July 10, 2024
“And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean? And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.” Luke 5:12, 13.
Jesus cleansed this man entirely from the disease of leprosy. It was not a partial healing, but rather immediate. As you read Scripture, none of the people Jesus healed were healed only partially or over a prolonged period. Interesting.
Leprosy is most often used in scripture as a metaphor for the destructive results of sin. As the disease of leprosy destroys and disfigures the physical body, sin disfigures and destroys the soul of mankind. Sadly, it appears that there are very few churches or individual Christians in our nation that believe we can be cleansed from the leprosy of sin. Jesus told the leper that He was willing to cleanse him from leprosy, and He healed him on the spot. If leprosy represents sin, does that mean Jesus can and will instantly heal us from sin if we ask Him?
Christians have no problem believing that Jesus Christ can completely and instantly heal any person of any disease, infirmity, deformity, or malady. But when it comes to being healed from the leprosy of sin (the practice of sin or habitual sin), just about every Christian denies that Christ can or will heal us from sinning. Is that not strange? What are we to make of it? Why such great unbelief, and how is it to be explained?
Could it be that most Christians do not want to be entirely and immediately healed from the leprosy of sin? Could it be that there are some sins that we are not yet willing to repent of and turn away from? Ouch! Sure, we may be willing to stop some sins gradually and slowly over time, but are we willing to forsake all sins now? Are we willing to be cleansed? My initial reaction is likely similar to yours. How can these things be? Surely God can’t expect us miserable sinners to be holy all the time, can He? What is the truth?
King David prayed that God would create in him a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit within him, as if God not only could do it but would answer his prayer. That’s faith. Scripture tells us that David was a man after God’s heart, even considering his sins regarding Bathsheba and Uriah, her husband.
If Jesus Christ was willing and able to immediately;
- heal the leper of his leprosy,
- to give sight to the blind,
- to give hearing to the deaf,
- to raise the dead to life,
- to calm the wind and the seas,
- to walk on water, and,
- feed the multitudes;
Why would any Christian person think that Jesus Christ is unable or unwilling to heal us from the leprosy of sin immediately? Isn’t that immeasurably more important than physical healing? Of course, it is.
To accommodate our unwillingness to be healed from sinning, theologians have created numerous false doctrines to allow us to wallow in our sin. Most Christians seek out these false prophets and false teachers. They want to hear smooth things from them. These false doctrines tell us that Jesus Christ is unable or unwilling to heal us from the sin nature that we supposedly inherit from Adam. These false teachers want us to believe that Christ’s grace, power, atonement, new birth, and regeneration are all insufficient to heal sinners from the practice of sinning. They tell us that we may make some progress in forsaking sin, but we must expect to be slaves of sin until our death. If that is not the sin of unbelief, then I do not know what is.
The leper pleaded with Jesus to heal him immediately from his leprosy. Jesus Christ did. If the leper pleaded with Jesus to heal him immediately from all his sins, do you think that Jesus would deny the request? Do you believe Jesus Christ is unable to cleanse the leper and us from sin?
Theologians tell us that being cleansed from sin is a slow process of gradual sanctification, and it is never complete until we die and go to heaven. Is a partial healing from the physical disease of leprosy even a possibility? I don’t think so. Can you imagine Jesus healing a person who was deaf in only one ear? How about Jesus healing the blind in only one eye? Why is it that our expectations are so low when it comes to being cleansed from sin? The leper had high expectations, and so should we. Nothing is impossible for God when He encounters faith.
The ministry of Jesus Christ reveals a savior who can make the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead raised to life, and a leper cleansed of leprosy. When the angel announced the birth of Jesus Christ, he said that Jesus would heal us ‘from sin’, ‘not in sin’. Yet, the theology of most Christians is that Jesus Christ saves us from sin, not from sin itself. There is nothing in the ministry of Jesus Christ to suggest that He is not able or willing to save us from habitual sin. Could it be that our expectations are low because we are not willing to be cleansed from all sin? But we are most definitely willing to be saved from our sins. Is that the gospel?
May God open our minds and hearts to His truth, power, and willingness to cleanse us from all sin. The first book of John, among other places in scripture, makes it crystal clear that no one born of God sins habitually. Those born of God do not live in sin. Sin is the exception in their lives, not the rule, not the norm. That, I believe, is the plain truth.
The world is longing to see this kind of Christianity. It has seen plenty of the carnal, weak, sinful, hypocritical, and dishonest Christianity and Christians. The problem has never been God’s ability, power, or willingness to cleanse and heal us. Many of us Christians do not want to be cleansed from all sin, for that means we must set aside some sin that we love and do not want to give up.
Do we want to be cleansed? Do you want to be cleansed? Do I want to be cleansed?
