I Will…

1 When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. 2 And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” 3 And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”  – Matthew 8:1-4 ESV

Jesus finished His sermon and, rather than taking a well-deserved break, He immediately began His ministry. And it’s interesting to note that upon the completion of His message, the very first person who came to Jesus was a leper. Matthew describes great crowds of people following Jesus, but it was a lone leper, a social pariah and ostracized outcast from the community who made a beeline to Jesus and knelt before Him. This man’s hideous skin disease was not only painful, but marked him as unclean and prohibited him from participation in temple worship. Because he was in close proximity to the crowd, which was most likely comprised primarily of Jews, it is safe to assume he was a Jew himself. But, because of his disease, he was no longer welcome in the community. Leprosy was considered a curse from God, a divine judgment for sins committed. So, lepers were avoided at all costs, not only because of their disease, but because any contact with them would make a person ceremonially unclean. By law, this man would have been required to announce himself to all those around him as being a leper.

45 “The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ 46 He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. – Leviticus 5:45-46 ESV

And while Matthew doesn’t describe the reaction of the crowd, we can only imagine the shock and repulsion they must have felt when this man showed up in their midst. They would have backed off in horror at the sight of him. There were likely shouts of ridicule and anger at his unmitigated gall to show his face among them. And how dare he approach Jesus, a rabbi and teacher. But this man was desperate. He longed to be healed. He was tired of being an outcast. So, he took his need to Jesus, and the text tells us he kneeled before Him. Somehow, this man knew that Jesus was the answer to his problem. In his pain and desperation, he took a huge risk and, in violation of the law, he said to Jesus, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” 

Notice the wording of his statement, “If you will….” He seemed to have no doubt in his mind that Jesus could heal him. His only reservation had to do with whether Jesus would. He was well aware of his own uncleanness. His faith in Jesus’ capacity to restore him was strong, but he had doubts about Jesus’ willingness to do so. He was undeserving and unworthy. But he was also just the kind of person for whom Jesus had come to earth.

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” – Luke 4:18-19 ESV

4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” – Matthew 12:4-5 ESV

Whether this man realized it or not, in spite of his bad circumstances, he was in good company. He was part of the poor, the captives, the blind and oppressed to whom Jesus had come to minister. Like the lame, the deaf and even the dead, this man’s problem was no match for the Son of God. His disease was no obstacle for Jesus. And amazingly, to the shock of all those in the crowd that day, Jesus reached out His hand and touched this man. In doing so, not only risked making Himself ceremonially unclean, He violated the law. In response to the man’s statement, “If you will…,” Jesus replied, “I will….” And He did. He healed him. In a matter of seconds, the man’s disease was completely eradicated. This man had been healed by a touch from the hand of Jesus, and everyone in the crowd would have been witness to this miraculous event. 

One of the things that gets easily overlooked in this passage is the deliberate decision on Jesus’ part to touch the man. He didn’t have to do so. He could have healed him with a word. But Jesus, knowing that by touching the man He would contract the man’s defilement, did so. In many ways, leprosy represents the pervasive nature of man’s sin nature. It contaminates and separates. It leaves its victim helpless, hopeless and alone. It defiles and deems the individual unfit for communion with God. But with a touch, Jesus took on the man’s defilement and bestowed on him perfect health. The apostle Paul wrote of the amazing transaction that Jesus came to make possible.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

The leper’s physical restoration was symbollic of the spiritual restoration Jesus came to provide all those who would place their faith in Him as their Messiah and Savior. But in order for anyone to have their sinful state healed by Jesus, they would have to admit their problem and come to Him just as the leper did – in humility and faith. Jesus once stated, “"Healthy people don't need a doctor--sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners" (Mark 2:17 NLT). The apostle John wrote, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 ESV).

This man was healed, but he still required cleansing. In spite of his radical physical transformation, he was still unclean according to the law.

3 …if the case of leprous disease is healed in the leprous person, 4 the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two live clean birds and cedarwood and scarlet yarn and hyssop. 5 And the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthenware vessel over fresh water. 6 He shall take the live bird with the cedarwood and the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, and dip them and the live bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. 7 And he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed of the leprous disease. Then he shall pronounce him clean and shall let the living bird go into the open field. 8 And he who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes and shave off all his hair and bathe himself in water, and he shall be clean. And after that he may come into the camp, but live outside his tent seven days. 9 And on the seventh day he shall shave off all his hair from his head, his beard, and his eyebrows. He shall shave off all his hair, and then he shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and he shall be clean. – Leviticus 14:1-9 ESV

So, Jesus commanded the man, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them” (Matthew 8:4 ESV). This is significant, because healing from leprosy was rare and unheard of. By sending this man to the temple, Jesus would have sent a loud and clear message to the priests that something new was going on in their midst. It’s likely that these priests had never had a single leper show up at the temple healed and ready to offer the prescribed sacrifices. Jesus wanted this man to obey the law and follow the Mosaic requirements for cleansing, but He also wanted the man to provide visible, tangible proof of His power over not only sickness, but sin.

