Sin and Hope
Tzara’at and Ruach HaKodesh
April 13, 2013 ~ Iyar 3, 5773
Torah Parashah 27 Tazria (she conceives)
Torah – Vayikra (Lev) 12:1- 13:59
Haftarah – M’lakhim Bet (2Kings) 4:42- 5:19
B’rit Hadashah – Matt 8:1-4; 11:2-6; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 2:22-24; 5:12-16; 7: 18-23
Torah Parashah 28 M’tzora (person afflicted with Tzara’at)
Torah – Vayikra (Lev) 14:1 – 15:33
Haftarah – M’lakhim Bet (2Kings) 7:3-20
B’rit Hadashah – Matt 9:20-26; Mark 5:24b-34; Luke 8:42b-48; Messianic Jews (Heb) 13:4
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Sh’ma
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Sin and Hope
Tzara’at and Ruach HaKodesh
Mattityahu 8:1-4 cjb p 1232
In the days of B’rit Chadashah – tzara’at (leprosy) was the most dreaded disease.
Tzara’at caused the body to be a mass of ulcers and decay.
Fingers would curl and gnarl.
Facial features were greatly disfigured.
Skin would discolor and rot and stink.
Some types of tzara’at would numb nerve endings, leading to loss of fingers and toes and hands and feet.
They say tzara’at was “death by inches”
- Probably the biggest issue with tzara’at was the social consequences.
- When the leper was considered contagious he was quarantined and banned to a leper colony.
- He was cast out of his community.
- Cast out of the Temple – couldn’t worship
- Cast out of his family.
- He was, for all intensive purposes cast away from love.
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According to Daniel Rendelman… “In Scripture the leper is symbolic of the ultimate outcast: infected by a condition he did not seek, rejected by those he knew, avoided by people he did not know, condemned to a future he could not bear.”
Leprosy was and is a horrible and extremely contagious disease that eats away the flesh
-And robs the joy of life.
English Bibles, translate Tzara’at as “leprosy”….
Truth is – it is not exactly leprosy or Hansen’s disease… as we understand today.
Rendelman says --- it is something far worse.
This infection not only rotted flesh and disfigured the body, but it cut a person off from friends and family – from life, and from JOY.
Even houses, walls and fabrics could get tzara’at.
That is hard for our little brains … a house and fabric getting disease??!!
But this is YHWH’s way of showing us something….
Bible teachers agree that tzara’at can be contracted through natural means …. And through supernatural means….
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Miriam got it when she said things against her brother Moshe.
King Uzziah got it and eventually died with it.
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Contracted through natural means – one of the ways is through touch.
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Tzara’at is something that YHWH used/s to teach His people about sin.
Tzara’at shows us how sin looks… completely disfiguring.
They say people that have tzara’at for very long- don’t even look like people.
Tzara’at is the only disease that actually renders a person unclean and unworthy of worship in the tabernacle.
If one had tzara’at… everywhere he went – he had to walk alone and – he had to shout out a warning - “Unclean! Unclean!”
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Vayikra (Lev) 13:1-17 …. 13:45-46…. 13:47-59… 14:1- purification….14:33 – 57 cjb p 121 ….
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How does tzara’at start? Vayikra 13:1 cjb p 121
Isn’t that how sin starts? … a little thing… and then a little bigger and then bigger.
How about – getting to work late 10 min every day … well after 30 days… that’s a lot of time!
Vayikra 13:45 cjb p 123 –
Cover upper lip… which is covering the mouth…
This is a big one here… how much do our mouths get us in trouble?!!
What we say has huge impact to bring life or death in our lives and in the lives of others!
Ya’akov (James) 3:2 cjb p 1512 “For we all stumble in many ways; if someone does not stumble in what he says, he is a mature man who can bridle his whole body.”
Only one spot/ one problem can make a person unclean and unable to worship.
Wow. What does this say about how sin effects our ability to worship?
If we feel far away from YHWH… we might check to see if there is a wall of sin separating us from Father.
Ya’akov 2:10 cjb p 1511 “For a person who keeps the whole Torah, yet stumbles at one point, has become guilty of breaking them all.”
This is a hard verse…
I think this is where Christians get “sin is sin”… or …”one sin is no different than another.”
This is not true – in that Yah calls some sin abominations…
But the point of this is … that if you do one thing to break Torah – you have something that makes you unclean and it is not okay to be unclean!
- Another way to look at this would be that a little yeast causes the whole loaf to rise…
- A little sin effects the whole of our life.
- Rendelman writes….”A little sin or a little tzara’at stops us from approaching YHWH.”
That’s has been a painful reality in my life… sin divides us from YHWH…
Do you hear that??
