Original Meaning

Purification After Healing from Skin Disease (14:1–32)

A SEVERE PROBLEM demands a weighty solution. Thus a person healed from scaly skin disease undergoes an elaborate purification process in phases that occur on the first, seventh, and eighth days. Each of these phases progressively moves the individual toward full purity status so that he or she can be reinstated into the society of the Lord’s people, who dwell within the bounds of the camp where God’s sanctuary is located.

First-day procedures (Lev. 14:4–8) Bird ritual (vv. 4–7)

Shaving and ablutions (v. 8)

Seventh-day shaving and ablutions (v. 9)

Eighth-day sacrifices (vv. 10–20)

When a person banished outside the camp because of scale disease believes that the condition has gone away, he or she calls for a priest to come out and make an inspection. The priest must come out because the person is not permitted to come inside the camp to him. If the priest confirms that the scale disease is gone, he presides over a nonsacrificial elimination ritual employing two birds (14:4–7).

One bird is slaughtered over “live” water, i.e. water from a flowing source such as a spring (see further below). The priest takes the other bird, still alive, along with cedar wood, crimson yarn, and hyssop, and dips them all in the blood of the slain bird that has mixed with the water. Then the priest sprinkles the blood-water mixture seven times on the person undergoing purification and sets the living bird free into open country. In this way the ritual impurity is transferred from the person to the living bird via the blood of the slain bird, and the living bird carries the impurity away into oblivion.1

Both here and in the parallel ritual for purifying a house (14:49–53), sending a living bird away shows some similarity to the way Azazel’s goat (the so-called “scapegoat”) is sent off into the desert on the Day of Atonement after the completion of the purgation of the Lord’s earthly dwelling (16:10, 20–22) by means of blood from a slain bull and goat (16:14–19). Unlike Azazel’s goat, the live bird receives blood from a slain creature within the same individual ritual as an integral part of the same purification (of a person or dwelling), not as a subsequent phase.

Following the bird ritual, the candidate for cleansing must launder his/her clothes, shave off all hair, bathe in water, and at that point becomes ritually “pure” (Qal of ṭbr Lev. 14:8). In this context “pure” means “pure enough for this stage,” which allows for entry into the camp. However, because some impurity remains, the person must stay outside his or her tent. Becoming a completely happy camper requires waiting a week, followed by additional rituals.

On the seventh day there is another shaving (including even eyebrows), laundering, and bath, after which the person is “pure” (ṭbr) again (14:9). It is obvious by now that “pure” is a relative term. As another layer of impurity is stripped away, the Israelite advances to a higher degree of purity.2

Once the first- and seventh-day procedures have restored the healed person’s level of purity to the point that coming to the sanctuary is permissible, the final stage on the eighth day requires the Israelite to offer a group of sacrifices at the sanctuary (14:10–20). Because the reparation offering is unusual, it is outlined in considerable detail (14:12–18). Before slaughtering the lamb, the officiating priest presents it and a log3 of oil and elevates them as an elevation offering (tenupah) to formally dedicate them to the Lord. Then he slaughters the victim. Rather than simply taking the blood and dashing it on the sides of the altar, as prescribed for the reparation offering in 7:2, the priest takes some of the blood and puts it on the right extremities of the offerer who is undergoing purification: lobe of the right ear, thumb of the right hand, and big toe of the right foot. These are the same body parts to which Moses applied blood from the ram of ordination during the consecration of the priests (8:23–24).

Next the priest sprinkles some of the oil with his finger seven times before the Lord, apparently to enhance the dedication already accomplished by the elevation.4 Then he applies some of the oil to the same right extremities of the Israelite, on top of the blood. Lastly the priest puts the remaining oil on the head of the Israelite and completes the rest of the sacrifice (cf. 7:3–5), thereby finishing the reparation offering phase of expiation (kipper) for the offerer (14:18).

The next sacrifice is the purification offering to “expiate for the one being purified from [privative min] his impurity” (14:19, author’s transl.). Performance of the burnt and grain offerings bring the expiatory complex to successful conclusion and finally, for the last time, the Israelite is “pure” (ṭbr; 14:20)! Restoration is done.

Since the eighth-day sacrificial process involves three animals—two male lambs and a yearling ewe—it is expensive. Thus, for those who cannot afford it, 14:21–32 outline a parallel procedure with two birds substituted for the purification and burnt offering animals. There is no substitute for the male lamb of the reparation offering, which is the first and most important sacrifice on this occasion.

