cleansing and life wherever His gospel is proclaimed.