The opening phrases of Jesus’ Galilean ministry continue as He arrives in one of its cities, perhaps Capernaum (Mk 2:1).

While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." (v. 1)

There Jesus encounters a man “full of leprosy.” The man has faith. He believes Jesus can heal him, and Jesus does so in response to his request.

Yet this is more than a mere physical deliverance. For us to fully appreciate this encounter we will need to see beyond the physical healing to the spiritual healing that it represents. Leprosy, as Gooding explains is “one among many physical illnesses that can helpfully be used as a metaphor or parable of moral and spiritual disease.”[1] Isaiah employs the sickness metaphor in referring to Israel’s sin in his day. “The whole head is sick,” he says,

“and the whole heart faint.  From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds” (Is 1:5b-6)

Leprosy, says Mathew Henry “fitly represents our natural pollution by sin.”[2] Jesus demonstrates that He has the power to heal our sin-sick souls.

Problem of Leprosy

We begin with the problem of leprosy. “Leprosy” was a name given to a variety of diseases in biblical times. During its worst forms it was disfiguring, crippling and scaring its victims; defiling, rendering one ceremoniously unclean (Lev. 13:45, 46); and dreaded, resulting in social isolation, quarantining, shame, and finally death. Lepers were shunned and despised. Those afflicted with it were described as experiencing a “living death.”

Luke says that the man was “full of leprosy,” which is “apparently a medical term for an advanced case,” explains Morris.[3] He was one who would have been “sequestered from normal society.”[4] He was beyond cure by human means. Yet he comes to Jesus “in one of the cities.” It was against the law for a leper to come into a city (Lev. 13:46). Luke may mean that the leper came to Jesus in the outskirts of the city.[5] Or, perhaps driven by desperation, he rushed into the city, ignoring the regulation in order to see Jesus.

We have, then, in the leper a metaphor of our spiritual condition. We are all spiritual lepers. This is our natural condition. The disease of sin has infected our minds, our hearts, our conscience, and our wills. It rots and destroys our souls. It separates us from God and from others, isolating and shaming us. It poisons all our facilities, corrupting and distorting our thinking, or emotions, and our actions. We are “full of leprosy,” as with this man, of the sort that is incurable by human means.

What are we to do? We can cry out to Jesus as he did. He “begged” Jesus, or “implored” Him (NASB). He showed the utmost humility and respect by falling on his face, prostate before Jesus and addressing Him as “Lord.” He also manifest strong confidence in Jesus’ ability to deliver him from his affliction. He begs Jesus saying not, “If you can,” rather, “if you will, you can...”              (cf. Mk. 9:22-24). He has every confidence that Jesus can heal him, even one like him who is “covered with leprosy” (NIV). His question is simply that of Jesus willingness to do so.

It is in this manner that we are all to come to Jesus with our spiritual leprosy. We are to come to Him humbly, respectfully, yet full of confidence that He has the power to heal our spiritual diseases, to cure our spiritual leprosy, to restore our health and strength, and restore us to a right relationship to God.

Jesus’ Response

How does Jesus respond to the leper? We are able to discern several aspects of His response which encourage us even today.

And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately the leprosy left him.” (v. 13)

First, Jesus responds with compassion. That Jesus “stretched out His hand and touched him” is a sign of the depth of His compassion. As Morris points out, he may not have been touched by anyone except fellow lepers for years. “It requires little effort to imagine what the touch of that hand meant to a man who had been segregated from society as an untouchable.”[6] Matthew Henry speaks of this “wonderful condescension.”[7] Think of the ways in which we communicate by touching: hugs, handshakes, kisses, a light touch on the arm. “To be cut off from all such contact,” says N. T. Wright, “is therefore almost as serious as losing one’s sight or hearing.”[8] Mark refers to Jesus emotions explicitly. He was “moved with compassion at the sight of the poor leper” (Mk. 1:43). Jesus looks upon spiritual leprosy in the same way. He sees our spiritual afflictions and is moved with compassion. (Mt. 9:36; Mk 6:34). He contemplates our spiritual sickness and uncleanness with sympathy. He “knows our frame and is mindful that we are but dust” says the Psalmist. He pities us, even as a father pities his children (Ps. 103:13, 14). When sick sinners turn to Jesus, they can know that they will be greeted with sympathy.

Second, Jesus exercises His power. “I will” or “I am willing” (NASB), He says. Jesus then heals the man with His word. “Be clean,” He says, or “be cleansed,” (NASB). The result? “And immediately the leprosy left him.” Instantaneous healing occurred. All the effects of the leprosy were removed and his body was restored to health and wholeness.

