sing of the leper was also a symbolic gesture from God to emphasize or express to the Israelites the true nature of sin, the cost of Salvation, and how they might attain it.
Both birds were symbolic of Christ, but of the two bird that was offered, the one that was killed in an earthen vessel over running water pointed to the ignominious death and the pouring forth of the blood of the Son of God in our stead at Calvary in His earthen vessel of honour, the body that veiled His divinity. Dear reader, Christ's blood is like the blood of all vertebrates; it is red and contains plasma, which is the colourless watery fluid from the blood in which the three major blood cells in humans (Leukocytes, Thrombocytes, and Erythrocytes) are suspended.
Leukocytes are blood cells that engulf and digest bacteria and fungi; it is a crucial part of the body's defence system to fight against disease. Thrombocytes, these are tiny particles of protoplasm found in vertebrate blood; it is essential for blood clotting. Erythrocytes are red blood cells that contain haemoglobin to carry oxygen to the bodily tissues.
Therefore, when the Roman soldier pierced Jesus’ side, water (plasma) and blood came to signify that without the living water and the blood, sinful man can never be free from the penalty of sin nor can he in all his existence constitute a powerful kinship between him and His Creator, one that is marked by a community of interests or similarity in nature or character. In addition, because Jesus is one with us in the flesh, the unrepentant man shall never breathe the oxygen of heaven in this life, nor in the life to come, except his blood is suspended in the living water, Christ Jesus.
The scene of the bird being slain in an earthen vessel over running water also depict how sin has contaminated the earth and its streams of water (Genesis 3: 17). Even the atmospheric heaven was contaminated.
So, the open air where the living bird that was dipped into the blood of the dead bird flew flapping its bloody wings was symbolically purged from the offensive smell of the decaying flesh of the leper as the blood from its wings propelled about in flying drops through the air. Thus, the living bird that was dipped into the blood of the dead bird then set loose into the open field is a fitting symbolic communication, which points to the fact that the sinless life and glorious resurrection of Jesus made it possible for the air, land, waters, rocks and trees, all animate and inanimate objects to be free from the putrefaction state the world has fallen into because of one man's disobedience against the law of God.
Conversely, the living bird that was dipped in the blood of the bird that was killed also represents those who have by faith dip themselves into the crimson flood that flows from Emanuel's vein: and lose all their guilty stain. Therefore, as the living bird was set free, Christ sets them free from sin and its penalty.
The other offerings represent nature or our environment that has been cursed because of man’s long record of crimes in the earth, like the unlawful premeditated killing of Abel. (Genesis 4: 8-12). Allow me to show you what the Lord has revealed to me. Thus saith the Lord by the mouth of one of His man servants standing in the pulpit: “the cedar wood and hyssop represent the two extremes of plant life that has been affected by sin.”
However, to make clear His man servant's message, the Spirit of the Lord told me: the cedar wood, and especially that of Lebanon, was symbolic of the king of all the trees of the forest hence it was used by King Solomon in the building of the temple (1 Kings 5: 6). So, son of mine, says my Lord, the body is the true temple of God, so I gave to Israel the cedar wood as a symbol of My strength and power to reconstruct the constitution of the human anatomy that they no longer have to live their lives in its wasted frame.
Now this says the angel of the Lord, the hyssop plant with its medicinal properties, aromatic and pungent leaves, was used in perfumery and as a seasoning in cookery, but more importantly it stood as an emblem of the healing wonders of nature's herbs; for it was cultivated as a remedy for bruises.
Typologically hyssop is necessary for the healing of the nations because humanity had been bruised by the serpent (Genesis 3:15), hence it was used to apply the blood of the slain Passover lamb to the lintel and the two side posts of the Israelites' door (Exodus 12: 22), as well as to sprinkle seven times upon the leper who was to
8 ALTARBOY HERALD/January, 2013