LEVITICUS 12

Procreation - Motherhood

1 And Yahweh spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean 7 days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean.

Animal reproduction - a function of an imperfect nature.

'...it stamped the mere function of propagation with a mark of the inferiority that inherently belongs to it. In the perfect state to which God invites us, there is "neither marrying nor giving in marriage".

Christ, the firstborn of that state, was an unmarried man, even during his mortal experience. It is an inferior and inferiorizing function that leads to the increase of man upon the earth--essential to the work of God in its place--still outside the perfection and individuality of being, illustrated to us by the angels, to whom we are promised equality.

It is the one function that runs riot in the world to its utter debasement. It has a place, but it is an obscure place, and an inferior place, and a temporary place, and will at last be abolished. That the fruits of it in childbirth should be attainted as a cause of uncleanness to be atoned for, was one of the many excellences of a law designed to produce a holy people. *

Unclean

"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me" 

(Psa. 51:5).

Man in his physical constitution is imperfect and this imperfection is traceable to the physical organization of his flesh, being based on the principle of decay and reproduction from the blood which, acted upon by the air, becomes the life of his flesh. All the phenomena which pertain to this arrangement of things is summed up in the simple word sin, which is, therefore, not an individual abstraction, but a concretion of relations in all animal bodies, and the source of all their physical infirmities.

...Mankind being born of the flesh, and of the will of man, are born into the world under the constitution of sin. That is, they are the natural born citizens of satan's kingdom. By their fleshly birth, they are entitled to all that sin can impart to them. What creates the distinction of bodies politic among the sons of Adam? It is constitution, or covenant

....Thus men are sinners in a two-fold sense; first, by natural birth; and next, by transgression. In the former sense, it is manifest, they could not help themselves. They will not be condemned to the second death because they were born sinners, nor to any other pains and penalties than those which are the common lot of humanity in the present life. They are simply under that provision of the constitution of sin, which says, "dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return'.

3 And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.

One significance strikes us at once: seven days' uncleanness and then circumcision; what can this be but the history of the world in miniature from the divine point of view: seven days of a thousand years each, the earth unclean; and on the eighth day, the flesh cut off, and the covenant sealed in truth for ever...

That the whole human race considered as the woman in the transgression and separated by uncleanness, "shall be clean" in the upshot of things, when the provision made to that end shall be fully applied, in the justification of a sufficient number to inherit the earth under the last Adam, as his antitypical help-meet, with fulness of love and joy everlasting. *

4 And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying 33 days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.

Separated from the tabernacle and the holy things during her purifying. Thirty three days of uncleaness for the male child. On the day for a year principle our Lord Yahoshua represented us bearing the same unclean nature 33 years - purification and redemption from sin's flesh obtained through his own sacrifice.

5 But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying 66 days.

Separation/ seclusion.

It screened the mother in an acceptable and wholesome seclusion, in a way permitting of a more thorough recovery from the supremest ordeal of her life, than if she merely trusted to her own feelings as to how far and how soon she might venture on the resumed intimacies of friendship.

...The double number of days in the cleansing for the woman-child represents, I take it, the double cleansing process all believers must be the subjects of before they can attain to eternal life, but both the moral and physical purification is in virtue of the one sacrifice. *

Law of Moses  

6 And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest:

Yahweh is holy and pure - man is unclean.

Purification and atonement required after childbirth. The child is conceived to a defiled nature - impure, sinful flesh at birth yet not guilty of personal transgression. Even so burnt and sin offerings are required. First principle - Yahweh tells the children of Israel and us his view of our mortal nature, unclean and sinful from conception.

Humility accepts the condemnation, and the prerogative of Yahweh to institute the means of approach to him and conditions of reconciliation. 'Thy will be done' - not human thoughts and inventions and decadent humanism.

'Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one'. (Job 14:4). The unblemished lamb typified The lamb of Deity without blemish - undefiled in thought and action, the accepted offering - 'John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world'. (Jhn 1:29).

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7 Who shall offer it before Yahweh, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female.

 In the man-child, I apprehend, we have a type of Christ himself, personally born of a woman, and consequently a partaker of our condemned nature; and in the female child, a type of all the redeemed born of the flesh, first of the 'bride of Christ', the 'Lamb's wife', and then of the whole host who will be cleansed from the defilement of the flesh-nature and attain to immortality in virtue of the death and resurrection to eternal life of Christ.

In the man-child born of a woman and circumcised on the eighth day, we have one made of our own identical nature, yet not born of the will of man, or of the will of the flesh in any sense, but of God, for God was the Father of Christ by His Spirit operating upon his mother, who probably did not know what had occurred within her for a considerable time. By this means of paternity, Christ escaped the hereditary moral and mental bias of the race, and received such a divine intellectual impress as made him strong in spirit or mind, and of quick understanding in the fear and word of the Lord.

