Luke 17:11-19

CHAPTER 1

THE TEN LEPERS

Luke 17:11-19. “And it came to pass, while He was journeying to Jerusalem, and He was going through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.” These two countries lie side by side. I traveled that same route from the, Sea of Galilee, through Samaria and Judea, to Jerusalem. “And He, coming into a certain village, ten leprous men met Him, who stood far away; and they lifted up their voice saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” The lepers are still in that country. I saw them, and contributed a little to their temporal support. The city of Sychem or Shechem, O. T.; and Sychar, N. T. and now called Nablus, contains a leprous quarter. These lepers stood a long way off and called to Him; for two reasons doubtless:

(a) Their loathsome and embarrassing condition; and

(b) Their faith in Jesus to heal them even at that distance. “And seeing them, He said, Going, show yourselves to the priests. And while they were going, they were cleansed.”

a. No leper was allowed to show himself to the priest till he had already been cleansed (Leviticus 14), as neither the priest nor any human being had the power to cleanse a leper. The matter was understood by everybody that the cleansing of a leper could only come about by the miraculous intervention of the Almighty.

b. A great popular mistake is entertained with reference to the contagion of leprosy. It is neither contagious nor epidemic, as you see in that case the priest, whose office brings him in constant contact with it, would have no chance whatever to escape the contagion.

c. The separation of the lepers from the people, instituted in the days of Moses and perpetuated to the present, is simply because of its awful loathsomeness.

d. How strikingly is the Scripture corroborated in that country in every respect, customs remaining unchanged from the patriarchal ages, so the traveler sees his Bible verified when he looks out on all sides, even the leprosy, in separate quarters, to be seen now as in the days of Christ!

e. We never read about the healing of the leper, but always his “cleansing,” that word being used indicative of the dismal and awful impurity characteristic of leprosy, which is the very synonym of loathsome, living death, its poor victim living on like well people, and dying all the time a finger dropping off, then another and another, till the hand drops off at the wrist, and finally the arm at the elbow, and then at the shoulder, all this time the decaying flesh emitting a most intolerable carrion odor. Hence the O. T. requirement of seclusion, which is perpetuated to the present day, the lepers themselves, conscious of their obnoxious repellency, preferring seclusion all the time.

f. The solution of the whole problem is, that leprosy is the most vivid symbol of sin in all the world; and consequently always incurable by all human remedies. Therefore in all ages it was always understood that none but God could cleanse the leper.

g. While leprosy is not contagious, it is intensely hereditary, being a blood trouble, and always transmitted from sire to son through the generations indefinitely, and in that respect most vividly emblematizing inbred sin.

h. Of course, the leprous eruptions and running sores typify actual sins, which are the unhappy fruits of original sin, just as the awful cancerous sores of the leper all originate from contaminated blood.

i. Leprous infants are bright, beautiful, and sprightly, exhibiting not a solitary symptom of the disease which, erelong, is sure to develop somewhere on the body, and cling to them through life, unless miraculously healed. In a similar manner, the infantile rattlesnake has no poison in his bite, the narcotic glands having not yet sufficiently developed to concentrate the poisonous virus from his blood and transmit it to another. Yet the poison is there, and as the snake grows, it becomes transmissible by his bite.

j. In a similar manner, the virus of inbred sin in the blood of humanity is transmissible indefinitely, like the infant leper, originally bright and fair, but in due time the occult virus making its appearance and intensifying to the end.

k. The outward manifestations of the devouring leprosy symbolize evil habits, whose natural tendency is to accumulate impetuosity and dimension, culminating in hopeless ruin.

l. Study the Oriental leprosy in all its phases, from its latency in the blood of the beautiful infant, its gradual and progressive development in the organism till it traverses the whole body, transforming it into a fetid, loathsome, living death, and how vividly does it symbolize sin, transmitted in the blood, but unseen in the beautiful, innocent babe, but sure ill due time to develop, making its manifestation on some part of the organism, and if not taken away by Omnipotent grace, spreading on indefinitely, culminating in irremediable ruin!

“And one of them, seeing that he was healed, turned back, with a great voice glorifying God, and fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him; and he was a Samaritan.” Here we see a case where sheer misery had triumphed over all the inveterate race prejudices which for ages had alienated the Jews and Samaritans, so that there was no intercommunication; and thus these poor lepers, both Jews and Samaritans, amid their awful sufferings and forlorn alienation from society, forgetting race antipathies, are all living together. “And Jesus responding, said, Were not the ten cleansed? Where are the nine? They were not found returning to give glory to God, except this foreigner.” When the Israelites were carried into captivity by Shalmaneser, B. C. 721, a few poor people were left in the country, who in after years proved insufficient to so occupy it as to prevent the wild beasts, especially the lions, from multiplying among them to their serious detriment. Consequently, Esarhaddon, the Chaldean monarch, sent to that country inhabitants from some of the heathen nations of the great North, who, with the few surviving Hebrews, eventually became the Samaritan nation, having predominantly the foreign, heathen blood, so that here, Jesus calls them “a foreign nation;” i. e., not Jews, but heathens. “And He said to him, Arising, go; thy faith hath saved thee.” Here our Savior, as constantly and uniformly in His preaching, recognizes faith as the human condition of salvation, a truth so prominent in the Scripture that the most superficial Bible reader can not fail incessantly to recognize it. We see here salvation affirmed of this Samaritan, who returned to give glory to Jesus, our Lord remaining reticent in reference to the other nine, involving the conclusion that they did not get saved, but only healed. Hence you see it is quite an ill omen of salvation for people not to confess it to the honor and glory of God.