One gentleman named ‘Brother Roloff’ had a friend who had quite a number of pigeons. On a certain occasion Brother Roloff, who lived in Ohio, was invited to the home of Vernon the pigeon man. Vernon told him about one particular bird in his collection. He said, “See this bird. I’ll point out just one. She flew the five hundred miles from St. Louis to Ohio non-stop!” Roloff said, “Non-stop! Now, let’s be done with this foolishness! You weren’t there. How do you know?” “Oh,” he said, “Brother Roloff, there’s a way to know. She came in clean.” He said, “What! Came in clean!” “When she came in, she had no flour and no mud, on her feet; and had nothing on her to make me think she had stopped. She came in clean.¹ What is the concept of clean and unclean in the Old Testament? We need to see it as God sees it. We will continue to look into this idea as we pick-up where we left off in last week’s podcast on the ritual cleansing of the leper in Leviticus fourteen.

Listen to the Audio

Click to Listen | Right Click to Download | Subscribe in iTunes

[Tweet “Clean and unclean is a viewpoint which God has. It’s how He saw the world after Adam’s sin.”]

Read the Notes

You can view a basic transcript of this podcast at the bottom of this section.

Accept the Challenge

Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put into operation.
This week’s call is:

The Lord is set against all sickness and disease. It is all unclean to Him. That’s how He sees it. Thank God for Jesus. Thank God for His precious blood which gave God the Father a different viewpoint. Set yourself to see life on planet earth just as the Father views it.

Join the Conversation

Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believer’s life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).
This week’s question is:

Question: Are you viewing the world as God does, through the eyes of the Blood of Jesus? If so, how has it changed your outlook? Please leave a comment in the comments section below.

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 40 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 35 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

Subscribe to the Podcast

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe.

 Stitcher Radio                      Google Play

iTunes                                         PlayerFM

Share the Love

If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate it on Stitcher Radio and leave a review. If you have a suggestion for a Bible topic you would like to see taught, or if you have a question, please e-mail me at emery@emeryhorvath.com

________________________________________________________________________

Podcast Notes

How God Sees the Washing and Shaving Ritual

• We are in Leviticus fourteen and the ceremony of the leper’s cleansing.
• So far, we’ve covered verses one through seven.
• We looked at the ceremony surrounding the two birds, with the inclusion of hyssop, scarlet wool, and cedar.
• Now, we are on to verse eight.

Leviticus 14:8–9 (KJV) — 8 And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean: and after that he shall come into the camp, and shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven days. 9 But it shall be on the seventh day, that he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows, even all his hair he shall shave off: and he shall wash his clothes, also he shall wash his flesh in water, and he shall be clean.

• So as you can see, there’s even more involved in getting the leper back into the fullness of community.
• The priest and the leper have gone through the first seven verses of this ritual.
• One bird has been killed.
• The other bird dipped in the blood of the slain bird.
• The leper is sprinkled with that blood and then that bird is set free and that all in conjunction with the use of scarlet wool, cedar and hyssop.
• You would think that would be enough for one day.
• But it isn’t.
• Now, the leper has to take a bath.
• Then the leper has to wash his clothes.
• Then, he must shave every single hair from every part of his/her body completely off.
• And then he has to wait seven days all the while living in a tent outside the community.
• Then on the seventh day, the cleansed leper has to do this all over again.
• He has to take another bath.
• Wash his clothes again.
• Again, shave every single hair from every part of the body.
• Man, that’s a lot of stuff to do.
• The question we are answering is why?
• There has to be a why for all of this.

How God Sees Clean and Unclean

• Clean and unclean is all a type.
• It’s all a symbol.
• It’s a symbol of clean and unclean.
• We alluded to this in last week’s podcast.
• Clean and unclean is a viewpoint which God has.
• It’s how He saw the world after Adam’s transgression.
• When God initially created the world, what did the scriptures declare about His endeavors?

Genesis 1:31 (KJV) — 31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

• Part of ‘very good’ is ‘very clean’.
• Very good means ‘very pure’.
• It means ‘very unadulterated’.
• But, Adam’s sin changed all of that.
• Adam’s sin brought a dimension of uncleanness into the world.
• His transgression flung the door open to a world that was no longer so good, no longer so clean, and no longer so pure.