Romans 6:23 cjb p 1408 “For what one earns from sin is death; but eternal life is what one receives as a free gift from YHWH, in union with the Messiah Y’shua, our Lord.”
So if the wages of sin is death… then what we get for sin is exhile… if we are dead – we are not in eternal life with YHWH…. Exhile… just like a leper outside the city in a leper colony away from loved ones….
Only then we will be away from YHWH.
B’resheet (Genesis) 3:22-24 cjb p 4 “YHWH said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, to prevent his putting out his hand and taking also from the tree of life, eating, and living forever – “ 23 therefore YHWH, God, sent him out of the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So he drove the man out and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden the k’ruvim and a flaming sword which turned in every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.”
Adam was thrown out of Eden.
Lepers are sent out of the community as long as they are unclean.
D’varim (Deut) 27-28 – curses and blessings… We are cursed if we do not follow Torah and we are blessed if we do.
Not following Torah is sin…
I Yochanan (John) 3:4 “Everyone one who keeps sinning is violating Torah – indeed, sin is violation of Torah.”
…… and sin in our lives – causes us to be cursed and cut off from the blessings!
Vayikra 13:46 cjb p 123 “As long as he has sores, he will be unclean; since hi is unclean, he must live in isolation; he must live outside the camp.”
- Sin separates us from YHWH.
Because so many people sin… not keeping Torah doesn’t necessarily look rebellious… but it is rebellion against YHWH.
Like this…. The lady from Planned Parenthood - testifying recently before our congress… on how “of course doctors CAUSE babies who are born alive after a “failed” abortion, to die… that is the normal procedure. … with a “why would that be wrong” attitude.
We can say – how can anyone even talk like that?
Or how about … the whole issue of people – even those in the popular religion of our culture… supporting the idea that marriage is marriage if it is between two persons of the same sex.
Did you read the Word? What YHWH created and called covenant relationship / marriage – is between a man and a woman…. So how can it be “marriage” between two men or two women?? YHWH is the creator of marriage…
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Another thing – I am really tired of hearing people say – “I need YHWH to heal me… and I am waiting on that”…. All the while they are sitting on the couch.
Others say… “I am waiting for a word from God.”…
When HE has already given us a whole entire book – with all kinds of directions on how to live!
Yes, Yah much have the freedom to search our hearts and cleanse us… but that only happens if we repent and ask.
We have to SH’MA.
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What’s the remedy for tzara’at from the Torah?
Vayikra 13:45-46 cjb p 123 “Everyone who has tzara’at sores is to wear torn clothes and unbound hair, cover his upper lip and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ 46 As long as he has sores, he will be unclean; since he is unclean he must live in isolation; he must live outside the camp.”
= he is to “rend his clothes in sorrow, cover his face in shame, and then tell others his condition.”
They must live alone… because tzara’at, like SIN is highly contagious.
In Mishlei (Proverbs) it says to not follow the crowd of evil…
Mishlei 13: 20 cjb p 959 “He who walks with the wise will become wise, but the companion of fools will suffer.”
2 Corinthians 6:17 cjb p 1445 “Therefore YHWH says, ‘Go out from their midst; separate yourselves; Then I myself will receive you.”
--- So… the only hope a person with Tzara’at has, and the only hope for all people is Messiah.
Y’shua visited leper colonies – seeking to save those who had been cut off from Isra’el.
He went despite the smell of rotting flesh.
He went despite the ugliness of bodies deformed past looking human.
We can sit in our nice homes and talk about reaching the unlovely…
But let me tell you – the unlovely aren’t just the people with literal rotting flesh…
They are the broken ones in so much fear that they are mean to those around them, like a dog that is cornered and terrified.
They are the ones who sin.
They are us….
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As we have talked about before… There were four signs of Messiah…
The Rabbi’s had made their own list of things that whoever was Messiah – would be able to do:
1. Heal tzara’at… which had not been done since Miriam was healed.
2. Heal someone born blind
3. Heal someone with a dumb and deaf spirit
4. Raise someone from the dead who had been dead longer than 3 days.
This is why Y’shua healed the guy with tzara’at and told him don’t tell anyone – but go to the priest….
Because the priest was the only one who could declare someone clean..
AND b/c this gave the Pharisees – the “heads up” – that tzara’at has been healed – so they might want to pay attention to this Rabbi.
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Another thing to ponder ….
We can read in Yesha’Yahu (Isaiah) 53: 2b-5 cjb p 521 “he was not well- formed or especially handsome; we saw him, but his appearance did not attract us. People despised and avoided him, a man of pains, well acquainted with illness. Like someone from whom people turn their faces, he was despised; we did not value him. In fact, it was our diseases he bore, our pains from which he suffered yet we regarded him as punished stricken and afflicted by God. But he was wounded because of our crimes (“transgression” = “rebellion” = “paganism”!!), crushed because of our sins; the disciplining that makes us whole fell on him, and by his bruises we are healed.”