We are to see in the healing of the leper what Jesus is willing and able to do for us. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that they should turn and live (Ez. 18:32). He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should be brought to repentance (2 Pt. 3:9). He desires that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:15). He would gather us as a hen gathers her chicks. But some will not have it. “You were unwilling,” Jesus says of Jerusalem and all who refuse His invitation (Mt. 23:37). There is no unwillingness in the Trinity to save. No sick sinner will ever be able to say I wanted to be saved, but God would not have me. Our fears, our idols, our false gods, our lusts keep us from God, not His unwillingness. The problem is as Jesus said, that, “You are unwilling to come to me that you may have life” (Jn. 5:40). Jesus is willing and able to heal us. If we seek Him, and humble ourselves before Him, and cry out to Him, He will heal us of our plague of sin. He will wash us of all that defiles us. He will cleanse our hearts, open our eyes, renew our wills, and make us whole. The gospel is medicine for our souls, and by it Jesus quickens and restores sick sinners. We have in the healing of the leper what J. C. Ryle calls, “a lively emblem of Christ’s power to heal our souls.”[9]

Third, Jesus upholds the Law of God.

“And he charged him to tell no one, but "go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them." (v. 14)

Jesus instructs the healed leper to go through the procedure of restoration, as found in Lev. 14. He was to go to a priest, who functioned as sort of a “health inspector”[10] Once certified, ablutions were to be performed and sacrifices offered and the former leper restored as a member of the community. The point of the priestly inspections would be to confirm that a true healing had occurred and that Jesus upheld the Law of God. The priestly verification, says Marshall, would “be evidence to the people of the messianic act of God in Jesus.”[11]

We should note that Jesus was not objecting to the social isolation of lepers or criticizing the priests who enforced it. Jesus could touch lepers. The priests could not without spreading the disease. For the priests or us to imitate Jesus by touching contagious people would be a “pseudo-compassion,” argues Gooding.[12] Jesus is not protesting quarantining. Indeed, He upholds the authority of the priests, sending the healed man to them for their inspection. Wright points out that “the ancient Jewish purity laws weren’t peculiar taboos thought up by legalistically minded law-makers; they were the equivalent of what today are thought of as normal hygienic practice. . .necessary to prevent the spread of diseases.”[13] Jesus does not object to this. It would be a mistake to confuse Jesus’ compassion for the unclean with permissiveness. Moral and spiritual uncleanness still results in eternal exclusion, separation from the kingdom of God. (Rev. 21:27). Jesus cleanses His bride with water and the word. (Eph. 5:26; Jn. 13:10) “Cleansing presumes that dirt is dirty, ugly, dangerous and unacceptable,” as Gooding reminds us.[14] Jesus elsewhere explicitly denies that He has any interest in weakening the law’s moral demands. Not even “one stroke of a letter of the law (will) fail” (Lk. 16:17). The Apostles warn that “a little leaven leavens a whole loaf” (1 Cor. 5:6).

Yet by sending the healed leper to the priests Jesus was signaling to them that the Messiah had arrived and had begun to do through His power what the rituals could not do. The Law, though given by God, was not designed to cleanse. It cannot transform the human heart. It cannot heal. It can assess, but it cannot cure. Healing requires the gospel. What the Law cannot do, Christ can. (Acts 15:8-9, Rom. 7:7-8:11, Titus 3:3-7, Heb. 9:9-14). As the Apostle writes,

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  (Rom. 8:3, 4) (NASB).

“What the Law could not do. . .God did” through His Son. Jesus is able to “cleanse (our) hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9). We are saved by the kindness, love, and mercy of God in Christ,           

“by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 3:5b, 6) 

He is able by His blood  to “cleanse (our) conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” (Heb. 9:14). The Law cannot do these things, only measure, gauge, judge, condemn and approve. The Law can determine if one is clean, but it cannot cleanse. The Law can determine if one is healed, but it cannot heal. Only the gospel can cleanse and heal us. Jesus signals to the authorities by the cleansing of the leper that Messiah has come. If we confess our sins, Jesus is able to “cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” (1 Jn. 1:9) He is able to pardon our iniquities and heal our diseases (Ps. 103:3).

Jesus’ priorities

Finally, we see Jesus’ priorities. We back up to v. 14 where Jesus orders the man “to tell no one.” Why does Jesus forbid the leper to speak, as he had previously forbidden the demoniacs? (4:35, 41). He doesn’t say. Marshall’s explanation is the likely one: “Jesus may have wanted to avoid crowds coming after him simply in order to seek healing,” as in 5:16.[15] Jesus priorities, we see again and again, were preaching and prayer. Yet,

But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. (v. 15)

The news of Jesus spread. Mark tells us that the healed leper himself ignored Jesus’ instructions to spread the news abroad. (Mk. 1:45). How does Jesus respond? He evades the crowds and withdraws to pray.

But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. (v 16)

Jesus, says Morris, “rejected the devil’s temptation to become a popular wonder-worker.” [16] He would “slip away,” (NASB) says Luke, and go to the wilderness to pray. Jesus knew how to attract crowds by appealing to the fleshly concerns of carnal men. This he refuses to do that He might concentrate on the central things, His teaching and prayer. Jesus did not come to heal people of their diseases, only for them to become sick again one day and die. He came to make disciples. He does so by teaching them and by cleansing them, by saving their souls and ordering their lives. Jesus prays so that He might stay on target, so that He might not be sidetracked from His mission, that He might be “strengthened for divine service,” as J.B. Green expresses it.[17] Let Jesus’ mission and so be fulfilled in us by crying out to Him to save us, and exercise His Lordship over us.