Bridging Contexts

RESTORATION IN STAGES. Why is the procedure for purifying a person healed from scale disease so drawn out and complicated, including reintegration of the person into the community in stages? When the Lord purifies a person, why doesn’t he do the job once and for all, as when he created whole categories of living things just by speaking (Gen. 1)?

Compare the description in Mark 8:22–25 of a healing miracle that Jesus performed:

They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”

He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”

Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

On other occasions Jesus completely healed people all at once, but this time he did it in two stages, with the first stage accomplishing partial healing and the second finishing the job. It was not that Jesus didn’t have the power to do it all in one step (cf. John 11:43–44, raising Lazarus). By allowing the blind “patient” to experience healing as a process, Jesus demonstrated the magnitude of the change he accomplished.

So it was with purification from scale disease. The complex, phased process that returned a person to normality taught that it was a long way back, implying the enormity of the fall from purity that had occurred.

Having lost Paradise as a result of sin, our journey home to immortality is a long one because we have departed so far from God. Our healing and reintegration into the community of God’s holy universe is a vast process that has already spanned millennia and has required the tragic death of God’s Son. It is abundantly apparent that the Lord wants total healing, not a quick fix. The magnitude of the solution teaches us how far we have fallen.

Unlike ritual purification or healing a blind man, our redemption involves moral purification, including restoration of our ability to make right choices. Growth in this area requires our cooperation with God, and like Jesus’ disciples, we are slow learners. In fact, this may be at least part of the reason why Jesus decided to heal the blind man in phases. D. E. Garland comments on Mark 8:22–26:

The miracle shows Jesus’ power to heal even the most difficult cases. The Markan context, which portrays Jesus’ struggle to get his disciples to see anything, gives this unusual two-stage healing added significance. The blind man’s healing occurs between two examples of the disciples’ blindness (8:14–21; 8:31–33). This physical healing of blindness serves as a paradigm for the spiritual healing of the disciples’ sight, which also comes gradually and with difficulty.6

The length and pain of our restoration process is not because God has simply decided to let us keep suffering in order to teach us the depth of our badness and the height of his grace. He cannot heal our moral nature in one mighty flash without destroying our free choice, the element of human nature that makes it possible for us to love him. If he were to transform all of us instantly into obedient robots who automatically go to church on time, give offerings and tithes, treat others well, abstain from harmful substances, and say, “God, we love you,” he would thereby annihilate the human race because we would no longer be human. He might just as well turn us into cuddly stuffed animals!

Just as it was the impurity of a scale-diseased person that necessitated multiple stages to bring a person back into a new life of fellowship with his or her community and communion with God through worship, so it is our condition that requires a major process. We should not blame God for the delay. He is merciful for giving us time. If he were to bring us up too quickly to face his holiness, we would die (Ex. 33:20), just as a scuba diver who descends deep into the ocean will die if he or she comes up too fast.

Blood and water. The bird ritual for purification from scale disease (14:4–7, 49–53) counteracts the living “death” of scale disease (cf. Num. 12:12), not only by eliminating impurity that represents mortality, but also by positively emphasizing the theme of “life” with “live” water and blood that represents life (cf. Lev. 17:11). As in the “red cow” ritual for purification from corpse contamination, crimson yarn and cedar wood, which are also red, enhance the life-giving symbolism of blood (cf. Num. 19:6).7 Hyssop, a small plant (1 Kings 4:33), is used for dipping in the liquid and then sprinkling it (cf. Ex. 12:22; Num. 19:18; Ps. 51:7; Heb. 9:19).

Water is a common instrument of ritual purification (cf. Lev. 11:32; 15:5–8, 10–13). In the bird ritual it must be “live” water (14:5–6), such as that which gushed from the well of spring water discovered by Isaac’s servants (Gen. 26:19). This kind of water is “live” in the sense that it continually moves as it flows from its source (cf. 2 Kings 5:10—Jordan River). Not surprisingly, “live” water is also required to remove other severe impurities for which an Israelite would be banished from the camp (cf. Num. 5:1–4): a genital flow (Lev. 15:13) and corpse contamination (Num. 19:17).

