Spiritual Leprosy

Pastor Vicky Moots

Kingman, Kansas

Leprosy, in the Bible, is a spiritual picture, or type, of sin. At that time, it was considered incurable, but now it is treatable. I would like to discuss the physical disease of leprosy and then give the spiritual comparison and meaning of it. 

Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s Disease, is a slow growing bacterial infection affecting the skin, the mucous membranes of the nose and throat, testicles and peripheral nerves. It is caused by Mycobacterium leprae, a bacteria that is similar to the one that causes tuberculosis. 

The first symptom that appears is patches of skin on the body that look like a rash, but there is no itching. One of the most marked manifestations of the disease is the loss of the ability to feel temperature or pain in the affected areas. This is due to the destruction of the nerves, which can lead to atrophy and bone damage and autoamputation of the fingers and toes. Leprosy is very disfiguring and can lead to paralysis of the hands and feet. The patients unknowingly burn or injure themselves, and then the wound becomes infected. Death was usually due to infected sores.

So, how is leprosy like sin? Sin, like leprosy, destroys a person a little at a time, and they do not feel it or realize it. As leprosy progresses, it affects the appearance, the speech, the ability to walk, and the ability to bear fruit. Untreated, it leads to death. Likewise spiritually, when we yield to the sinful old creation it affects our talk, our walk, and our outward appearance and causes us to become unfruitful. 

The leper was considered “unclean” according to the Old Testament Law and had to be separated from the other people in a place outside the city. Sin, likewise, separates us from fellowship with God. Leviticus, chapters 13 and 14, give the regulations regarding the plague of leprosy and even how it was diagnosed. 

In Lev. 13:45 the leper was commanded that he was to “...put a covering upon his upper lip and shall cry, unclean, unclean.” In other words, he was to put a covering over his mouth. This law was to prevent the spread of the disease to other people. It is interesting to me that no one at that time knew how leprosy was transmitted. We now know that it is spread through droplets from coughing and sneezing.

In the spiritual sense, just like the leper, the Christian who is yielding to the flesh instead of walking in the spirit, is unclean. But according to I John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This is the only cure for spiritual leprosy. 

Leprosy is spread by prolonged close contact with someone who is infected, not by casual contact with them. And so it is with sin. The more time that we spend in an unwholesome environment, or the more time that we spend with unbelievers, the more likely that it will begin to affect us. Jesus occasionally ate with sinners and ministered to them, but He did not associate with any of their activities. We are commanded in II Cor. 6:17 to come out from among them and be separate. 

In II Kings 5 we read the story of Naaman who was captain of the host of the king of Syria. Verse one describes him as “a great man … and honorable … he was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.” Naaman was a great man, but he was unclean, just like all of us who have sinned. He sought the prophet Elisha for healing. Elisha sent a messenger to him to tell him to go and wash in the river Jordan seven times, and he would be clean.

Naaman was angry and refused to obey at first because Jordan was a dirty river. He finally swallowed his pride, and v. 14 tells us that “... he went down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”

The river Jordan is a spiritual picture of our death and resurrection with Christ, and the number seven is God’s number of completeness (on the seventh day, creation was complete). The dirty river water of Jordan had no healing power, and it was not what cleansed Naaman. It took faith and complete obedience to the command to “wash and be clean.” He had to dip in the water seven times, not just two or three. 

To have victory over sin, we must submerge our souls completely in the murky waters of the death of Christ and be raised up with Him as a new creation, as Paul testifies in Gal. 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”