Children are given a game: a connect-the-dots puzzle. At first glance, the page will merely be a jumble of haphazard dots; nothing will make sense. But when we carefully trace out the numerical interconnections—1, 2, 3, 4—we see a wonderful picture coming from what seemed like meaningless dots. Nowadays, there is a color-by-number game where the page first looks full of meaningless shapes and lines, but when you fill in the proper color, a beautiful peacock appears. As we can see, amazing sights are often concealed in obscure images. Only the children who can connect the dots can see those beautiful pictures. In the same way, the book of Leviticus is God’s connect-the-dots puzzle book. For many, it is all confusing and meaningless, but those who, with the Holy Spirit’s help, can connect the dots, can see amazing sights concealed in obscure images.
We have been connecting dots in chapters 1-7 and saw the marvelous picture of God meeting our great need as defiled sinners through five sacrifices. Then we looked at the colossal value of the high priest’s ministry in chapter 8. As sinners, we can come to God only through sacrifice and the high priest to offer acceptable worship (chapters 9-10). All of this points to the earthly and heavenly ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we are cleansed, forgiven, justified, adopted, and brought into the temple of God as His redeemed people to worship and enjoy God’s presence. The God we worship is holy.
After instituting temple worship in chapters 11-16, God now talks about how we should live personally as His holy people. We saw in the last chapter, Leviticus 11, what seemed like irrelevant rituals of clean and unclean animals teaching us the basics of a holy life. As saved people, our great need is to continually enjoy God’s presence and His salvation blessings. Maintaining personal holiness is necessary for experiencing all salvation blessings. Otherwise, remember the seven consequences of sin: displeasure to God, grieving the Holy Spirit, impairment of our comforts and graces, a hardened heart, a wounded conscience, hurting and scandalizing others, and experiencing God’s judgments. So, the God who has drawn near to us in grace, we can draw near to Him by holiness. Fellowship with and enjoying His presence requires holiness. And that is the basic lesson taught in the perplexing chapters of Leviticus 11-16, using animals, childbirth, leprosy, and bodily discharge.
As a saved person, your happiness and peace depend on the continual enjoyment of God’s presence. For that, you should not allow anything unclean to defile you. The problem is that our world is full of unclean things, and we defile ourselves in 101 ways by our actual sins. How do we deal with those actual sins of mind, word, and action that hinder the enjoyment of God’s blessing? How do we live holy? Chapter 11 shows us baby lessons on how to deal with our actual sins. I tried to explain that in the last application with an acronym. A great holiness lesson can be remembered in VWWW. How do we live holy and continually enjoy God’s salvation blessing and presence? Four steps: VWWW. If you ask any saint how he maintains holiness, I am the least, but if any holiness I maintain, it is by these four steps.
V – Vomit
Cultivating a nauseous, hateful sense of sin. The Bible calls us to hate sin. Whatever color the devil paints sin, remember the unclean animals. When you look at a woman with lust, see her as an unclean serpent with poison, or a shrilling lizard. When you see a lizard, you don’t eagerly keep looking at it again and again. It is shrilling, so you turn away. You don’t want to look that way again. In the same way, when you see something that can defile you, like an attractive woman. After a wonderful worship in the morning, I was going along, singing and enjoying God’s presence. We go down Nehru road, and there is a lady in a tight white shirt with large breasts, exposing her chest. Everyone on the road is watching her. If I want to continue to enjoy God’s presence and blessing, I have to turn away as if I see a big lizard or a snake coming from afar. “Oh, a snake.” For some, it is covetousness. You see someone’s house, good clothes, or facilities, and your heart will be defiled by envy. Turn away as if you see a cockroach. See anger as a dead rat. Cultivate a vomiting sense of sin. Run from it as unclean. This is the first step. You will not believe how many sins you can avoid at the root by this first step.
W – Watch and Pray
Realize you are not safe anywhere in this world. Anywhere you go, uncleanness can attack and defile you: even after church, on the road, in a shop, at work, on the bus, on the train, on vacation, on land, in the sky, in the water, even inside your house, on your mobile, or on TV—everywhere in the world. No place is an exception, so always and everywhere, watch and pray so you are not defiled and do not lose God’s presence. Don’t let your guard down and relax.
W – Watch Your Mind
Like clean animals, practice the art of chewing the cud more and more, meditating on truths day and night. Your spiritual mouth should always be chewing, chewing like the man in Psalm 1, meditating on God’s Word day and night. That is how your inner life can be clean. If you don’t meditate, you may look like a decent Christian on the outside, but inside you are full of uncleanness and covetousness. There is no inner holiness without meditation.
