Here closes the record of the Lord's dealings with the leprous man; and, oh, what a marvelous record it is! what an unfolding of the exceeding hatefulness of sin, the grace and holiness of God, the preciousness of Christ's Person, and the efficacy of His work! Nothing can be more interesting than to mark the footprints of divine grace forth from the hallowed precincts of the sanctuary to the defiled place where the leper stood, with bare head, covered lip, and rent garments. God visited the leper where he was, but He did not leave him there. He went forth prepared to accomplish a work in virtue of which He could bring the leper into a higher place and higher communion than ever he had known before. On the ground of this work, the leper was conducted from his place of defilement and loneliness to the very door of the tabernacle of the congregation, the priestly place, to enjoy priestly privileges. (Comp. Exod. xxix. 20, 21, 32.) How could he ever have climbed to such an elevation? Impossible! For aught he could do, he might have languished and died in his leprosy had not the sovereign grace of the God of Israel stooped to lift him from the dunghill, to set him among the princes of his people. If ever there was a case in which the question of human effort, human merit, and human righteousness could be fully tried and perfectly settled, the leper is unquestionably that case. Indeed it were a sad loss of time to discuss such a question in the presence of such a case. It must be obvious to the most cursory reader that naught but free grace reigning through righteousness could meet the leper's condition and the leper's need. And how gloriously and triumphantly did that grace act! It traveled down into the deepest depths, that it might raise the leper to the loftiest heights. See what the leper lost, and see what he gained! He lost all that pertained to nature, and he gained the blood of atonement and the grace of the Spirit. I mean typically. Truly he was a gainer, to an incalculable amount. He was infinitely better off than if he had never been thrust forth from the camp. Such is the grace of God! such the power and value, the virtue and efficacy, of the blood of Jesus!
How forcibly does all this remind us of the prodigal in Luke xv! In him, too, leprosy had wrought and risen to a head. He had been afar off, in the defiled place, where his own sins and the intense selfishness of the far country had created a solitude around him; but, blessed forever be a father's deep and tender love, we know how it ended. The prodigal found a higher place and tasted higher communion than ever he had known before; "the fatted calf" had never been slain for him before; "the best robe" had never been on him before. And how was this? was it a question of the prodigal's merit? Oh, no; it was simply a question of the father's love.
Dear reader, let me ask, can you ponder over the record of God's dealings with the leper in Leviticus xiv, or the father's dealings with the prodigal in Luke xv, and not have an enlarged sense of the love that dwells in the bosom of God, that flows through the Person and work of Christ, that is recorded in the Scriptures of truth, and brought home to the heart by the Holy Ghost? Lord grant us a deeper and more abiding fellowship with Himself!