I stared at the snow through my sunroom window this morning and talked with God. I thought of a verse in Isaiah 1 and I stopped when I realized the wording:
“Come now, and let us debate your case,” Says the LORD,
“Though your sins are as scarlet,
They shall become as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be like wool.” – Isaiah 1:18
Wait….
This verse sounded like cleansing or purification…at least I thought that white & snow had this meaning. But the context is sin. How can sin be made clean? Sin was something Jesus found fit to destroy…not repair or restore!
I searched my online Bible and discovered that snow is also used to describe what someone’s skin looked like when they had leprosy.
I started to understand what God was really saying here.
The word leprous/leprosy in Hebrew has the meanings: ‘a scourge’, ‘a disease’, & ‘to strike down’.
Then I recalled what Jesus showed me last year about the scourging of sons in Hebrews 12:6. It reads:
‘For whom the LORD loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.‘
The meaning of scourging in this verse was revealed to me as the work of the cross in a person. In God’s language, this ‘scourge’ is a term that describes correction. The message of the cross is ‘sin is dead’, and this ‘scourge’ or whip is the truth of Jesus that drives out the lies of sin like Jesus did in the temple with the sellers & moneychangers. When the lie dies, then resurrection can begin.
When I put Isaiah 1:18 together with this meaning of a scourge, I see the picture:
The work of Jesus on the cross was a scourge to drive out sin. A scourge that afflicted it to death. The message of the cross as a leprosy to what was diseasing us.
Sin was struck down & became leprous – ‘white as snow’. Sin was not cleaned. Sin was destroyed…it met with it’s own wages! What Jesus is cleansing is our eyes to see that it was always dead.
The Lamb of God was ‘struck’ as He became sin. Isaiah 58 states ‘For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.’
Sin bled out that day. And became like snow…leprous. Sin was seen for the disease it was.
I like to imagine in this case, since snow is cold, that sin became like a cold dead body.
Back in Numbers 12, Miriam & Aaron complain against Moses because of his wife. God, as a face-to-face friend of Moses, is not happy with it, & makes Miriam leprous…white as snow.
Hidden here is God’s message – Miriam means ‘rebellion’ or ‘rebellious’. Rebellion is exactly what God’s description of sin is. We were rebels from the Word of God from the beginning, which said to us: ‘created in Christ, made in My image’, ‘born of God’, ‘son’.
God’s reaction was to strike with leprosy. Rebellion was bringing a message that would cause division, better get rid of it! It’s a story that reflects what Jesus’ death on the cross did. Reconcile our minds to the truth & therefore us to face to face communion with our Father.
The mystery is revealed to me! Rebelliousness was struck down because it was causing division between us and God. The Lord was protective of His face-to-face relationship with us (as with Moses), & struck down the threat. Later we read it was in His own body on the cross! And it gets even better, and I see His goodness even clearer, when I read that this Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world.
The work of His cross continues to strike down false messages in my heart when I let it & His Life is like a poison itself to the wage of sin. It is a scourge within me, a medicine to heal, & it is for correction in love.
His resurrection swallows up the fruit of sin – death – each and every time I choose to believe Him! Here is where resurrection shows in Miriam’s story:
After Miriam was struck with leprosy, Aaron pleads with Moses that Miriam would not remain like ‘a dead person’. Moses asks for healing – to me healing is another way of saying life is taking over instead of death. This is resurrection language! If someone doesn’t remain like ‘dead’, they begin to raise to life!
I believe Miriam represents all humanity that was like a dead person, dead in sin. Separated in our minds from God, stuck in a conscience that Aaron describes as being ‘like dead’. The conscience of the first Adam, that brought the delusion of separation from God.
We all died with Him. Therefore, we have to see that our death also happened before the foundation, since this was when the Lamb was slain. This is the mercy of God, the work of a good Father, Who took care of the problem in His foresight, before anyone was ever even given a body.
Miriam is restored to health after 7 days. These are the Genesis days. The story in the first chapter of Genesis – the beginning of us, the new creation. The death & resurrection of Jesus when He foresaw the voidness of our understanding in sin (looking over creation, He saw the ‘earth’ was void, without understanding, & He said let there be Light – & the Light came into the world – Jesus Christ).
We were chosen in Him, created in Him, from before the foundation – and God said of the new creation, of us, ‘Very good!’.
Aaron’s description of Miriam like a dead person is showing us what became of sin. It is like a dead person to God, & should be to us. The sting delivering death is removed. To live in this reality, Paul says to reckon ourselves dead to sin. Unresponsive to that dead body! To wake up to the realization that we are alive to God & let that conscience reign.
Leprosy devours the flesh – the very thing that Jesus wants to circumcise our hearts from! He cuts away the snowy diseased flesh & gives us a white robe of righteousness. Then it is more like the other symbolic meaning of snow in the Bible – righteousness & purity – that blankets our heart! Righteousness says we have always been like our Father, always been one, always been loved. That you were never removed from that position, even when sin said you were.
Our origin was not the first Adam. Our origin was Christ. From before the foundation! Sin was not purified, our conscience is being purged of it’s lies!