 The
Healing Touch
Luke 5:12-16
Mr. Christopher SandovalIntroduction
In Luke 5:12-16 we find another story of Jesus healing and
showing compassion to a person who was physically sick and
socially rejected. But was Jesus merely attending to someone’s
bodily ailment or simply restoring an outcast back into the
community? Is there a greater, deeper significance to what Jesus
did for this leper who desperately sought cleansing?
What we find in this story is a pattern that we find
throughout all of Scripture in both the Old and New Testaments.
It is a pattern of physical things (tangible, visible realities)
representing and symbolizing spiritual things (intangible,
invisible realities). A clear example of this is when Adam and
Eve sinned against God in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve
disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit, the result was both
physical and spiritual death. The day they sinned against God
was the day they died spiritually, and this was represented
physically by the decaying, corrupting, and “falling apart” of
their bodies. Following this same pattern, the story of Jesus’
healing the leper is a representation of Jesus’ power to heal
your worst disease, namely, the death that comes as a result of
your sin. But in order to understand how we come to this
conclusion we need to know and understand the story behind this
story. We need to know and understand the Old Testament
background for this New Testament story.
Dead Man Walking
So what’s the story behind this story? Luke tells us in verse 12
of our passage that there was a man who was full of leprosy. But
to understand the full implications of this, we need to turn to
Leviticus 13 in the Old Testament. Leviticus 13 (along with
Leviticus 14) is the most exhaustive and lengthy biblical
discussion on leprosy. As an aside, the word that our Bibles
translate as “leprosy”, both in the Old and the New Testaments,
strictly speaking, is not exactly what we call leprosy today. A
better translation would be “serious skin disease.” But whether
we use the phrase “serious skin disease” or whether we use the
word “leprosy,” the idea is the same – whoever had leprosy had a
serious problem. Leviticus 13:1-3 states,
“And the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: ‘When a man
has on the skin of his body a swelling, a scab, or a bright
spot, and it becomes on the skin of his body like a leprous
sore, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of
his sons the priests. The priest shall examine the sore on the
skin of the body; and if the hair on the sore has turned white,
and the sore appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it
is a leprous sore. Then the priest shall examine him, and
pronounce him unclean.’”
And Leviticus 13:45 states,
“Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn
and his head bare [or loose or unkempt] and he shall cover his
mustache [literally, put his hand above his upper lip], and cry,
‘Unclean! Unclean!’”
According to these verses, leprosy had physical and religious
effects upon a person.
Physically, the effects of leprosy were scaling, raw flesh,
and discoloration of skin and hair. The person who had this
serious skin disease, this leprosy, literally looked like he was
rotting away. Additionally, the leper had to wear torn, ripped
up clothes and his hair was to be messy and unkempt. In other
words, the person who had leprosy not only looked like he was
dying, but he also had to look like someone who was mourning and
grieving his own death. In our day and age, the best way to
visualize the biblical description of a leper is to think of
zombies from movies and TV shows. Lepers were the living dead,
and their bodies and clothes showed their physical death and
decay.
Religiously, the effect of leprosy was becoming “unclean” or
unfit to worship God. Leviticus 13:3 states that the priest had
to declare the leper “unclean,” and Leviticus 13:45 states that
the leper had to warn others that he was “unclean.”
Additionally, according to Leviticus 13:46, the leper “shall be
unclean. All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is
unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside
the camp.” Note the particular emphasis on “unclean” in this
verse, and also that the leper had to live alone and outside the
camp. Not only did the leper have to make sure he did not make
others unclean, but the leper, more importantly, was not allowed
to be with God’s people within the camp or participate with them
in the temple worship of God. The leper could not touch anyone,
could not be around anyone, could not fellowship with friends or
family, and could not do what was most important – worship God
with His people.
