Hello and welcome. Please permit me to ask you a question. How do you understand the Bible? That is, as you pick up your Bible and you read, do you understand the Bible literally, as many teach today?
Many seminaries and theologians instruct their people that they must look for a literal meaning of Scripture and to seek no other meaning, or that they are to look for the plain meaning of a text and to seek no other meaning.
Unfortunately, this idea sounds good, because it sounds like you are desirous to be faithful to the Bible in the way that the Bible is expressed. You just want to understand what the Word of God says, of course. God stated it plainly, so the Bible must be simple to understand.
Again, this is incorrect. This is not true. The Bible is not simple to understand. It is a very complex Book because the Author is extremely complex. The Bible tells us that it is God’s Word and that “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Think about this difference. We have not been able to find the end of the heavens. In space, you could travel a long way. Then if you could even see it, you could look back to try to see this tiny little world.
This is an analogy that God uses to express how brilliant His mind and thoughts are, especially, we would have to say, in relation to our minds. Our minds are like a tiny little peanut or even smaller in comparison. This is why we cannot use simple reasoning to understand the Bible. We especially cannot use our own manmade logic or reasoning to understand the Bible.
The Lord has given us a parable, which is very helpful in instructing us as to the way in which we can understand the Bible. This parable is found in Luke 17. This is actually an historical parable. That is, it truly happened; these events took place. There were ten lepers who encountered Jesus Christ. Jesus, as they lifted up their voice, healed them from their leprosy.
Let us read these verses in Luke 17. Luke 17:12-19 says:
And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.
Is this not a very unusual account that God gives us of these ten lepers who encountered Jesus? They heard Jesus’ instructions very clearly, as He told them, “Go show yourselves unto the priests.”
Why did Jesus tell them this? The reason is found in Leviticus 14. In the first few verses, the Lord laid out some details about “the leper in the day of his cleansing: he shall be brought unto the priest.” Therefore, Jesus is referring back to this passage in commanding these lepers, “Go show yourselves unto the priests,” because He knew what He was going to do. He knew that He would heal them of their leprosy. This is the command that the Bible gives in Leviticus 14, that “the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest.” Then the priest would offer a sacrifice on behalf of the one who was “cleansed from the leprosy.”
So as these ten men were going, they had a grievous condition. Physically, they were in very sad shape, we would say, and full of pain. They experienced great suffering as a result of this awful disease of leprosy. But all ten were healed. Physically, they were cleansed. Their skin returned to normal. They no longer had the effects of the disease.
One of them, who was a Samaritan unlike the other nine, realized this and saw this. We know that leprosy is a disease where the digits begin to fall off and rot away. He probably looked at his hands. As he looked, he saw that he was normal again. Maybe his skin was even like a child’s skin, as we read that this happened to Naaman the Syrian in the Old Testament who was a leper who was cleansed of his leprosy as he was instructed to wash in the river Jordan. So this Samaritan, overjoyed, just turned around and took off, returning to Jesus Christ, and the Bible says, “with a loud voice glorified God.”
Then in verse 16, Luke 17:16, we read:
And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.
But the strange thing is what Jesus asked following this. In verse 17, Luke 17:17, we read:
…Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?
Why is this a strange question? This is strange because Jesus knows where they are. They went to find a priest, probably to Jerusalem. They went to find a priest who would offer the sacrifice on their behalf, because they were lepers and it was the day of their cleansing.
Yes, but it is strange that Jesus asked where they were when He is the One who instructed them to do this, plus the Bible in Leviticus 14 gives these instructions. But Jesus goes on to say in this passage in verse 18, Luke 17:18:
There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
This means that the other nine did not “give glory to God,” but only this man who, on the surface it would seem, disobeyed Jesus. He did not continue on to find a priest
The other nine heard what Jesus said, very plainly and very distinctly and very literally, and they were not about to do any differently. Jesus had told them directly, right from His mouth, “Go show yourselves unto the priests.” Were they to seek any other meaning? No. Therefore, they followed the Word of God, because Jesus is the Word of God, and they followed it literally.
So they did go to Jerusalem. They went there. They did not disobey Christ. They did not disobey Christ, but they did fail to “give glory to God.” You see, this is the strange part.
The one Samaritan did not go to Jerusalem to find a priest to have the sacrifice offered. He ran back and fell down and worshipped Jesus and gave glory to God, and Jesus goes on to say of him in verse 19, Luke 17:19:
…Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.
How does this fit with the question that we asked at the beginning? The question was, “How do you understand the Bible?”
Well, you see, this man, this Samaritan, in his joy, in his excitement and rejoicing over having this awful disease taken away from him, because this was a terrible affliction that in a moment was gone, in returning to Christ, he actually fulfilled the Law. This is because the Bible tells us, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”
You see, the law of Leviticus that speaks of a leper going to the priest “in the day of his cleansing” is spiritually teaching that a sinner, because leprosy typifies sin in the Bible, is to go to the Lord Jesus Christ “in the day of salvation.” The sinner becomes spiritually clean from his sin, as God washes it away through the saving work of Jesus. “The blood of Jesus Christ…cleanseth us from all sin.”
The Samaritan fulfilled the meaning of this verse by running back to Jesus. The other nine, who failed to give glory to God, did not uncover the deeper spiritual meaning or the teaching of Christ’s words, “show yourselves unto the priests.” They failed to recognize that Jesus is the “great high priest” whom the Bible speaks of.
Even though they seemingly obeyed His word in taking it literally, they disobeyed the true meaning of the Bible text, which was to go to Christ with our sin. This is why they failed to glorify God and this is why only the Samaritan was said to have faith.
So, again, the question is, “How do you understand the Bible?” This is a supremely important question. If you understand the Bible literally, like the nine lepers, being very careful and diligent to obey exactly what the verse says, and you fail to understand how God wrote the Bible—that Christ spoke in parables, that we must look for the Gospel meaning in the Bible—then you will fail to give glory to God.
I am afraid that the road that leads to the earthly priest is also a road that leads to destruction. It is only when we go to the “great high priest,” Melchisedec, the Lord Jesus Himself, that there can be salvation.