Water and blood cleanse and provide life. This is true in our bodies from the time of our birth, which is accompanied by water and blood. So it is striking that when Christ died and a soldier pierced the side of his dead body with a spear, there was “a sudden flow of blood and water” (John 19:34). Undoubtedly the blood and water bear medical testimony to the extreme internal stress that Christ had suffered, but John attached additional significance: The liquid elements identify Christ as the Son of God, the Messiah of prophecy. Later he wrote: “Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood” (1 John 5:5–6).

Water and blood are the most prominent purifying elements of the Israelite ritual system. Unlike other dead persons, whose bodies caused ritual impurity based on mortality, Christ’s death made him the Source of purification and life through “new birth” (cf. John 3:3–8). Christ fulfills the Israelite system of ritual purification, providing us with the elements we need to be victorious over the mortal state that characterizes our present sinful world so we can have eternal life that transcends the present era.

Christian rituals employ the powerful symbolism of blood and water. At the Lord’s Supper/communion service, the wine represents Christ’s blood, as he said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Baptism with water, which arose from Israelite bathing for purification from ritual defilement (e.g., Lev. 15:5–8), enacts moral purification (Mark 1:4–5). This purification is not simply freedom from legal condemnation. It is freedom from slavery to committing sin (Rom. 6:1–3, 6–7, 11–14) and hope of eternal life through faith in Christ’s sacrifice, symbolizing this faith by ritual burial under water (6:4–5; cf. Acts 8:38–39).

Around the year 1900, a Norwegian sailor by the name of Gulbrandson was crossing the Atlantic, but became ill to the point that he was unable to move or respond in any way. Taking him to be dead, his shipmates conducted his funeral, sewed his body into a bag with weights, and slid him into the Atlantic Ocean. But when he hit the cold water, his responses awoke and he prayed for God to save him. Frantically groping for a way out of the descending body bag, he found a knife that had accidentally been left in it. He slashed the bag and popped to the surface, to the astonishment of the mourners on deck, who quickly pulled him back onboard. Also revived spiritually, Gulbrandson accepted the Lord and devoted his new life to service for him. His literal water burial triggered the kind of change that baptism symbolizes!8

Unlike ancient Israelites, Christians who are baptized do not need to wait until the end of daylight before they are pure (e.g., Lev. 15:5–8). Perhaps this limitation met its fulfillment when Christ died at the end of the ritual day, about the time of the regular evening (or late afternoon) sacrifice (Matt. 27:46–51; cf. Num. 28:4).

Contemporary Significance

THE VALUE OF STEPS. In our age of instant gratification, we want leaps rather than steps. But most human progress happens in steps—for example, a baby’s first steps, Neil Armstrong’s “one small step” onto the moon in 1969, and software upgrades. Even a leap that is possible can be undesirable. Severe illness can make people so weak that rapid progress through surgery can be injurious or even fatal. First it is necessary to stabilize and raise the vital signs a few notches.

Another reason for steps is to understand and/or teach how a process is accomplished. Seeing a polished PowerPoint presentation can be enlightening and enjoyable, but witnessing a demonstration of the steps that have gone into the final product raises the level of appreciation and the possibility that others can learn to make contributions by using this tool.

As a pianist, Sergei Rachmaninoff was so gifted and intuitive that magnificent playing came easily and naturally to him. Consequently, when he taught piano at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he had difficulty explaining to students how they could achieve the kinds of results he did. So he had to send them to his colleague, Theodor Leschetizky, who broke things down into steps that they could follow.

In addition to providing comprehension, steps are encouraging because they show measurable progress that would not even register on a scale of leaps. This is part of the phenomenal success of the “twelve-step” program of Alcoholics Anonymous for overcoming alcohol addiction.9 Another part is the fact that the program treats afflicted individuals as whole persons, including the physical, emotional, spiritual, and social dimensions. The “twelve-step” approach can be briefly summarized:

You admit you are licked; you get honest with yourself; you talk it out with somebody else; you make restitution to the people you have harmed; you try to give of yourself without stint, with no demand for reward; and you pray to whatever God you think there is, even as an experiment.10

This is remarkably similar to God’s wholistic, stepwise approach to the human condition, as revealed in Leviticus. As in the Bible, the prerequisite for hope through God is a realization of utter helplessness to be restored on one’s own. One of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous learned from William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience regarding transforming spiritual experiences:

Some were sudden brilliant illuminations; others came on very gradually. Some flowed out of religious channels; others did not. But nearly all had the great common denominators of pain, suffering, calamity. Complete hopelessness and deflation at depth were almost always required to make the recipient ready.11

Free to love. In his spine-chilling novel titled 1984, George Orwell describes what it could be like to “live” under the oppressive power of a totalitarian superpower determined to control every aspect of existence. Despite the familial ring of its epithet, “Big Brother” keeps its citizens under invasive surveillance to stamp out individual freedom of choice by harshly enforcing absolute compliance with its iron rule.

