Leviticus 12-15

What’s Happening?

After explaining how animals could make Israel unclean (Leviticus 11), God now shows how Israel’s own bodies could make them unclean (Leviticus 12–15).

Uncleanliness in this section comes from things like loss of bodily fluids, infections, or skin diseases. None of these are moral sins. In fact, some happen through good and natural parts of life, like childbirth (Leviticus 12:2–5). But while they aren’t sinful, they are associated with death. If someone loses enough blood or bodily fluid, they die. If an infection or disease spreads unchecked, it leads to death (Leviticus 13:45–46).

And if that uncleanness is allowed into God’s dwelling place, then death spreads into the very tabernacle that exists to spread God’s holiness and life. That is why those who are unclean must remain outside the camp and the tabernacle until they are declared clean again (Leviticus 15:31). God’s holy space must stay holy so it can be what it was meant to be: a place as close to Eden as possible, a place of incorruptible life.

This is why the categories of clean and unclean are so important. From the beginning, humans were created for life with God—life that is whole, incorruptible, and free from pain and decay (Genesis 1:31). But outside of God’s perfect creation, life tends toward disorder and death. Just as God separated light from darkness in Genesis 1:4, so here he separates the clean from the unclean. He calls Israel to guard the boundaries of holiness so his presence can remain in their midst as a source of new creation life.

The priests play a central role in this process. They are not doctors who heal people but inspectors who declare the true state of things (Leviticus 13:3). They pronounce whether someone is clean or unclean, and they oversee the rituals that mark a person’s restoration. The system is about naming reality truthfully so that death and corruption do not come near God’s holy dwelling.

Time itself also plays a role in restoring the unclean. Often, uncleanness lasts only until evening—“there was evening and there was morning” recalls the days of creation (Genesis 1:5; Leviticus 11:24). In other cases, the unclean person waits seven days, echoing the seven days of creation (Leviticus 12:2; 15:13). Both patterns show that God is giving his people new creation life, turning decay and disorder back into wholeness and order.

Finally, when the time of cleansing was complete, some cases required a purification or repayment offering (Leviticus 12:6–8; 14:19–20). These weren’t to pay for moral failures or economic damages. Instead, they reconstituted the person into the holy community of God. Just as the priests were consecrated through offerings to dwell in God’s holy presence (Leviticus 8:6–12), so ordinary Israelites who had been unclean were restored through sacrifice to rejoin the holy family of God—a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6).

Where is the Gospel?

All of this points us to Jesus.

Like Israel’s unclean, we too are separated from God. Our lives are marked by decay, weakness, and death (Romans 5:12). We live outside the camp of God’s holy presence. But Jesus left the true temple of heaven and came out to us (John 1:14). He touched the unclean, healed their symptoms, and declared them clean. In Matthew 8:2–3, he stretched out his hand and touched a leper, saying, “Be clean.” In Mark 5:25–34, a bleeding woman touched him, and instead of making him unclean, his holiness made her whole.

Unlike the priests of Leviticus, who could only observe and wait, Jesus actually heals. He restores both status and symptom. He doesn’t just name the clean “clean.” He makes the unclean clean by the power of his holiness.

And like Leviticus’ sacrifices, Jesus’ sacrifice makes us clean. But it goes further. Israel’s offerings could not free people from the decay of death. Jesus’ blood does. His life covers death once and for all, cleansing us not only for the tabernacle but for the eternal dwelling of God (Hebrews 9:13–14).

Even more, Jesus’ sacrifice does not merely bring us back into the camp. It consecrates us as a holy priesthood. Like Israel being reconstituted after uncleanness, we are restored through Jesus into the holy family of God, made priests who can dwell in his presence and spread his holiness to the world (1 Peter 2:9).

And this cleansing is not temporary. Jesus is the one who will recreate us and the world itself in an incorruptible state. What Leviticus pictured in cycles of evening and morning and in seven days of waiting, Jesus will finish once and for all in the new heavens and the new earth, where death and uncleanness will never touch us again (Revelation 21:4, 27).

See for Yourself

I pray that the Holy Spirit would give you eyes to see the God who guards his holy space so that it can remain a place of life. And that you would see Jesus as the Holy One who comes out to the unclean, covers death with his life, and recreates the world into a new and incorruptible home with him forever.