The Cleansing of A Skin Diseased Man (5:12-16).
The cleansing of a skin diseased man by touching him is something that would have affected the ancient mind like little else. It indicated a mastery over disease and uncleanness that was unique. Skin disease was held in horror by all, and skin diseased men and women were to be avoided. They were expected to avoid human company, except for their own kind, and to call ‘unclean, unclean' so as to warn people to keep away from them (Leviticus 13:43-46). For in Jewish Law skin disease rendered them permanently ritually unclean. They could neither live among men nor approach the Dwellingplace of God. And any who came in contact with them became ‘unclean' and unable to enter the temple until they again became clean.
It is no accident that in Luke this story follows the cry of Peter, ‘Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord', and precedes the one in which Jesus declares that a man's sins are forgiven, for it illustrates that He could also make Peter ‘clean', and can truly forgive sins.
There are a number of indications in the Old Testament that Israel were seen as the equivalent of skin diseased persons. Isaiah could cry out, ‘We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags' (Isaiah 64:6), a typical picture of a skin diseased person, and some have seen in the Servant of Isaiah 53 the picture of a skin diseased person as He bore the sin of others. Moreover the picture in Isaiah 1:5-6 of Israel as covered with festering sores could well have been of a skin diseased person. And the worst fate that could befall a man who usurped the privileges of God's sanctuary was to be stricken with skin disease (1 Chronicles 16:16-21). Never again could he enter the Temple of the Lord. So like the skin diseased man, Israel were unclean before God (Haggai 2:14), although in Haggai it is by contact with death. However, being skin diseased was seen as a living death, so the thoughts are parallel. Thus a skin diseased man was a fit depiction of Israel's need.
In contrast Jesus was conscious of His own superlative purity. He was master over uncleanness, it could not survive His touch, nor could He be defiled by it. Thus when a skin diseased man approaches Jesus for healing we may well see behind it the intention of also depicting Israel in its need, a need which can only be healed by the Messiah. Compare Luke 7:22 where the cleansing of the skin diseased is a sign of the presence of the Messiah.
There may also be intended a reminder of the fact that a greater than Elisha was here. Elisha had enabled the healing of a skin diseased man (2 Kings 5), but he had not touched him. Rather he had sent him to wash seven times in the Jordan. He had put him firmly in the hands of God, and God had healed him. But here Jesus had taken it on Himself. It was He Who had healed him. The implication could be drawn by the reader.
We may analyse this passage as follows:
a While He was in one of the cities (Luke 5:12 a).
b Behold, a man full of skin disease, and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face (Luke 5:12 b).
c And besought him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” (Luke 5:12 c).
d And he stretched out his hand, and touched him, saying, “I will, be you made clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him (Luke 5:13).
c And he charged him to tell no man: “But go your way, and show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a testimony to them” (Luke 5:14).
b But so much the more went abroad the report concerning him, and great crowds came together to hear, and to be healed of their infirmities (Luke 5:15).
a But he withdrew himself in the deserts, and prayed (Luke 5:16).
In ‘a' Jesus is in ‘one of the cities' where He can meet with man. In the parallel He is in the deserts where He could meet with God. In ‘b' the skin diseased man comes to Jesus, and in the parallel the crowds with infirmities come to Jesus. In ‘c' the man pleads to be made clean and in the parallel he is to go to the priests because he is clean. And central to it all is that it was Jesus Who had made him clean.