Unfortunately, Orwell’s nightmare has been all too true to life for millions of people. One of them was the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich. During the Stalin era, he came under dangerous criticism from the authorities for some works that did not conform to the prevailing ideological mold. So he explained his new Fifth Symphony in an official publication as “the stabilization of the personality.” In this way he satisfied the communist watchdogs and was “rehabilitated” in 1937.

A different story surfaced when the memoirs of Shostakovich appeared after he died in 1975. Near the end of his life, when he was ailing and disillusioned, the composer revealed the bitter intention that he had veiled in the last movement of his Fifth Symphony:

“The rejoicing is forced, created under threat. . . . It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,’ and you rise, shaky, and go marching off muttering, ‘Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.’”

While the boisterous trumpets and drums could be taken to evoke a festival or peasant dance, Shostakovich envisioned a forced death march.12

A regime that denied its people the choice to reject it simultaneously denied them the choice to accept and love it. This is powerfully and sarcastically illustrated by a Russian story:

A foreign journalist wanted to find out how the Soviets really felt about Stalin. But his query was consistently met by looks of fear or blank stares as people would hurry away. Finally one day a man reacted differently: He looked around to make sure nobody was watching, and muttered that the reporter should follow him. They took a tortuous route through Moscow, entering and leaving buildings, going in and out of streets while constantly changing directions. All this time the man’s eyes darted around to see if they were being followed. They took a taxi and wandered through the city until they came to Gorky Park. The Russian led the correspondent to a lake, where he rented a rowboat and rowed them to the middle of the lake. Then he looked around once more, leaned over to the journalist, and whispered in his ear: “I like him.”13

This is the kind of scenario that God is seeking to avoid. Omnipotent as he is, he is not interested in traumatizing his creatures to the point that they are even afraid to praise him. He knows that the only kind of warm devotion and exuberant joy that is worth anything at all comes from a heart that is won over rather than coerced.

Winning us over is not easy. It means building our understanding and trust, which takes time and shared experience. It includes waiting, like the father of the prodigal son, until we figure out that we are in a mess and need help. It involves various phases of restoration from death to life, as enacted by the purification of a scale-diseased person in Leviticus 14. However, at the end of the long and tortuous route is not a frightened whisper of affirmation but a hearty shout:

Praise the LORD.

Praise God in his sanctuary;

praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his acts of power;

praise him for his surpassing greatness.

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,

praise him with the harp and lyre,

praise him with tambourine and dancing,

praise him with the strings and flute,

praise him with the clash of cymbals,

praise him with resounding cymbals.

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.

Praise the LORD. (Ps. 150)

When the Father’s wait is over, he cannot help celebrating too because his child “was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:32).

Original Meaning

Fungus in Houses (14:33–53)

VERSES 33–53 switch the topic to “scale disease” (ṣaraʿ at) resulting from fungus in houses. This law is to apply after the Israelites settle in Canaan and live in houses rather than tents. It includes both diagnosis, as in chapter 13, and remedies, as earlier in chapter 14. The section is well placed here at the end of chapter 14 because a house restored from impure malignancy requires an elimination ritual with two birds (14:49–53), which is modeled on the first-day ritual for purification of a healed person (14:4–7).

The diagnostic procedure for a house (14:35–45) largely resembles that of chapter 13 with regard to persons and garments. The priest examines the house according to criteria, which in this case affect the walls. If he finds “bright green or bright red eruptions, which appear deeper than the wall” (14:37),5 he places it under quarantine and examines it again after seven days to see whether it has spread. If it has, the material of the affected area is replaced (cf. 13:56).

A quarantined house makes any person who even enters it unclean until evening, and the residential activities of lying down or eating there require laundering of clothes as well (14:46–7). These rules are fascinating in two ways. (1) The house conveys its severe impurity by “overhang,” contaminating everything within its enclosed space, even without direct contact (cf. Num. 19:14–15). (2) Because the priest is the one who places the house under quarantine, he is also the one who determines when its impurity begins. This explains why the priest orders that the house be emptied before he inspects it so that movable belongings do not become impure when he commences the quarantine (Lev. 14:36). Clearing out the house also facilitates total inspection of its walls.

Here is additional evidence that Leviticus 14 is concerned with legal-religious categories. Just as a city ordinance condemning a house and forbidding anyone to enter takes effect when it is announced and posted, so the Israelite priest’s declaration of quarantine carries legal force that determines when the house begins to defile by “overhang.” Obviously this is not the way medical science works. If you come in contact with an individual carrying a contagious disease before examination by a physician, you are no less at risk than if your contact was after the exam.

If after its repair the house suffers a relapse of fungous infection, it is “impure” and must be demolished (cf. 13:52, 55, 57). By contrast, if priestly inspection reveals that replacement of the infected material has solved the problem, he pronounces the house “pure” because the infection has “healed” (14:48). To decontaminate (Piel of ḥṭʾ, 14:49) the healed house, the priest performs an elimination ritual with two birds like the first-day procedure for a person, but in this case he sprinkles on the house. By doing this he expiates (kipper) for the house, that is, purges it from ritual impurity, so that it is “pure” (14:53). Here kipper is a removal of something offensive to God. It cannot refer to “atonement” in the sense of reconciliation between the house and God.

Bridging Contexts

RESTORATION IN STAGES. Why is the procedure for purifying a person healed from scale disease so drawn out and complicated, including reintegration of the person into the community in stages? When the Lord purifies a person, why doesn’t he do the job once and for all, as when he created whole categories of living things just by speaking (Gen. 1)?

Compare the description in Mark 8:22–25 of a healing miracle that Jesus performed:

They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”

He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”

Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

On other occasions Jesus completely healed people all at once, but this time he did it in two stages, with the first stage accomplishing partial healing and the second finishing the job. It was not that Jesus didn’t have the power to do it all in one step (cf. John 11:43–44, raising Lazarus). By allowing the blind “patient” to experience healing as a process, Jesus demonstrated the magnitude of the change he accomplished.

So it was with purification from scale disease. The complex, phased process that returned a person to normality taught that it was a long way back, implying the enormity of the fall from purity that had occurred.

Having lost Paradise as a result of sin, our journey home to immortality is a long one because we have departed so far from God. Our healing and reintegration into the community of God’s holy universe is a vast process that has already spanned millennia and has required the tragic death of God’s Son. It is abundantly apparent that the Lord wants total healing, not a quick fix. The magnitude of the solution teaches us how far we have fallen.

Unlike ritual purification or healing a blind man, our redemption involves moral purification, including restoration of our ability to make right choices. Growth in this area requires our cooperation with God, and like Jesus’ disciples, we are slow learners. In fact, this may be at least part of the reason why Jesus decided to heal the blind man in phases. D. E. Garland comments on Mark 8:22–26:

The miracle shows Jesus’ power to heal even the most difficult cases. The Markan context, which portrays Jesus’ struggle to get his disciples to see anything, gives this unusual two-stage healing added significance. The blind man’s healing occurs between two examples of the disciples’ blindness (8:14–21; 8:31–33). This physical healing of blindness serves as a paradigm for the spiritual healing of the disciples’ sight, which also comes gradually and with difficulty.6

The length and pain of our restoration process is not because God has simply decided to let us keep suffering in order to teach us the depth of our badness and the height of his grace. He cannot heal our moral nature in one mighty flash without destroying our free choice, the element of human nature that makes it possible for us to love him. If he were to transform all of us instantly into obedient robots who automatically go to church on time, give offerings and tithes, treat others well, abstain from harmful substances, and say, “God, we love you,” he would thereby annihilate the human race because we would no longer be human. He might just as well turn us into cuddly stuffed animals!

Just as it was the impurity of a scale-diseased person that necessitated multiple stages to bring a person back into a new life of fellowship with his or her community and communion with God through worship, so it is our condition that requires a major process. We should not blame God for the delay. He is merciful for giving us time. If he were to bring us up too quickly to face his holiness, we would die (Ex. 33:20), just as a scuba diver who descends deep into the ocean will die if he or she comes up too fast.

Blood and water. The bird ritual for purification from scale disease (14:4–7, 49–53) counteracts the living “death” of scale disease (cf. Num. 12:12), not only by eliminating impurity that represents mortality, but also by positively emphasizing the theme of “life” with “live” water and blood that represents life (cf. Lev. 17:11). As in the “red cow” ritual for purification from corpse contamination, crimson yarn and cedar wood, which are also red, enhance the life-giving symbolism of blood (cf. Num. 19:6).7 Hyssop, a small plant (1 Kings 4:33), is used for dipping in the liquid and then sprinkling it (cf. Ex. 12:22; Num. 19:18; Ps. 51:7; Heb. 9:19).

Water is a common instrument of ritual purification (cf. Lev. 11:32; 15:5–8, 10–13). In the bird ritual it must be “live” water (14:5–6), such as that which gushed from the well of spring water discovered by Isaac’s servants (Gen. 26:19). This kind of water is “live” in the sense that it continually moves as it flows from its source (cf. 2 Kings 5:10—Jordan River). Not surprisingly, “live” water is also required to remove other severe impurities for which an Israelite would be banished from the camp (cf. Num. 5:1–4): a genital flow (Lev. 15:13) and corpse contamination (Num. 19:17).

Water and blood cleanse and provide life. This is true in our bodies from the time of our birth, which is accompanied by water and blood. So it is striking that when Christ died and a soldier pierced the side of his dead body with a spear, there was “a sudden flow of blood and water” (John 19:34). Undoubtedly the blood and water bear medical testimony to the extreme internal stress that Christ had suffered, but John attached additional significance: The liquid elements identify Christ as the Son of God, the Messiah of prophecy. Later he wrote: “Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood” (1 John 5:5–6).

Water and blood are the most prominent purifying elements of the Israelite ritual system. Unlike other dead persons, whose bodies caused ritual impurity based on mortality, Christ’s death made him the Source of purification and life through “new birth” (cf. John 3:3–8). Christ fulfills the Israelite system of ritual purification, providing us with the elements we need to be victorious over the mortal state that characterizes our present sinful world so we can have eternal life that transcends the present era.

Christian rituals employ the powerful symbolism of blood and water. At the Lord’s Supper/communion service, the wine represents Christ’s blood, as he said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Baptism with water, which arose from Israelite bathing for purification from ritual defilement (e.g., Lev. 15:5–8), enacts moral purification (Mark 1:4–5). This purification is not simply freedom from legal condemnation. It is freedom from slavery to committing sin (Rom. 6:1–3, 6–7, 11–14) and hope of eternal life through faith in Christ’s sacrifice, symbolizing this faith by ritual burial under water (6:4–5; cf. Acts 8:38–39).

Around the year 1900, a Norwegian sailor by the name of Gulbrandson was crossing the Atlantic, but became ill to the point that he was unable to move or respond in any way. Taking him to be dead, his shipmates conducted his funeral, sewed his body into a bag with weights, and slid him into the Atlantic Ocean. But when he hit the cold water, his responses awoke and he prayed for God to save him. Frantically groping for a way out of the descending body bag, he found a knife that had accidentally been left in it. He slashed the bag and popped to the surface, to the astonishment of the mourners on deck, who quickly pulled him back onboard. Also revived spiritually, Gulbrandson accepted the Lord and devoted his new life to service for him. His literal water burial triggered the kind of change that baptism symbolizes!8

Unlike ancient Israelites, Christians who are baptized do not need to wait until the end of daylight before they are pure (e.g., Lev. 15:5–8). Perhaps this limitation met its fulfillment when Christ died at the end of the ritual day, about the time of the regular evening (or late afternoon) sacrifice (Matt. 27:46–51; cf. Num. 28:4).

Contemporary Significance

THE VALUE OF STEPS. In our age of instant gratification, we want leaps rather than steps. But most human progress happens in steps—for example, a baby’s first steps, Neil Armstrong’s “one small step” onto the moon in 1969, and software upgrades. Even a leap that is possible can be undesirable. Severe illness can make people so weak that rapid progress through surgery can be injurious or even fatal. First it is necessary to stabilize and raise the vital signs a few notches.

Another reason for steps is to understand and/or teach how a process is accomplished. Seeing a polished PowerPoint presentation can be enlightening and enjoyable, but witnessing a demonstration of the steps that have gone into the final product raises the level of appreciation and the possibility that others can learn to make contributions by using this tool.

As a pianist, Sergei Rachmaninoff was so gifted and intuitive that magnificent playing came easily and naturally to him. Consequently, when he taught piano at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he had difficulty explaining to students how they could achieve the kinds of results he did. So he had to send them to his colleague, Theodor Leschetizky, who broke things down into steps that they could follow.

In addition to providing comprehension, steps are encouraging because they show measurable progress that would not even register on a scale of leaps. This is part of the phenomenal success of the “twelve-step” program of Alcoholics Anonymous for overcoming alcohol addiction.9 Another part is the fact that the program treats afflicted individuals as whole persons, including the physical, emotional, spiritual, and social dimensions. The “twelve-step” approach can be briefly summarized:

You admit you are licked; you get honest with yourself; you talk it out with somebody else; you make restitution to the people you have harmed; you try to give of yourself without stint, with no demand for reward; and you pray to whatever God you think there is, even as an experiment.10

This is remarkably similar to God’s wholistic, stepwise approach to the human condition, as revealed in Leviticus. As in the Bible, the prerequisite for hope through God is a realization of utter helplessness to be restored on one’s own. One of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous learned from William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience regarding transforming spiritual experiences:

Some were sudden brilliant illuminations; others came on very gradually. Some flowed out of religious channels; others did not. But nearly all had the great common denominators of pain, suffering, calamity. Complete hopelessness and deflation at depth were almost always required to make the recipient ready.11

Free to love. In his spine-chilling novel titled 1984, George Orwell describes what it could be like to “live” under the oppressive power of a totalitarian superpower determined to control every aspect of existence. Despite the familial ring of its epithet, “Big Brother” keeps its citizens under invasive surveillance to stamp out individual freedom of choice by harshly enforcing absolute compliance with its iron rule.

Unfortunately, Orwell’s nightmare has been all too true to life for millions of people. One of them was the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich. During the Stalin era, he came under dangerous criticism from the authorities for some works that did not conform to the prevailing ideological mold. So he explained his new Fifth Symphony in an official publication as “the stabilization of the personality.” In this way he satisfied the communist watchdogs and was “rehabilitated” in 1937.

A different story surfaced when the memoirs of Shostakovich appeared after he died in 1975. Near the end of his life, when he was ailing and disillusioned, the composer revealed the bitter intention that he had veiled in the last movement of his Fifth Symphony:

“The rejoicing is forced, created under threat. . . . It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,’ and you rise, shaky, and go marching off muttering, ‘Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.’”

While the boisterous trumpets and drums could be taken to evoke a festival or peasant dance, Shostakovich envisioned a forced death march.12

A regime that denied its people the choice to reject it simultaneously denied them the choice to accept and love it. This is powerfully and sarcastically illustrated by a Russian story:

A foreign journalist wanted to find out how the Soviets really felt about Stalin. But his query was consistently met by looks of fear or blank stares as people would hurry away. Finally one day a man reacted differently: He looked around to make sure nobody was watching, and muttered that the reporter should follow him. They took a tortuous route through Moscow, entering and leaving buildings, going in and out of streets while constantly changing directions. All this time the man’s eyes darted around to see if they were being followed. They took a taxi and wandered through the city until they came to Gorky Park. The Russian led the correspondent to a lake, where he rented a rowboat and rowed them to the middle of the lake. Then he looked around once more, leaned over to the journalist, and whispered in his ear: “I like him.”13

This is the kind of scenario that God is seeking to avoid. Omnipotent as he is, he is not interested in traumatizing his creatures to the point that they are even afraid to praise him. He knows that the only kind of warm devotion and exuberant joy that is worth anything at all comes from a heart that is won over rather than coerced.

Winning us over is not easy. It means building our understanding and trust, which takes time and shared experience. It includes waiting, like the father of the prodigal son, until we figure out that we are in a mess and need help. It involves various phases of restoration from death to life, as enacted by the purification of a scale-diseased person in Leviticus 14. However, at the end of the long and tortuous route is not a frightened whisper of affirmation but a hearty shout:

Praise the LORD.

Praise God in his sanctuary;

praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his acts of power;

praise him for his surpassing greatness.

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,

praise him with the harp and lyre,

praise him with tambourine and dancing,

praise him with the strings and flute,

praise him with the clash of cymbals,

praise him with resounding cymbals.

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.

Praise the LORD. (Ps. 150)

When the Father’s wait is over, he cannot help celebrating too because his child “was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:32).