He was therefore enabled to overcome all the promptings and desires of his unclean nature derived from his mother, and maintained his moral perfection without blemish and undefiled. Such being the case, he required no justification or cleansing pertaining to the conscience as we do: he needed only a cleansing or justification by spirit of his physical nature--sin's flesh--which he bore. This cleansing took place, as we see in the type, at the end of thirty-three days, or years.

Luke tells us that at his baptism, he ' began to be about thirty years of age '. His ministry lasted about three-and-a-half years, so that Christ, when he offered himself to the Father, through the eternal Spirit, as a sacrifice for the sin of the world, was between thirty-three and thirty-four years of age. It was after thirty days (or years) that the sacrifice was offered. It is argued by some that Christ was justified at his baptism from the condemnation ruling upon his flesh-nature before he could go on probation, but the type emphatically teaches that he was not justified or cleansed from his physical uncleanness until the end of his life, or after the thirty-third day.

Christ required no justification morally, and the only other justification, which the Scriptures teach he did require, was justification by spirit from the condemnation of mortality resting upon his flesh-nature, and this could not be effected until he had made reconciliation for iniquity in death and resurrection. If Christ were justified at his baptism, then the offering for the cleansing of the mother should have been made on the thirtieth, and not on the thirty-fourth day.

With regard to the cleansing of a mother after the birth of a maid-child, it will be seen that she was legally unclean for fourteen days on account of her infirmity, and then had to continue sixty-six days in the blood of her purification before she could bring her sacrifice and be cleansed. What does this mean?

Some have thought that the double number of days of uncleanness in connection with the birth of a woman-child indicates that woman, in consequence of Eve having been the first in the transgression in Eden, has a double portion of natural evil. Experience does not bear out this idea, but rather the reverse. There is, indeed, no difference between man and woman in God's sight in this respect. All are equally defiled by sin, men and women both alike: if anything, I would rather say that man is the worse because the stronger.

The woman-child represents, I apprehend primarily, the 'bride of Christ', the 'Lamb's wife'; and secondarily, the whole multitude of redeemed from among men at the end of the seventh thousand year, when the flesh-nature will be done away with, either by a return to dust, or by being changed to spirit, when none but immortal ones will remain on earth. This will be effected on the ground of the sacrifice for sin offered by Christ on the thirty-third day or year of his life. We are forgiven and shall be saved for Christ's sake.

He required no forgiveness. Hence the difference between the man-child and woman-child. Christ was undefiled in mind, absolutely pure, therefore he required no cleansing as pertaining to the conscience at baptism, for there never was a moment in his life when God was displeased with him; he always did and said what pleased his Father. He only required cleansing in nature, which was done, as said, after resurrection, but all others have to be cleansed both in mind and body before they can live for ever in God's presence.

The mental and moral cleansing takes place at baptism, when we are baptized into the death of Christ, which took place after the thirty-third year of his life. The double number of days in the cleansing for the woman-child represents, I take it, the double cleansing process all believers must be the subjects of before they can attain to eternal life, but both the moral and physical purification is in virtue of the one sacrifice. There could not have been represented two sacrifices, one on the thirty-third day and one on the sixty-sixth day, in connection with the cleansing of the woman-child, because Christ was only offered up once for all: therefore two sacrificial cleansings would have been out of harmony with the truth: it is therefore shown, as I conceive, in the double number of days. *

Bro Roberts quoting Bro Harvey

8 And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons; the one for the burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean.

v1-8 No trespass or peace offering.

It will be observed that only the burnt offering and the sin offering were presented. There is no mention of trespass offering or peace offering. The burnt offering represented God's estimate of Christ's perfectly voluntary obedience even unto death; he was, as it were, wholly burnt up and devoted to God upon the altar--a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour --the sin offering represented and ritually prophesied that aspect of the death of Christ by which he atoned for sin.

Christ himself did no wrong, and was never alienated from God, but always did that which pleased Him, both prior to and after his baptism. Thus was foreshadowed in this beautiful type, the cleansing of the human nature of Christ by his own death, and of our own cleansing on account of the same, by favour of God through faith. *

Summary

1. Neither mother nor child was eligible for approach to the sanctuary till circumcision, lapse of time, and sacrifice, had opened the way: the teaching, that God is holy and man unclean: that God will be sanctified in them that approach to Him: therefore, that in its natural state, human nature is disqualified for divine relations, but may attain to this qualification by conformity to the divine appointments that have been made for the purpose.

2. That the whole human race considered as the woman in the transgression and separated by uncleanness, "shall be clean" in the upshot of things, when the provision made to that end shall be fully applied, in the justification of a sufficient number to inherit the earth under the last Adam, as his antitypical help-meet, with fulness of love and joy everlasting. *