W – Watch Your Life
Like clean animals with a cloven hoof, be sure you walk uniquely, not like everyone in the world, but firmly and progressively with a single mind on the path of God. Don’t walk back and forth without an aim. That is an unclean lifestyle.
VWWW consists of practical steps of holiness we learn from Leviticus 11 to deal with actual sins. Now, as we come to chapter 12, it again all seems very irrelevant with some ceremonial rules for the purification of a woman after childbirth. A woman gives birth and gets defiled, and rituals must be followed to cleanse her. But if we take the time to connect the dots, we will see marvelous things in the law of God. We will see how God, in His grace, not only teaches us how to deal with actual sins through clean and unclean animals but also uses natural birth in chapter 12 to show us how to deal with our original sin. It’s a short chapter, but it’s strange. It hits our minds and our hearts.
Let us understand this with two headings: 1. The delivered mother and baby’s unclean days in verses 1-5. 2. The delivered mother’s purification in verses 6-8.
First, come with me to the delivered mother and baby’s unclean days. Verse 2 says, “If a woman has conceived, and borne a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of her customary impurity (period) she shall be unclean.” An Israelite woman giving birth is very common; they bore many children in those old days. Now, if she gives birth, for the first seven days, she is to be unclean, as in the monthly cycle of the flow of blood. Then, verse 3 implies that the baby born is also unclean. So, verse 3 says, “And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.” Verse 4 says, “She shall then continue in the blood of her purification thirty-three days.” So, when a male child is born, it’s one week of impurity, and add to that 33 days, a total period of uncleanness of 40 days in all.
Women who have been pregnant know those 40 days are generally a time for recovering from pregnancy with continual bleeding. During that time, she is unclean. She is not whole; it is a weak time, and her godly privileges are revoked and removed. Verse 4 mentions two things: she shall not touch any hallowed thing. She cannot participate in temple worship, and she couldn’t touch any of the meats that had been offered up for peace offerings during this time. If she was a priest’s wife, she couldn’t take any of the tithes, which were sacred things, nor could she eat any of the first fruits. Secondly, she should not come into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are fulfilled. She is to be isolated from the tabernacle, and even society. She is to have no access to the public worship of God. She is cut off from much close social contact, since this would also ceremonially contaminate visitors. So, when someone would come to her house, she had to stay at a distance from them for 40 days. This is all for a male child.
Next, what happens if a female child is born? Verse 5: “But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her customary impurity, and she shall continue in the blood of her purification sixty-six days.” Wow, what is this? Male is 1 week, female is 2 weeks. 33 becomes 66, a total of 40 days for a male, but here it is 80 days for a female. Basically, the unclean period is doubled for a female child. Even though the bleeding may stop within 40 days, she has to be unclean for 80 days. Modern feminists may take this chapter and raise their protests. Why this gender inequality or partiality? Secondly, motherhood in the world is seen as the most sacred time for a woman. Giving birth is such a joy to the whole family. At this joyful event, why is God making such ceremonial laws at this very joyful occurrence?
Commentaries mainly explain the health benefits. Yes, there could be many health benefits and safeguards for the woman and child’s health by following these rules; even modern medicine advises some of them. Women get maternity leave, a good recuperation time, after having gone through a traumatic birth. During this time, she might not be busy with burdensome housework, lifting weights, cooking, or washing dishes. This would enable the woman to be nursed back to normal health. The isolation time with the child allows the woman to focus on her child, bond with the child, and give regular mother’s milk. General isolation can help avoid infections. Yes, there could be many health benefits. But I believe the primary reason is not just for physical health.
The highest priority is not focused on health. Look at verse 4. What does this text emphasize as a high priority? The alienation that she experiences is not primarily for health benefits, but the alienation is rather from Jehovah, His tabernacle, and all His means of grace. She cannot touch any consecrated thing, nor can she enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed. The question comes: Why? Keep thinking of that question as we look at the next heading. We have seen the delivered woman and baby’s unclean days in verses 1-5.
Next, the delivered woman and baby’s purification in verses 6-8. After these days—40 for a male, 80 for a female—are completed, verse 6 says, “When the days of her purification are fulfilled, whether for a son or a daughter, she shall bring to the priest a lamb of the first year as a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove as a sin offering, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting.” So, a burnt offering of a lamb, and a sin offering of a pigeon. Verse 7: “Then he shall offer it before the Lord, and make atonement for her. And she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who has borne a male or a female.” Just as an addendum, the last verse, verse 8: “And if she is not able to bring a lamb, then she may bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons—one as a burnt offering and the other as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for her, and she will be clean.”
