From the moment of conception in His mother’s womb, Jesus was a markedly different mortal from His peers. He was a God/Man, the product of divine “genetic engineering.” He was fully God and fully man, exhibiting the divine or mortal aspect of His nature as the occasion warranted. After He “suffered” (allowed) Himself to be baptized by John in the Jordan, Jesus became even more different than other men, not in losing any of His human nature whereby He was “near of kin” to other humans and thereby qualified to act as their redeemer, but in the fact He could no longer be ceremonially defiled (This is my supposition and, although a likely fact, I cannot prove it by Scripture). The watershed moment was Jesus’ baptism by John. It seemed to mark a high point in a career full of them.
Jesus wore His God/Man nature with its human frailties in a manner vastly superior to that of the demigods (creatures that were half god and half man) of mythology. Their human nature was all too readily apparent in their sins of lust and greed and envy, vices of which Jesus was never guilty.
The first thirty years of Jesus’ life we may safely assume were like those of most Jews. He could be ceremonially defiled through no fault of His own. There were at least two general ways by which Jesus could be defiled: 1) by touching a dead body or by a person’s falling dead next to Him, and 2) by unintentionally touching anything or any person that was unclean. In the latter case there was no way by which a Jew could go through life undefiled; and it required ceremonial cleansing each time for the defiled person to be right in the eyes of the Law.
The Old Testament is very plain on the matter of sanctification or consecration, which was the state of the Jew who had met every requirement for his cleansing after every instance of defilement. First of all, consecration or sanctification was not transferable from a consecrated person or object to another person or object. But defilement (“uncleanness”) was all too readily transferable from a defiled object to that which was “clean.” Jehovah explained it to Haggai in the passage following:
11 "This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'Ask the priests what the law says: 12 If a person carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, oil or other food, does it [the bread. stew, etc) become consecrated?'" The priests answered, "No." 13 Then Haggai said, "If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?" "Yes," the priests replied, "it becomes defiled." 14 Then Haggai said, "'So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,' declares the Lord. 'Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled.' (Haggai 2.11-14 – NIV)
In light of this, it is rather remarkable that twice in His public ministry Jesus raised a dead person to life while touching the corpse or touching the object on which the corpse lay. (Mark 5.22-24, 35-43; Luke 7.11-15) As we all know, touching a dead body or that whereon the body lay was a sure means of defilement under the Old Covenant Law.
Let’s deal more specifically with the incident of the leprous man in Mark 5.22-24, 35-43. I have “borrowed” my own text from The Life of Christ in Five Phases I, further clarify the teaching point:
“There was another significant factor about this incident of healing. According to the Law of Moses, the man was ceremonially unclean and would defile any person or thing that he touched. Jesus, though, touched him in the act of healing him and suffered no ceremonial or physical ill effect. According to the Law, Jesus should have been unclean at that instant. Reason would tell us that, as a Jew, Jesus must have become ceremonially unclean just by chance more than a few times in His life span of thirty-three years.
“There were many things that would defile a man according to the Mosaic Law. We cannot surmise that, because Jesus was God, He did not ever become ceremonially defiled. Becoming unclean was an involuntary way of life with the Israelite just as becoming physically dirty is an undeliberate way of life with any person, Jew or Gentile. Like any other man, Jesus had to wash away physical uncleanness as the occasion demanded. Therefore it would appear that, like any other Jew, He had to go through the ritual of cleansing Himself ceremonially as the occasion demanded.
“But on this occasion Jesus could not in any way be defiled by this symbol of sin. Ceremonial uncleanness was a symbolic matter that Jesus had probably endured previous to His public ministry for the sake of being human and being a Jew and it never besmirched His righteous Self. However, in this instance God was showing to us that in His divinity He could not be considered even ceremonially unclean. On the contrary, He can transfer His wholeness to all who want it. Instead of His receiving uncleanness from the leprous (sinful) man, Jesus imparted His own sinlessness to him. He touched the man and made him whole and sin free.”
This was Jesus the God who was man and the man who was God. He had the qualities of both the human and the divine, but it seems that, only during His 3 ½ years of public ministry the human quality was never either ceremonially or spiritually impure (defiled). As God, Jesus could not sin while, as the fully human He was, He was terribly limited in what He could do and where He could go, although it was never to engage in sin and it never resulted in His being ceremonially defiled.
Can you understand? Jesus is the only one who can make us clean. He alone of all persons in this world is intrinsically clean and pure and righteous. If you want to be undefiled and holy as He is, you have to have Jesus touch you with the finger of divinity and impart to you the august holiness that resides only in Him and that only He can impart.
Throw away your pride and stubbornness and come to Jesus , saying, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean!”
He will respond by saying so graciously, “I will. Be thou clean!”
Recent Comments