When we get to the New Testament,though, Jesus turns the standard understanding of holiness on its head. Throughout the Gospels the authors describe him healing by touch (Matthew 8.1-4, for example, or John 9). The account in Matthew underscores that Jesus didn't need to touch the recipient in order to heal him or her: directly after touching and healing a leper, Jesus speaks healing over the centurion's servant. It can only be that Jesus' touch is deliberate. Any first-century Jew would know that touching a leper makes you unclean; i.e., the uncleanness of the leper is contagiously passed on to you. But Jesus touches the leper without compunction, and apparently without contracting uncleanness. He cures the man's disease and, by curing a disease that thrust the leper out of the Jewish community, heals the man physically, socially, and spiritually (the man is now welcome back into God's presence at the Temple). Just looking at the Gospel accounts suggests that the healings Jesus performs have this three-fold purpose deliberately: physical, social, and spiritual healing. Jesus' holiness is passed on to the sick, demon-possessed, etc.
And Jesus' healing of the paralytic in Matthew 9 explicitly ties forgiveness to healing (a perfectly reasonable tie, given the link between sin and disease, disfigurement in the first-century Jewish worldview). Forgiveness, healing . . . these sound a lot like the results of sacrifice in Leviticus. I would argue that the Gospels deliberately set Jesus up as a new sacrifice, a replacement for Temple sacrifices, foreshadowing his offering on the cross by describing healings in which heals and sanctifies (by forgiveness?) the sinful, diseased, and otherwise marginalized. They "catch" holiness from Jesus (by faith) and are returned to full community. His touch purifies them of disease and sin alike, and his role as sacrifice is completed on the cross.
Obviously, it's been a while since I first started thinking about this, and a very long time since I started posting some of my thoughts. They've undergone some changes, additions, etc., and I suddenly realize there's a whole lot more work to be done in the Gospels and in Leviticus and some of the prophetic passages that deal with sacrifice in order to fully flesh these out. But there's enough just at a cursory glance that I think I'll be pondering these things for a long time.
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This is interesting—the holiness of Christ. It is in the same context as purity (Leviticus). That Jesus outwardly touches the leaper gives the Pharisees adequate reason for placing judgment. After all, were the Pharisees not the ones attempting to remain clean, and teach others to do the same? Could this be a reason for the many laws added by them? This, of course, does not make their judgment valid; it simply helps me understand how they could misinterpret the Messiah.
ReplyDeletePurity kept God in the camp; impurity drove Him out. Then Jesus shows up.
And to think: Jesus touched me.