The word “unclean” is used fifty-four times in Leviticus 13-15. It primarily refers to leprosy. It is used frequently as the physical picture of a sinner’s spiritual condition. There were unbreakable rituals for cleansing not only the body of a contaminated individual but also for the clothing they would come into contact with.
The contagious nature of this disease presents to us the picture of sin. Whatever sin touches it defiles. The Prophet Isaiah confessed that he was “a man of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5), and then he spoke for all of us when he wrote, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness’s are as filthy rags” (64:6). Only the blood of Jesus Christ can wash away that defilement (1 Cor. 6:9-11; 1 John 1:7; Rev. 1:5). This is God’s unbreakable condition for forgiveness and cleansing of all sin.
When you read Psalm 51, David’s prayer of confession, you can’t help but notice how his sins defiled every part of his being: his eyes (v. 3), his mind (v. 6), his ears (v. 8), his bones (v. 8), his heart (v. 10), and his mouth (vv. 13-15). His hands were stained with Uriah’s blood (v. 14), and all he could do was throw himself on the mercy of God and cry out, “Wash me!” (vv. 2, 7)
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?