Genesis 6:5–6 (KJV) — 5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

• The world became a filthy place, a bad place because of Adam’s transgression.
• A place full of sin.
• A place teeming with rebellion.
• A place of uncleanness.
• It wasn’t the place God had originally created.
• So the problem from God’s standpoint is simple.
• Break out the mops.
• Break out the brooms.
• Bless God, we’ve got to get this mess cleaned up.

Israel as a Living Example to the Nations

• So, what the Lord did with the nation of Israel is to separate them as His own peculiar people.

Deuteronomy 14:1–3 (KJV) — 1 Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. 2 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth. 3 Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing.

• The Lord wanted Israel to be holy, and peculiar.
• The word ‘holy’ is an adjective and it means consecrated, set-apart, or devoted to service to God.
• The word ‘peculiar’ means a special possession which is highly valued by its owner.
• Here are the same set of verses in a different translation.

Deuteronomy 14:1–3 (GW) — 1 You are the children of the LORD your God. So when someone dies, don’t mourn by cutting yourselves or shaving bald spots on your head. 2 You are people who are holy to the LORD your God. Out of all the people who live on earth, the LORD has chosen you to be his own special possession. 3 Never eat anything that is disgusting to the LORD.

• So, the Lord wanted His people, the seed of Abraham, to be His ambassadors.
• To display, in a living everyday way, by law, by sacrifices and ceremonies and feasts which sent a message to the entire planet, a planet that had already been wiped out by a flood of wicked sinful uncleanness, what clean and unclean really is.
• God saw the world that way.
• He gave Israel laws so they could see it the same way He saw it.
• His desire was so that the watching world could see it the same way.
• That is if Israel walked in the cleanness of God and the nations of the world could see their blessings, see their prosperity, see their protection, they would want it to.
• And so, the Lord took steps, He made plans, He put His Spirit on people so they could write it down.
• So they could record and identify what clean and unclean is.
• That way the nations of the world could follow Israel in walking with God.
• Two cannot walk together unless they agree says the prophet, Amos.

The Concept of Clean and Non-Clean Animals Pre-Flood

• Now, even before all of this came into being in the book of Exodus, there was already knowledge of clean and unclean coursing throughout planet earth.
• That knowledge was already in place.
• In fact, this knowledge reached all the way back into Genesis.
• Let’s look at it.

Genesis 7:1–3 (ESV) — 1 Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, 3 and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.

• The Flood came first, then came the Law.
• The Flood is in Genesis, the Law is in Exodus.
• Way back in Genesis, before the Flood, the people of planet earth had a concept of clean and unclean.
• Noah had it.
• The had to have had it.
• The Lord didn’t specify to Noah which animal was clean and which one was not clean.
• God spoke to Noah just like he already knew.
• He didn’t specify to Noah what was clean and what was unclean.
• That means what was clean or unclean in the animal kingdom was common knowledge.
• This knowledge predated the Law.

The Million Dollar Unclean Question

• So then, if there were animals which were ‘not clean’, why did God instruct Noah to save them?
• Wouldn’t the Flood have been a good place to get rid of all of the non-clean animals?
• That’s a good question, isn’t it?
• One guess, and I say guess, because I don’t know for sure, is that all of these animals, clean and unclean, were needed to make the whole animal kingdom and the whole Eco-system work right.
• The unclean animals are part of the balance of nature.
• That’s one thought.
• But here’s another.
• Unclean animals are a potential source to teach the nations of the world what is clean and what is not.

Washing and Shaving

• So, let’s go back now to the cleansing of the leper.
• We have already read the verse in Leviticus 14:8-9.
• And with that thought, here’s the Historical Background of the day.
• Let’s look at the origins of shaving.
• According to the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, there aren’t any.
• The origins of shaving are lost in time.
  • Social distinctions are associated with hair quite early.
    • In ancient Mesopotamia, a slave was required by law to wear a haircut that identified him as a slave.
    • In Egypt, priests were called “bald-headed ones.”
      • Shaving your head didn’t start with Micahel Jordan.
  • The written sign for “mourning” consisted of three locks of hair.
  • In Israel the average man probably cut his hair regularly;
    • Absalom did once a year (2 Sam 14:26).
  • The Nazarite stands as the exception to the rule, going without shaving for the duration of his vow.
  • Yet even for the ordinary person, shaving marked significant events in life, and the state of one’s hair served as a sign. ²
• Now that caught my attention because I think that’s what you have going on here in the shaving portion of the leprosy ceremony.
• Not only was it a way to make sure the leprosy was totally gone.
• The absence of hair may have indicated that a person was hiding no impurities or uncleanness. ³
• But, it was also symbolic.
• Shaving for the ancient Israelites was drastic since they were not permitted to shave their sideburns or the corners of their beards.