Hard picture isn’t it?
We know that Y’shua was a stone cutter… a mason … he had to be strong… and we like to think of him as handsome… all the Christian pictures paint him as handsome….
BUT….
We just read Yesha’Yahu 53….
And …
Rendelman says… “One of the rabbinical titles of Messiah in the Babylonian Talmud is “the Leprous one.”
It reads… “The Rabbis say, the leprous one; those of the house of Rabbi say, the sick one, as it is said, ‘Surely he hath borne our sicknesses,’ Sanhedrin 98b.
The very first person to be healed by Y’shua was a man with tzara’at in Mattityahu 8.
In Vayikra 13 – it is the priest who decides if a person is clean or not…and it is the priest that people look to make decisions about where they could live their life and if things got better or not…
If the tzara’at was NOT contagious… the leper did certain things and could return to his community….
This is just like sinners today…. Go to the High Priest – Y’shua….because HE is the only remedy for sin.
Like the priests in Vayikra 14:4-7 cjb p 124 – the sacrifice of Y’shua was applied to cleanse the sinner…
Did you catch that the person with tzara’at has to be touched by the blood – 7 times?... and then be proclaimed “clean” by the priest?
Let’s look at…what Y’shua said when He was on the stake…
1. Luke 23:34
2. Luke 23:43
3. Yochanan 19-26-67
4. Matt 27:46
5. Yochanan 19:28
6. Yochanan 19:30
7. Luke 23: 46
How many things is that – that Y’shua said on the stake?
7
How many times did the person with Tzara’at have to be touched by the blood?
7
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Then after the blood is sprinkled 7 times….
Vayikra 14:8-9 cjb p 124
The one being cleaned sure had some things to do!...
Just as the sinner being forgiven has work to do….
- Like being transformed by the renewing of their mind… understanding the difference between lies and truth and renouncing and repenting and declaring the truth…
- Like making new habits of response!!
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All sin – like tzara’at – is unclean to YHWH….
Amazing how HE gave us this picture of what SIN is.
BUT Y’shua HaMashiach healed the guy with Tzara’at…
But take note… Matt 8:1-4 cjb p 1232
… it wasn’t just the touch of Messiah … but HIS Words…
He did two things here… touched and spoke…
The Words would have commanded the disease away and HIS touch… would have healed that lonely place….
When working in bereavement – I often tell persons who have lost their spouse – to go get regular messages… b/c while it won’t be the same kind of touch emotionally – it will be touch and our bodies crave touch from those we love….
A person with Tzara’at – can’t be touched…
A person with sin – is missing the touch of YHWH through Ruach….
And how we need both the Word and the Spirit.
Yochanan 4: 23-24 cjb p 1334 “But the time is coming – indeed, it’s here now – when the true worshippers will worship the Father spiritually and truly, for these are the kind of people the Father wants worshipping him. YHWH is spirit and worshippers must worship him spiritually and truly.”
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Did you catch that … “YHWH is spirit”?
We had a teaching already – that YHWH is not “3 persons” – He is not “trinity”… an completely NON biblical word.
We just use Bible words to explain him…. Anything else is adding things of man.
This is another step in washing away that wrong teaching…
IF YHWH is spirit…. Just as HE came as Y’shua…. Then perhaps we need to understand spirit way better than we do!!
So I ask you to pray about YHWH being SPIRIT… and begin to ponder… what you read in the Tanakh based on this reality… that YHWH is Spirit….
Because we have been taught by the popular religion of our culture – that only a couple people had the Ruach HaKodesh – the Holy Spirit in the Tanakh.
We are going to be studying in the next Shabbat teaching (or more) … about the Ruach – HIM as SPIRIT.
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To return back to the Torah of today….
I will never look at this part of the Tanakh the same again…
This is not just about a physical disease.. but is about SIN.
Even homes and clothes were affected!!
And isn’t that the truth!!...
Sin is pervasive….
Sin – violation of Torah has been pervasive in our lives…
And it has caused us to be separate from YHWH…
I don’t want that distance any more… I want to be closer…
So I invite you to take a moment and repent (be sorry for) and renounce (turn away from) any sins that you have not done this for….
Ask HIM if there is something separating Him and you….
PRAY…
- Come back into HIS camp…
Amazing – that Y’shua did so much for us!
Note that we can look at this on the individual level as we have been
And we can look at this at a Northern Kingdome – returning level…
That the Northern Kingdom – those out of covenant – those not keeping Torah – can return to Torah.
AMEIN.
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