Consequently, the physical and religious effects of leprosy
all represented the spiritual death of the leper. By being
expelled from the camp, the leper was expelled from God’s
presence among His people. In other words, where God was, the
leper could not be because leprosy represented death. God is
life, and where God is there can be no death, no decay, no
corruption. That is why the leper had to be outside the camp –
not primarily for health or sanitary reasons, but for spiritual
reasons. Like Adam and Eve, who were expelled from the Garden of
Eden because of their sin and because of the death that was the
result of their sin, the leper in the Old Testament was not
allowed to stay in God’s presence because physical and spiritual
death could not be where God was.
The Right Man for the Job
We return now to Luke 5:12, where we find a leper, a man full of
leprosy, who has been cut off from his family, from his people
and from worshipping God. This man was pitiful and desperate -
so desperate to be healed and cleansed, in fact, that Luke tells
us that he is in the city. The man is so desperate for life that
he is willing to break the rules and come into the city. He was
not supposed to be there, but he comes into the city because
he’s heard of this man named Jesus. He has heard of Jesus’
teaching, preaching, and healing. This leper is familiar with
who Jesus is, the words He speaks, and His power to heal.
In Leviticus 13, we saw that God gave the Jewish priests
procedures on how to identify someone who had leprosy. And if we
were to read Leviticus 14, we would see that God also gave the
Jewish priests procedures on what to do with someone who has
been healed of leprosy – procedures that were full of sacrifices
and the shedding of blood. There is an assumption, however, that
is made between Leviticus 13 and 14. The assumption is that the
leper has been healed! But who does the healing? The priest
identifies leprosy and performs rituals to allow the former
leper to fellowship with God’s people and worship God, but the
priest does not heal the leper. Who, then, does the healing? The
safe Sunday School answer is “God,” which is correct. God can
and does heal people directly. But in the Old Testament, God
also healed people indirectly – through His prophets. Through
Moses, God made bitter water sweet (Exodus 15) and healed
Miriam’s leprosy (Numbers 12). Through Elijah, God raised a
widow’s son from the dead (1 Kings 17). Through Elisha, God made
the water of Jericho potable (2 Kings 2), raised a Shunammite
woman’s son from the dead (2 Kings 4), and healed a Syrian
military commander’s leprosy (2 Kings 5). And through Isaiah,
God healed King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20). In the Old Testament,
then, God healed people through His prophets, through whom not
only the words of God came, but also the power of God.
And in Luke 5, to whom does the leper go to get healed? He
goes to Jesus, the Prophet of God. The leper goes to Jesus, the
one who not only speaks the word of God, but who is the Word of
God made flesh. The leper goes to Jesus, the one who has the
power of God because He is God. The leper goes to Jesus, who is
the ultimate, preeminent Prophet. Throughout the book of Luke we
find people calling Jesus a prophet. They may not acknowledge
Him as the Messiah, but they notice in Him the power and the
words of a prophet (Luke 7, 9, 22 and 24). Additionally, Jesus
Himself implies that He is a prophet (Luke 4 and 13). And in
Luke 5:12, the man with leprosy goes to Jesus, God’s Prophet, who alone has the power to heal and restore him completely.
The Leper in All of Us
Earlier, we saw that leprosy represents death. The leper outside
the camp was a visual aid for God’s people inside the camp,
physically demonstrating what happens to all of us spiritually as a
result of sin. Leprosy represented on the outside what happens
to all of us on the inside. Because of sin, Adam and Eve not
only began to physically waste away, but they became spiritually
dead as well. And because of your sin, you, too, are spiritually
dead. Everything may seem normal on the outside, but on the
inside, because of your sin, you are spiritually dead. You are
dead, and you cannot save yourself from your sin, from physical
death, or from spiritual death. And you cannot be where God is.
You cannot come to God on your own. You must be outside of where
God is. Leprosy was a physical, visible example of the
spiritual, invisible reality of sin – the incurable disease that
affects all of us.
Luke 5:13 says, “Then he [Jesus] put out His hand and touched
him [the leper] saying, ‘I am willing. Be cleansed.’ Immediately
the leprosy left him.” Jesus could have simply said the words
“be cleansed” or “be healed,” and the leper would have been
healed. But Jesus reached out to this man, this leper, whom you
were not even supposed to get close to, much less touch. Jesus
puts out his hand and touches this dead man walking. What an
amazing act of compassion, kindness, and grace! And we could
very easily read over this and not even catch that. Jesus
touches a man who probably had not had human contact in years, a
man who broke all the rules just for the chance to be healed.