Now, this chapter may pose many questions. But when we connect the dots, we see that Leviticus, which we think is the most confusing book, is where God in those early days teaches deep lessons of spiritual realities using visible signs. You know that uncleanness typifies sin in the life of man. In those old days, what would people understand about the lesson of original sin, actual sins, total depravity, and the need for regeneration? But here, God wonderfully, through the birth of every Jewish child, reminds and teaches them these wonderful lessons. Imagine you are a Jewish family with a husband and wife, and the wife gives birth to a child. God designed these rules to teach four deep spiritual lessons.
1. Behold a Lesson of Original Sin
Motherhood is seen as such a sacred thing in every culture, some even see it as a divine act. It is seen as a joyful thing by all of humanity. Why does God institute such barbaric rules? It is as if she has committed some terrible sin by giving birth. This is not an ordinary woman, a mother; not a gentile mother, but a mother of Israel, a covenant mother. She gives birth to a beautiful covenant child, and she becomes unclean not for a day, but for 40 days for boys and 80 days for girls, almost three months. She cannot come to the temple, touch any sacred thing, or any means of grace. Then after 80 days, she has to offer a burnt and sin offering for atonement, and only then can she come back into God’s presence. What is her sin? How do we answer this?
In context, verse 7 may give a basic answer that her flow of blood, bleeding, makes her ceremonially unclean. But the ultimate answer comes to us from Eden. I have titled this “Echoes of Eden in Every Birth,” because in Genesis 3:16, we see that every childbirth’s unbearable pain is a memorial of original sin. The great sin which made all of mankind fall. That sin primarily came from the mother of all women. Eve’s wicked disobedience and the resulting curse. As God spoke directly to Eve after He gave the curse to the serpent, it says in verse 16, “To the woman He said: ‘I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.'” That was the penalty for her sin against the living God.
Oh, you don’t believe in original sin and the curse. It is not a reality for you. However much we teach or say that mankind is fallen, you don’t realize it. You don’t believe the truth of Genesis 3 that original sin affects all of us. When you marry and joyfully expect to have a child, what is God doing by giving all that pain and tension in childbirth? Why do the daughters of Eve bear such a sentence? How many women have asked, “Why should I go through such a terrible time of not only bodily trauma, but also psychological depression, weakness, and pain?” Now, with medical painkillers and anesthesia, it is better. Imagine those days, with no medicines for women. Even now, it is so painful. Which science, culture, or religion can answer? God’s Word alone satisfactorily answers the daughters of Eve that they are bearing the curse of original sin. God painfully reminds you of original sin when He said, “when you eat the fruit, you shall surely die.” Every mother knows from experience that she in a way actually dies and comes to life during that terrible experience. Think of the Jewish woman. On top of physical suffering and depression, during this difficult time, she cannot come to the temple or use any means of grace, but is banished from God’s presence. Oh, when you feel like complaining, “Oh, why 80 days, such a long banishment,” you should realize that the justice rule was, “if you eat of this fruit, you will surely die.” God didn’t kill mankind, but in Genesis 3:24, “So God drove the man out of the Garden of Eden and he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the Tree of Life.” Because of the profound sin of the woman, man was banished from the presence of God. Therefore, now when she gives childbirth, and there is that memorial of her sin, she is banished for a time from the presence of God as a holy reminder of original sin. But there is also grace. We should be eternally banished, but only temporarily for 40 days or 80 days. The 40 indicates a time until atonement is provided. We will see that He provided atonement to come back. This is a God-ordained memorial that the woman deserves banishment from the presence of the living God due to her original sin.
Yes, in the New Testament, this period of isolation, 40 and 80 days, regulation has been lifted in the New Covenant. It says in Hebrews 9:10, “These are regulations passed until a time of reformation.” Yet, there are certain effects of the curse that remain on the female gender to this day. Mothers sitting here, have you asked the question, “Why this pain?” All mothers shrieking in pain late at night ask, “Why, God? Why am I experiencing this pain?” And the biblical woman’s mind goes back to the curse. “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.” Two effects of that curse: The first part says, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.” But the second part says, “In pain, you shall bring forth children.” Just as you broke my heart by becoming a disobedient child, depraved children will be born to you who will be senseless, ungrateful, and repeatedly break your heart. Women, don’t you face this pain with your children? Women know her deepest and most unbearable, most profound and relentless pain through relationships with her children, through the physical and the emotional and the spiritual relationships with children. Yes, this is a sad reality. That’s where she would feel the deepest pain. All these little sinners tearing at your heart, bringing you all the grief and sadness and sorrow. And it has been true throughout all of history. But there is good news in the gospel. There is a remedy. 1 Timothy 2:14-15: “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.”
