Luke 7:22 Then Jesus answering said to them, Go your way, and tell John what things you have seen and heard; how that the blind see… Why specify the fact that the lepers were cleansed? Why single out this disease from others that might have been named? Because it was peculiarly desirable that, when the Messiah came and gave credentials of his heavenly origin, he should exercise his power in this direction. For leprosy was the chosen type of sin. All disease is pictorial of sin; it is to our bodily frame what sin is to the soul - it is inward disorder showing itself in outward manifestation. But leprosy was that peculiar form of sickness which the Divine Lawgiver selected as the type of sin. And surely it was perfectly fitted to be so regarded. We look at - I. ITS LOATHSOMENESS. Why was the leper so rigidly excluded from society? We have no convincing evidence that this was a dangerous, contagious disorder. But the extreme loathsomeness of the leper's appearance fully accounted for the decree. It was not fitting that anything so terribly repulsive and shocking should be seen in the homes and in the streets. Sin is the most odious of all things; it is "that abominable thing which God hates." God "cannot look" upon it. In its fouler forms it is infinitely offensive to the pure of heart. II. ITS DIFFUSIVENESS. Leprosy was eminently diffusive. It was communicated from parent to child; it spread from limb to limb, from organ to organ, until it covered the entire body. Sin is a thing which spreads. It, too, is communicable by heredity, and it also spreads from faculty to faculty. Sin leads to sin. "There's not a crime but takes its change out still in crime." Theft leads to violence, drunkenness to falsehood, impurity to deceit. Sin also spreads from man to man, from child to child, from friend to friend. You cannot circumscribe it; it passes all bounds that may be set up. III. ITS PITIFULNESS. Who could regard the leper, doomed to a long, perhaps a lifelong separation from his family and his business and all favourite pursuits, without heartfelt pity? Life was worth nothing to him. Sin is condemnable enough; but it is pitiable also. Blame the erring, reproach the faulty, remonstrate with the foolish, but do not fail to pity those whom sin is shutting out from all that is best below, and from all that is bright above. Pity these with a profound compassion, and help them with an uplifting hand. IV. ITS SEPARATING INFLUENCE. As the leper was exiled from mankind and banished to a severe isolation, so does sin come in as a separating power. 1. It separates a man from God, opening the wide, deep gulf of conscious guilt. 2. It separates man from man. It is not high walls, or broad acres, or unmeasured seas, that divide man from man: it is folly, hatred, malice, jealousy, sin. V. ITS DEATHFULNESS. In the leper the springs of health were poisoned; there was a process of dissolution going on; it was death in life. Sin is death. "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth," wrote Paul. And our Lord's words imply the same: "Whoso believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." A man living apart from God and. in rebellion against him is so far from answering the end of human life that he may be rightly regarded as dead while he lives. VI. ITS INCURABLENESS BY MAN. The Jews did not bring the leper to the physician; they regarded him as incurable by the art of man. Sin is incurable by human methods. Regulations for conduct, vows of abstinence, parliamentary statutes, legal penalties, do not cure. They may be very valuable as accessories, but they will not heal. Only the Divine hand can accomplish that for the human heart. One there is who offers himself as the Divine Physician; he who sent back to John in prison the convincing message, "The lepers are cleansed." In him is all-forgiving grace and all-cleansing power. A living faith in him will lead to pardon and to purity. Instead of loathsomeness, there will be spiritual beauty; instead of isolation, communion; instead of a living death, eternal life. - C. Parallel Verses KJV: Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. |
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