We must not overlook the significance of this man’s desperate state. Because of his leprosy, he was alone, ostracized, unclean, and condemned to a slow, painful death. But he brought his need to Jesus and said, “If you will, you can…” and Jesus did. This man’s physical state mirrors the spiritual condition of each and every man and woman who is infected by sin. The apostle Paul describes the sad reality of man’s spiritual state apart from Christ.

…remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. – Ephesians 2:12 ESV

Then he provides the good news.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. – Ephesians 2:13 ESV

The man in the story had been restored to health. But he had also been restored to community and been given the right to enter the temple and to offer sacrifices to God. He was no longer alienated. he was not longer a stranger and social outcast. He was no longer without hope and without God in the world. All because he brought his need to Jesus and received the healing touch of the Savior.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Called to Stand Out.

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ! — assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. – Ephesians 4:17-24 ESV

Futile minds. Darkened understandings. Alienated from God. Ignorant. Hardened hearts. Callous. Slaves to sensuality. Greedy for more impurity.

Paul doesn’t exactly paint a pretty picture of the condition of those outside of Christ. But his purpose seems to be less about exposing the sinful nature of the lost, than about reminding the Ephesian believers of their pre-conversion state. Prior to coming to faith in Christ, they had been in the same condition: Lost and alienated from God. Verse 17 is directly linked to verse one of this same chapter. Paul opened up the chapter by telling them, “I…urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” Now he is telling them how not to walk. As we have seen before, the Greek word translated “walk” is περιπατέω (peripateō) and it meant “to make one's way, progress” and was most often used by Paul to refer to living life. Paul was encouraging the believers in the church of Ephesus to live their lives differently, because they had been called by God. Rather than living selfish, self-gratifying lives like they did before, they were to conduct themselves in such a way that it honored the One who had called them and restore them to a right relationship with Himself.

Paul’s emphasis on his readers’ previous lost condition was intended to emphasize their supernatural calling by God. In their lost state, their minds were a big part of the problem. Without Christ, their minds were futile, which in the Greek meant “devoid of truth and appropriateness.” Their understanding was darkened. In other words, their thoughts, feelings and desires were “covered with darkness.” That is why the apostle John opened his gospel with the words, “In Him [Jesus] was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4-5 NASB). Without God’s help, men were incapable of seeing the Light. They were covered in and blinded by darkness. Like a person trapped in a dark room who suddenly finds himself exposed to the daylight, their eyes are incapable of seeing clearly and distinctly. Their eyes are so accustomed to darkness that the light is painful to them. John goes on to say, “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him” (John 1:8-9 NASB).

Paul went on to say that his readers were at one time “alienated from the life of God.” The Greek word Paul used means to “shut out from one's fellowship and intimacy” (“G526 - apallotrioō - Strong's Greek Lexicon (KJV).”" Blue Letter Bible). They had not concept of what it meant to know God or have a relationship with Him. It was King David who wrote:

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”     

They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,     

there is none who does good.

The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,     

to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.

They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;     

there is none who does good, not even one. - Psalm 14:1-3 ESV

No one was truly seeking God. They might have been searching for their particular version of God, but they were incapable of seeing or comprehending the one true God. That is why, as Paul writes in Romans, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (Romans 1:22-23 ESV). And Paul makes it clear to the Ephesians that their former alienation from God had been the result of their own ignorance and hardness of heart. The ignorance Paul speaks of is not just a lack of knowledge, but a moral blindness. And that, coupled with their hardened hearts, rendered them incapable of knowing God or His truth. Their perceptions had been dulled and their minds, blunted. As a result, they found themselves addicted to sensuality and insatiably drawn to more and more impurity. 

And Paul’s point seems to be that no one who finds themselves in that condition chooses to seek after God or has the mental wherewithal to choose Christ. No one with a darkened, hardened, futile mind would naturally seek what God has offered to them in Christ. It would make no sense. Which is why Paul told the Corinthian believers, “when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense” (1 Corinthians 1:23 NLT). Paul told the Ephesians, “that is not the way you learned Christ!” In other words, they had not come to a knowledge of Jesus through their own human thinking. They learned Jesus through what Paul called “the foolishness of preaching.”

God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. – 1 Corinthians 1:21 NLT

It had been the proclamation of the Word of God and the regenerating power of the Spirit of God that had made the message of salvation by grace through faith in Christ comprehensible to them. Paul reminded them that “the truth is in Jesus.” And that truth called for them to “throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God — truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:22-24 NLT). Their old natures were corrupt and deceived. Their new natures, provided to them by the indwelling Holy Spirit were capable of new thoughts, attitudes and actions. They were to walk in a manner worthy of their calling – holy, set apart, distinctively different, empowered by the Spirit and in keeping with the will of God. Change is non-optional for believers. Spiritual transformation is not up to us to choose or reject – at least, and not truly be a child of God. Our new natures should crave and desire the things of God. We should want what He wants for us: holiness and righteousness. And our new natures, lived within the context of the body of Christ, should produce a new community that is unlike anything the world has ever seen. Called and committed believers, powered by the Spirit of God and living as brothers and sisters in Christ, should form “a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21 ESV). Our lives, lived together in unity, should prove to the world that the gospel is true and that reconciliation with God brings reconciliation with others.