The Leper and His Talk With Jesus

One of the most dreadful diseases that can befall mankind is that of leprosy. So bad is it that it is called “the scourge of the Hebrew race.” It begins inwardly: and, although concealed for years, is at the same time secretly spreading before there is any outward sign or token of its existence. After it breaks out, the sufferer lingers for years before it reaches a crisis. “The bones and the marrow,” says a well-known writer, “are pervaded with the disease, so that the joints of the hands and feet lose their power, and the whole system assumes a most deformed and loathsome appearance.” In order to caution others, so that they should not become infected, the leper (upon seeing anyone approaching) was to cover his upper lip, and call out, “Unclean! unclean!” One most striking feature of this dreadful malady was that no human cure for it was ever discovered. (This was written in 1876).

No disease ever so fully set forth an even worse malady — that of sin — than the leprosy; yet it is a singular and most encouraging fact, that one of the first applicants for relief at the hands of Jesus of whom we read in the New Testament, was a leper!

It is the more striking, and well may be the more cheering and encouraging, after we remember the strict rule that was enjoined upon the leper of which I just now spoke. It reads thus in Lev. xiii. 45, 46, “And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, “Unclean! unclean! … He whall dwell alone, without the camp shall his habitation be.”

Oh, how truly does this describe the condition of a poor spiritual leper! He cannot help himself! His fellow-creatures cannot help him! He is heart-sick! He is crushed in feeling; and filled with fear and dark and gloomy apprehension! He begins to know somewhat of the meaning of the Psalmist’s language, where (in the 42nd Psalm) he exclaimed. “Deep calleth unto deep; all Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me”; or with Job (vii, 20) he says, “I have sinned; what shall I do unto Thee, O Thou Preserver of men? why hast Thou set me as a mark against Thee, so that I am a burden to myself?” (viii. 26). “Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.” Or with Jeremiah (Lam. iii, 7, 8) “He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out, He hath made my chain heavy. Also, when I cry and shout, He shutteth out my prayer.”

But, in spite of the command given, and although he could but only too well know the deceitful nature of his disease, the poor leper took courage; and, as we read, in the 8th chapter of Matthew, and more fully in the very first chapter of the Gospel of Mark, he came to Jesus, beseeching Him, and kneeling down to Him, and saying unto Him, “If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.”

What a posture, dear reader, and what a plea. How glorifying was this to Jesus, especially when we remember that, as it was long before shown of Him, in the 53rd of Isaiah, “He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall se him, there is no beauty that we shall desire Him.” Is not this the carpenter’s son?” asked the Jews. “Is not His mother called Mary? and His brethren, James, and Joses, and Judas? … and they were offended in Him.” (Matt. xiii. 55–57). Hence the leper coming to Jesus, and speaking as he did, proves what he thought of Him.

Oh, that saying of the leper, was most God-honouring and Christ-exalting. “If Thou wilt Thou canst make me clean.” It was a wonderful thing for him to say. It proved what he thought of the power of Jesus, that He should be able to cure what no man could cure. It was a striking proof of the man’s faith, that he should betake himself to Jesus at all, and that he should believe in Him as able to cure an incurable malady. This partook of the nature of Abraham’s faith, of whom we read, that “against hope he believed in hope.” “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able also to perform.” (Rom. ix. 18, 20, 21).

And now mark, dear reader, the tenderness of Jesus, in regard to the poor leper.

“And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth His hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.”

Touched a leper! Oh, who but Jesus would have ventured so to do? What a proof was this of His Divinity! He had no fear of contamination! Why? Because He was God, although appearing in human form? Moreover, it was only for Him to speak, and the object sought was accomplished. Hence we read:

“And as soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.”

There is another fact about leprosy which I would press upon you, dear reader, and I will show you why.

In the 13th chapter of Leviticus, to which I before referred you, it says: “And if a leprosy break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague from his head even to his foot, wheresoever the priest looketh; then the priest shall consider, and behold if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white, he is clean.”

Now, the foregoing was a remarkable fact that “when the leprosy covered all his flesh,” then — and not until then — the leper was to be pronounced clean!

Here, then, was a key to one of the great wonders of redemption, and as it were one of the finger posts under the law, pointing to Christ, who is “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”

The leper was to go to the priest, under the law, to teach us that we, poor leprous sinners, must go at once to the LORD JESUS CHRIST (the great High-priest) under the Gospel.

When the leper presented himself to the priest, under the law, with only a spot upon his flesh here and there, he was sent back, and had to be shut up for seven days again and again.

And, when we go to Christ, the great High-priest, only as little sinners, or partial sinners, merely wanting some help from Christ; we to do a little toward saving ourselves, and Christ the rest? oh, that will not do. Christ will have nothing to do with us upon any such grounds. He will either be a complete Saviour — an entire Saviour — or no Saviour at all! It is never “Christ and I,”; but Christ all in all, or nothing!

Now, mark this, reader. It is for this reason that there is so much parleying — such a halting half-way — between the creature and Christ! It is the idea of only being partially a sinner, or a little sinner, is the great barrier! . This, this is the stumbling-block!

It is when at last brought by the Holy Ghost to see and feel, that we are “altogether sinners,” that as the Apostle says, in the 7th of the Romans and 18th verse, “I know that in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing,” yea, it is when we are brought to feel the truth of Isaiah 1, 5, 6, “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 putrifying sores,” then, when we thus “fall down and none to help,” Christ proves that great Saviour, that gracious Saviour, that Almighty Saviour — yea, the very Saviour we need. And, with His blood applied to our poor sin-steeped souls. He has a just right (like the priest typically representing Him, under the law) to pronounce us clean! — yea, as Christ said to Peter (John xii. 10) “is clean every whit.”

Dear reader, may God the Holy Ghost lead you into a personal knowledge of this great and glorious fact!

Talk on the Way to Emmaus

by the late Rev. D. A. Doudney

Reader, if we did not know somewhat of our own heart, we might wonder how it was that the disciples should be so blind and forgetful as they were, after all that Jesus had told they had seen of His ways and heard of His words, was only a confirmation of Old Testament Scriptures; and what He told them should surely come to pass was only, in like manner, a fulfilment of the prophecies concerning Him and His work.

Yet, we find two of the disciples in doubt, on their way to Emmaus, after all the wondrous scenes of Gethsemane and Calvary.

“And it came to pass, that while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them.” “And their eyes were holden that they should not know Him.”

Little did they think that the Stranger who now so unexpectedly drew nigh was none other than He with whom they had been so long time familiar. “What manner of communications,” said Jesus, “are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?”

They wondered at the question, and asked Him whether He was “only a Stranger in Jerusalem.” And then, having drawn from them particulars of what of late had taken place there, He said:

“O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” (Luke xxiv. 25).

“And, when their eyes were opened, and they knew Him, and He vanished out of their sight,” what was the result? What the conclusion to which they came? Oh, reader, it was just that testimony in which all those who know somewhat of the self-same Jesus will most entirely agree:

“And they said one to another, did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?”

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