Leviticus 19:27 (KJV) — 27 Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.

• This thorough washing and shaving removes all surface impurity and symbolizes the complete removal of the contamination of impurity from the person. ⁴
• You see this same thing in the book of Numbers with the dedication of the priests.

Numbers 8:7–8 (KJV) — 7 And thus shalt thou do unto them, to cleanse them: Sprinkle water of purifying upon them, and let them shave all their flesh, and let them wash their clothes, and so make themselves clean. 8 Then let them take a young bullock with his meat offering, even fine flour mingled with oil, and another young bullock shalt thou take for a sin offering.

Back to the Cleansed Leper

• So, here the leper is.
• He is now clean.
• The priest said he is.
• The birds are bearing witness to this fact.
• The water he washed in declares his emancipation from dirt.
• And now he shaves every hair off of his body.
• The guy is hairless.
• Head hair is gone.
• Facial hair has gone the way of the Dodo bird.
• Body hair, you ask?
• Zero, zip, it’s out of here.
• This former disease-bearing leper is now as clean and smooth as a newborn baby.

A New Birth, A New Start

• What we have is a new birth, a new start.
• His old life has ended.
• He is no longer ostracized.
• He is no longer without human contact.
• A new life has begun for him.
• It’s a symbol.
• A symbol of the new birth.
• If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17).
• The total shaving this leper has experienced relates to the putting off of the old man.
• The old man, the old life must be cut away.
• In Jesus, you have to shave off the old.
• You have to embrace the new.
• The old man, the old ways, the mind of the flesh is corrupt.
• It’s diseased just like leprosy.
• But, I want you to know we have something more than a Gillette razor and shaving cream to take care of uncleanness.
• We don’t need the type.
• We have the real thing.
• We have the Precious Blood of Jesus.

Hebrews 9:13–14 (ESV) — 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

• So, get this.
• After the man has washed his body, washed his clothes and completely shaved himself the first day, he still is not ready to enter into the community of Israel and serve.
• During this portion of the ritual, the cleansed leper must live in a tent on the outskirts of the community for seven days.
• What do you suppose happens during that seven day period?
• Well, the hair starts growing back again.
• Vestiges of the old life creep back in.
• His mind must be brought up to God’s way of thinking.
• You can find the New Testament version of this in a couple of places.
• First, the Word of God gives us instruction about novices, that is these newly come to the faith.

1 Timothy 3:1,6 (KJV) — 1 This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work… 6 Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.

• If you desire the office of a bishop, the office of a bishop is that of a pastor, you can’t be a recent convert.
• Because those young in God do not yet have the experience necessary to deal with the inevitable pride that comes with promotion.
• Every time you are promoted, you have to deal with a whole new realm of pride.
• What is pride?
• It’s that hair growing back again.
• You always have to shave.
• You always have to deal with the old man.
• But, this principle is not just for those desiring to be a pastor.
• It’s for other offices.
• It’s for other places of service.
• Sometimes church leaders move to fast with people.
• There’s such a great need for volunteers.
• They put people in harm’s way by promoting them to service to quickly.
• The need is great, that’s a fact.
• The harvest is ripe, the laborers are few.
• Jesus said so.
• There’s no denying it but you still shouldn’t violate good Bible order.
• People need to develop.
• They need time to get some seasoning.
• They need to acquire some experience shaving.
• Before they launch into the world of serving.
• So the seven days pass, and what does the cleansed leper do?
• He washes again.
• He shaves again.
• J. Vernon Mcgee has this to say about this.
• And with that thought here’s the quote of the day.

The child of God needs to be continually washed. “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:3). “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17). Friend, you can never be cleansed or sanctified, set apart for God’s use, until you are saturated with the Word of God. How important that is!… There should be a daily growth, a development in faith and in practice. Holiness is to the spiritual life what health is to the physical body.⁵

• So, the type of the leper shows a continual washing, a continual shaving.
• Translating that symbolic principle to us.
• Continually washing in the Word.
• Continual cleansing by His Blood.

__________

References: