What are the bodily discharges mentioned in Leviticus 15, and why did they make a person unclean?

Because leprosy speaks of the outbreak of positive sin, it required rigorous treatment. Nothing like this is intimated in chapter 15, but rather the frailty of the human body in suffering the effects of the contamination of sin through Adam, our first father. We are not in any way responsible for the sinful nature we have inherited by birth, though we are responsible for allowing that nature to manifest itself in sinful actions. The discharges spoken of here were not avoidable, but are intended as a reminder that we have inherited a sinful nature from Adam. Therefore the cleansing process was not as involved as in the case of leprosy.

Because leprosy speaks of the outbreak of positive sin, it required rigorous treatment. Nothing like this is intimated in chapter 15, but rather the frailty of the human body in suffering the effects of the contamination of sin through Adam, our first father. We are not in any way responsible for the sinful nature we have inherited by birth, though we are responsible for allowing that nature to manifest itself in sinful actions. The discharges spoken of here were not avoidable, but are intended as a reminder that we have inherited a sinful nature from Adam. Therefore the cleansing process was not as involved as in the case of leprosy.

The uncleanness of a man (15:1-18) 2. The uncleanness of a woman (15:19-33)

The whole chapter shows the deplorable physical condition into which man has been plunged by sin. The issues mentioned were therefore an evidence of the presence of sin in man's nature with the curse upon it, and constitutes man and woman unclean in the sight of God. "Not only actions, from which we can abstain, but operations of nature which we cannot help, alike defile; defile in such a manner and degree as to require, even as voluntary acts of sin, the cleansing of water and the expiatory blood of a sin offering. One could not avoid many of the defilements mentioned in this chapter, but that made no difference; he was unclean." Fallen human nature in its weakness and defilement is taught, and that this human nature is impure and polluting even in its secret workings. The blood and the water cover all this. It must be noticed that the water and the different application of water is constantly mentioned throughout this chapter. The water always typifies the Word by which our way is to be cleansed.

" 1 and Jehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2 Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, If any man has a flux from his flesh, because of his flux, he [is] unclean. 3 And this shall be his uncleanness in his flux: whether his flesh run with his flux, or his flesh be closed from his flux, it [is] his uncleanness. 4 Every bed whereon he that has the flux lies shall be unclean; and everything whereon he sits shall be unclean. 5 And whosoever touches his bed shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 6 And he that sits on [anything] whereon he that has the flux sat shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 7 And he that touches the flesh of him that has the flux shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 8 And if he that has the flux spit upon him that is clean, then he shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 9 And what carriage (or saddle) soever he that has the flux rides upon shall be unclean. 10 And whosoever touches anything that was under him shall be unclean until the even; and he that bears those things shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 11 And whomsoever he that has the flux touches without having rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 12 And the earthen vessel that he that has the flux touches shall be broken; and every vessel of wood shall be rinsed in water " (vers. 1-12).

Man is not as God created him; he is fallen: and here we read how God instructed the Israelite of old to judge his state. It was not nature, but nature ruined and unclean; so are its unclean emotions. They are tainted and defile. So Jehovah spoke to Moses and Aaron. The physical uncleanness speaks to us of a deeper evil. So the Lord taught even the multitude: "Not that which goes into the mouth defiles the man; but that which comes out of the mouth, this defiles the man " (Matt. 15:11). And when Peter, feeling Pharisaic opposition, asked more, the Lord replied, "Do not ye understand that all that enters into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into a sewer? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth out from the heart; and those things defile the man. For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, theft, false witnessing, blasphemies: these are the things which defile the man." The outside satisfies those who have not faith and count God as themselves. For as the Lord pointed out, Every plant which My heavenly Father planted not shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they are blind leaders of blind; but if blind lead blind, both will fall into a ditch.

But a holy God will have us take account of the humiliating truth, if the uncleanness flow out, or even if suppressed within by night or by day (3, 4) as to things or persons (5-12). Every case demanded purifying. To the Jew it was water; to us the washing of water by the word, the water that flowed from Christ in death, to which the apostle who saw bears record in Gospel and Epistle.

Lev. 15:16-33.

There remains a still larger portion of these uncleannesses which divine wisdom did not scruple to notice, however humbling to men and women; for as we have had the one sex, so now follows the other. Jehovah would compel His people to feel that He takes account, not merely of sin as typified in its most destructive shape as well as in the very ushering into the world of a child, male or female, but of such impurities as are of a more ordinary nature and frequent recurrence, proceeding from men and women as they are, and connected with that which is lawful and necessary. If the latter was for the earthly people, Christians are entitled to read these outward ordinances in the spirit. To the pure all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.

" 16 And if any man's seed of copulation pass from him, then he shall bathe his whole flesh in water, and be unclean until the even. 17 And all raiment and every skin, wherein the seed of copulation shall be, shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the even. 18 And a woman with whom a man lies with seed of copulation, they shall bathe in water, and be unclean until the even.

19 And if a woman has a flux, and her flux in her flesh be blood, she shall be seven days in her separation, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the even. 20 And every thing that she lies upon in her separation shall be unclean; and every thing that she sits upon shall be unclean. 21 And whoever touches her bed shall wash his raiment, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even. 22 And whoever touches any thing that she sits upon shall wash his raiment, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the even. 23 And if it be on the bed or on any thing on which she sits, when he touches it, he shall be unclean until the even. 24 And if a man lie with her at all, and the uncleanness of her separation come upon him, he shall be unclean seven days; and every bed whereon he lies shall be unclean. 25 And if a woman have her flux of blood many days out of the time of her separation, or if she have the flux beyond the time of her separation, all the days of the flux of her uncleanness shall be as the days of her separation: she is unclean. 26 Every bed whereon she lies all the days of her flux shall be to her as the bed of her separation; and every thing on which she sits shall be unclean, according to the uncleanness of her separation. 27 And whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his raiment, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the even.

(2) THE PERSON THAT HAS AN ISSUE (whether it be dysentery or any other kind of trouble), was equally an undesirable associate for sanitary reasons, and Leviticus 15 shows what strenuous care was to be exercised as to him. But — still more important for the right understanding of the purity and holiness of God — every such person was to be excluded from the camp of Israel. A man that had an issue was one in whose case there was the expenditure of vitality in a wrong direction. Vital fluids of the body were in some way escaping, and everybody knows what terrible havoc may be wrought among huge masses of population by the non-segregation of these contagious diseases. There were, of course, sanitary and good reasons for this law; but we should ill understand it if we did not see that there is moral significance also as to what is right in the sight of God. Usually, for example, the plea is urged in these days that if a man, and as long as a man, be sincere, we ought not to interfere with his convictions. He may have a tremendous zeal, like Israel after the flesh in Paul's day (Romans 10), going about to establish his own righteousness, and not submitting to the righteousness of God! but, says sentiment, "he is in earnest, and that is all that matters" "If," say others, "we do the best we can and leave the rest, will not God accept us?" In a hundred ways we may be expending vitality, but is it only an unholy discharge which God regards as a disease? Further, under It the plea of devotedness or zeal, tens thousands, even among the saints of God — more's the pity set themselves to services which are contrary to the ways and will of God revealed in Christ. So seriously does He regard every trace of this misdirected vital energy that in the type every thing that such a person touched or used was defiled in His sight, and had to be either cleansed or broken. (Lev 15:1-12). Is it not melancholy to consider and yet sadly true, that a man — Israelite born — might yet become a danger to his fellows by an unchecked and uncontrollable flow of nature? and that instead of contributing his full quota to the prosperity, the unity, the purity, the separation of God's people, his presence everywhere contributed to distress, to defilement, to discipline from God among them?

Next in order in the word, and in harmony with the order of the moral teaching just noticed, we read of defilement from the working in one way or other of nature in man. Thank God we look to be free from the body of sin, the flesh. We have, however, to learn what the flesh is in God's sight, and the working of it. What a humbling lesson for man is this! How the Israelitish man or woman must have felt it, when he or she was considered unclean from the action of nature within them, as set forth in chapters 12 — 15; communicating, too, defilement to any places or things brought into contact with them (15:4-12). And we who never were of the seed of Abraham after the flesh, and were never placed under the law to prove the burdensome character of its ceremonial, we have each and all within us, and are to be aware of it, that hateful defiling thing called "the flesh," of which the ceremonial purifications remind us. What came from an Israelite's flesh defiled that person. What comes from the heart of man, the working of the evil nature within him, defiles the man (Mark 7:21). The Israelite's nature did not defile him, but the outflow of it did. So the flesh within us does not defile us, though the actings of it does. And God is holy. Compromise therefore, on His part with uncleanness is impossible, hence provision to cleanse the defiled one is made the subject of divine revelation, and that in both Old and New Testaments.

Other cases connected with the weakness of nature are mentioned, but which point out that, sin having come in, all that is of nature, of the flesh, defiles (whatever may be the excuse as to the weakness and the unavoidable character of the thing). If it cannot be avoided, it is the manifestation, or at least the inevitable existence, of that which is shameful, because it is a nature fallen and sinful.

This chapter treats of a variety of ceremonial uncleannesses of a much less serious nature than leprosy. This latter would seem to be presented as the expression of the deep-seated energy of nature's evil; whereas, chap. 15 details a number of things which are merely unavoidable infirmities, but which, as being, in any measure the outflow of nature, were defiling, and needed the provisions of divine grace. The divine presence in the assembly demanded a high order of holiness and moral purity. Every movement of nature had to be counteracted. Even things which, so far as man was concerned, might seem to be unavoidable weaknesses, had a defiling influence, and required cleaning, because Jehovah was in the camp. Nothing offensive, nothing unsightly, nothing in any way uncomely, should be suffered within the pure, unsullied and sacred precincts of the presence of the God of Israel. The uncircumcised nations around would have understood nothing of such holy ordinances; but Jehovah would have Israel holy, because He was Israel's God. If they were to be privileged and distinguished by having the presence of a holy God, they would need to be a holy people.

Nothing can be more calculated to elicit the soul's admiration than the jealous care of Jehovah over all the habits and practices of His people. At home and abroad, asleep and awake, by day and by night, He guarded them. He attended to their food, He attended to their clothing, He attended to their most minute and private concerns. If some trifling spot appeared upon the person, it had to be instantly and carefully looked into. In a word, nothing was overlooked which could, in any wise, affect the well-being or purity of those with whom Jehovah had associated Himself, and in whose midst He dwelt. He took an interest in their most trivial affairs. He carefully attended to everything connected with them, whether publicly, socially, or privately.

This, to an uncircumcised person, would have proved an intolerable burden. For such an one to have a God of infinite holiness about his path, by day, and about his bed, by night, would have involved an amount of restraint beyond all power of endurance; but to a true lover of holiness, a lover of God, nothing could be more delightful. Such an one rejoices in the sweet assurance that God is always near; and he delights in the holiness which is, at once, demanded and secured by the presence of God.

Chapters 13 and 14 have been occupied with the worst form of defilement; one which usually was lifelong and entailed total exclusion from the camp of Israel, in the midst of which it was God's pleasure to dwell. Leviticus 15 is occupied with a variety of lesser defilements, which entailed a temporary separation and diligent washings before re-admission to the camp and its privileges was possible. These defilements sprang from the weakness of human nature and conditions as they exist today, as the result of the fall. Many of them were of an unavoidable nature but nevertheless they were to be recognized as being of a defiling nature and treated as such. Thus Israel was to be impressed with the holiness of their God and how everything of a defiling nature must be removed, if His presence was to be enjoyed.