Bodily discharges…
Or- “We’ve all got issues.” 😏
My biggest takeaway from this chapter?
If you were in the laundry business in ancient Israel you could make a killing.
🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺🫧🧼🫧
How on earth could anyone stay ceremonially clean for very many days together? Imagine the situation for a happily married couple with teenage sons and daughters. In a perfectly normal and godly family, there will be fairly frequent bodily discharges of the types discussed in this chapter. (We’re all adults here so I don’t think I need to be more specific than that.)
And modern women think there’s a lot of laundry now. It feels like every sentence in this chapter ends with someone needing to wash their clothes and bathe and be unclean until the evening.
🛁🛀🫧🧼
No wonder they needed a rock to split open with a river gushing out of it! Imagine the water needed – not just for drinking and watering all those animals – but for all the washing and bathing they are going to have to do!
🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊
First, we should clarify that the “emissions” in this chapter are not dealing with human waste. This isn’t about the toilet. In Deut. 23:12-14 Moses gives instructions on how to handle human waste and it does not involve having to wash clothes and bathe afterwards or bringing an offering. No, Leviticus 15 is specifically about reproductive discharges.
I’ll repeat what I said in the previous post about these bodily emissions not being sinful. God is the body’s Engineer. He designed the male and female reproductive systems. There is an uncleanness here, but I think it is neither “Sex is dirty” nor “I just need a fresh change of underwear.”
Don’t get too bogged down in the weeds. Here is God’s bottom line on this:
“And you shall keep the Israelites separate from their uncleanness so that they might not die because of their uncleanness by their making my tabernacle, which is in their midst, unclean.” Leviticus 15:31 LEB
Let’s get crystal clear on this. The nature of this “uncleanness” relates to the tabernacle. Again, the tabernacle is holy space. It must reflect the reality of the presence of Yahweh in His holy habitation.
You cannot bring into the earthly outpost that which is untrue of the heavenly sanctuary.
Read that again slowly and pause before continuing. 🤔
So what is being prohibited here? And why does God call it “unclean?”
Let me just pause to acknowledge that there seems to be a conflict here.
God designed human reproduction. Humans had nothing to do with that. Sexual fluids preceded the Fall. They didn’t evolve afterwards. And of all things He could’ve chosen, God selected the intimacy of man and woman becoming one flesh to illustrate the “Great Mystery” of Christ and the Church, (Ephesians. 5:31-32). I don’t believe that the Almighty would call something “unclean” then say- “Yeah, that unclean thing is exactly what I want to represent Christ and the Church.” And I do not believe He is saying in one place that sex is good (I’m thinking about you, Song of Songs), and in another place that it’s unclean. If we’re going to get clear on what precisely is “unclean” here, we’re going to have to look very closely indeed.
The final 2 verses of this chapter list exactly what is being addressed here. I’m not a doctor but let’s all put on our white lab coats for a moment and try to think like one:
- “Bodily fluid discharge”
- Hebrew zuwb: Sexual “flow” (flux) from either male or female.
- “An emission of semen”
- During or outside of intercourse
- “Menstruation” (bleeding)
- “Discharge of bodily fluids”
- Hebrew zoob: Seminal or menstrual flux
What do these have in common? (Besides being a bit messy to deal with?)
What disqualifies them from existing in sacred space?
What happens during menstruation? Well – the woman’s egg has not been fertilized. So the egg cell dies and the uterus sheds its lining and all the fluid it had built up to potentially nourish a new life.
What happens with an emission of semen? There would only be one sperm cell that would potentially unite with the egg to create a new life – if the emission takes place during intercourse and if there is an egg present and if it is fertile. Otherwise, the sperm cells will die and the potential for new life will be lost.
Did you notice that they both involve loss? Loss of potential life.
🥀
Now ask yourself: In God’s holy heaven, does death or loss of potential life exist?
No.
So would it accurately reflect Divine reality for a person experiencing loss of potential life to be in sacred space?
Death is a grievous thing. Parents who have lost a child are left wondering what might have been. But there is also tremendous sorrow in the loss of potential life. Those who have experienced miscarriage know this sorrow. Couples who have been unable to conceive know it too. And it’s not just the married people. Singles live with a reality of lost potential life as well. No marriage – no children. For all who long for life, those bodily discharges can sometimes feel like a funeral. The death of what might have been.
I believe that is what the Lord finds “unclean.” Loss of potential life would defile sacred space because it is untrue of the eternal reality of God’s presence.
We live in a broken, upside down world. So it almost feels as though you have to stand on your head to see what Leviticus 15 is telling us. It says: in God’s home, there is no such thing as the loss of potential life.
One day, when we finally enter the Lord’s eternal dwelling place, we will be completely whole. No more loss. No more emptiness. All the holes in our hearts will be filled. Healed. Made new. All will be made right. All shall be well. Death will be swallowed up in victory. We will no longer wait in hope of life only to be disappointed. Life- abundant, beautiful, and whole will be the only reality.
Jesus hung a cross as an unclean thing so that we could be cleansed from our uncleanness and be granted glorious access to the heavenly tabernacle.
“And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.”
Hebrews 10:19-22 NLT
I encourage you to take a moment to sit in this for a while. Let it filter down into your soul. Pray it in.
And here’s a song to go with:
Be Still My Soul (In You I Rest)
Listen closely to verse 3:
Be still my soul, the hour is hastening on when we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone – sorrow forgot, love’s purest joy restored…
To The Reader 