This man, this leper, is now touched by the Prophet, by God
Himself, and he is healed. If leprosy symbolizes the death and
decay of sin within us all, then the compassionate touch of
Jesus represents the amazing condescension of God to sinners
like you and me. God reached out to us! God who is holy, God who
is completely clean and pure, God reached out to us who were
dead, who were rotting away, who had no chance of saving
ourselves. God reached out to His people, not only spiritually,
but physically in Jesus Christ – and He heals. “If you are
willing,” says the leper, “you can clean me.” Jesus reaches out,
touches the leper, and says, “I am willing. Be clean.”
A Testimony to All
After touching and healing the leper, after performing this
amazing act of kindness and condescension, Jesus
commands the man to do something. Luke 5:14 says, “And He
charged him [the leper] to tell no one, but Jesus said,
‘Go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering
for your cleansing, as a testimony to them [presumably the other
priests] just as Moses commanded.’” Why was there a need for the
leper to go to the priest? He had been healed. He had gone to
the right man for that healing. He no longer showed the outward
signs of bodily decay or corruption, of falling apart or rotting
away. Why, then, did Jesus send the healed leper to the priests?
Because it was commanded through Moses.
From some manuscripts and historical accounts, we know that
rabbinical tradition held that the chances of a leper being
healed were as good as the chances of a dead man being raised to
life. In other words, it did not happen – dead men did not rise
from the dead, lepers did not get healed. If this is true, if it
is impossible for a leper to be healed, why does God give Moses
detailed rituals and ceremonies for the cleansing of a healed
leper? If it is impossible, why even record the words? The
reason is that even in the Old Testament, even in the middle of
Leviticus, there is hope for salvation. There is hope that God
can save people. There is hope that God can raise people from
the dead. There is hope that God can heal a leper. And the
priests of Israel were given a ritual, a list of things to do in
the event that the impossible was made possible by God.
So Jesus commanded the healed leper to go to the priest, just
as Moses commanded, but Jesus also gave two specific reasons why
the man is to do this. The first reason is so that the man would
make an offering for his cleansing – not simply because God
commanded it through Moses, but because the God who is able to
forgive us our sins, the God who is able to save us from death
and give us life, is the same God who requires that blood be
shed in order to restore fellowship between Him and His people.
The death and shedding of the blood of animals for the cleansing of
a leper represented the substitutionary death and shedding of
blood of a Savior, of Jesus Christ, that God required for the
forgiveness and cleansing of sin. The same hand that reached
out, touched, and healed the leper in Luke 5 was the same hand
that was nailed to the cross of Calvary for the sake of God’s
people!
The second specific reason why Jesus sent the healed leper to
the priest was so that man would serve as a testimony to others.
God had done the impossible in healing a leper, and this was to
serve as evidence to the priests that God was doing something
new. This miracle, along with all the other miracles of Jesus,
pointed to God’s new work of salvation that was being
accomplished through His Prophet, and before the priests was a
testimony of the saving power of Jesus. This was a testimony
they could either accept, and thus receive new life by believing
in Jesus as the Savior of God’s people – or deny, and thus
remain dead in their sin and disbelief.
Conclusion
There is a testimony before you today in the preaching of God’s
Word, but also in the lives of those sitting around you.
Christians, those who have been saved by grace through faith in
Jesus Christ, are people that have been raised from spiritual
death by the saving power of Jesus Christ. They who were once
separated from God and dead in their sins are now alive. They
are a testimony to you of the amazing power of Jesus to raise
people from the dead. What will you do with that testimony? To
whom will you go for salvation? Do you think it’s impossible?
That your sins are too many? What is impossible for man is
possible with God. It is possible through the healing touch of
Jesus Christ, our Savior.
Mr. Chris Sandoval
Licentiate
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Disclaimer:
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