Wow! Great hope for a woman in a difficult situation. Women have a hard road, but it can be softened; it can be changed. “Women shall be saved by childbearing.” This does not mean salvation from sin by bearing a child. The context is talking about a woman suffering from Eden’s curse with her children, but they shall be saved from the impact and pain of the Eden curse that comes from children. How? There is one condition: A mother can be delivered from the impact and pain of the Eden curse, the relentless pain and heartbreak coming from children, if she truly repents and is saved. Not just outwardly saying “I am saved,” but if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control over their mouth, hands, and so on. Basically, living as a godly woman, an example to their children. If a woman will live a godly spiritual life before the depraved sinners born to her, you know what will happen? All these little sinners breaking her heart and giving constant grief will, by her example, repent and be saved. Mothers have the greatest impact on their children’s salvation. These children, through your example, will be saved. As believing children, instead of being a pain and a curse, they will be a joy and a blessing. I read that some godly women gave a witness that their relationship with their children didn’t bring much pain to them. God saved them, and the children were a sheer joy to them. You know why? Because the mother, as a godly woman continuing in faith, was delivered from the curse, so the curse is mitigated and you are delivered from its impact. It’s the only way. Her godly example and life will impact the children and bring them to faith, and she will escape from that curse.
2. Behold a Profound Lesson of Total Depravity because of Original Sin
Here, we not only see that the woman cannot enter the presence of God, but even the child born to her cannot. Now this is a striking memorial that birth not only reminds us of the cursed sinfulness of womanhood, but it also reminds us of the cursed sinfulness of her offspring. The child who comes from the womb is also a sinner. You see the beautiful connection to Chapter 11 and this. Chapter 11, with the clean and unclean animals, was a picture of the sin that was external to man, outside of man, reminding us that the world is full of uncleanness that can lead us to commit actual sins. While chapter 11 speaks of that external pollution, now as we come to chapters 12 through 15, we’re going to see the internal pollution. Man’s problem isn’t only environmental, outside. Man’s problem is inside, and he himself as well. That problem starts as soon as he is born. This is a deep lesson of man’s total depravity. Original sin led to original depravity. All of us unconsciously inherited a depraved nature when we were born. A little child pops out of the womb. The child is a depraved sinner. Not by any conscious sin, but by an unconscious inherited nature from Adam. David says the same in Psalm 51:5: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” In the New Testament in Ephesians 2:3, it says, “We were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” Some churches teach that a child is considered innocent until maybe 9, 11, or 12 years old when accountability dawns on him. The Bible knows nothing of this. Think of this idea of childbirth. What could be a more joyful event to humanity than the procreation and birth of a little child? But God says even this is laden with accursed realities. Even this! From a man’s beginning as a bloody child to his ending as a dead corpse (we will see a dead body is unclean and anyone who touches it becomes unclean). God shows that man from beginning to end is unclean. In between birth and death, in the next chapters, we’re going to see in 13 and 14 how, like the disease of leprosy, this birth creates a depraved nature of leprosy within a man. And then in chapter 15, through bodily discharges, we are going to see how what comes out of such a man is only unclean and defiled. Beginning, middle, end—all unclean. From the womb to the tomb, everything that man does in the eyes of God is unclean. Everything about man, within and without, is saturated with the sin leprosy that makes him unfit for the presence of God. So, very early in Revelation, in this old book, God teaches in picture form that man’s sin problem is not merely environmental, outside. His sin problem is personal, inside. Man is a veritable fountain of wickedness and sin and is totally depraved. This is an awesome picture lesson of total depravity in Leviticus 12-15. A picture is given to make us realize the despairing hopelessness in ourselves to make ourselves fit to approach the living God who is holy, holy, holy. That is why not only was the woman banished from the presence of Jehovah as a result of original sin, but also all her seed were born estranged and separated and alienated from God as well. They are born as depraved, defiled sinners by original sin. That is why after Genesis 3, in chapter 4, Eve gives birth to a murderer of his own brother, more murderers, more adulterers, until God couldn’t bear it and drowned the whole world, and then had to control Himself by making the rainbow covenant not to destroy them. And so too, there was a necessity not only for the mother to be purified, but the offspring to be purified. So we learn another sad lesson of total depravity. The woman’s suffering is because of original sin, and the child is born with total depravity. Pastor, all bad news—but next we will see two good news.
3. Behold a Lesson of Atonement for the Woman and Child
Oh, think of the mother. My childbirth reminds me I am cursed with original sin, and my child born is also defiled and totally depraved. We cannot go into the temple, are unfit to go into the presence and be blessed by any of the means of grace. What is their one hope of coming back to God’s presence again after 40/80 days? Their one hope was in verse 6: the Lamb of God as a burnt offering! Oh, when we think of the extent of sin, how it has fully saturated us from birth, not left one area—all leprous, defiled us—and we are utterly unfit to come to God. Original sin and original depravity would have excluded us eternally from the enjoyment of God if He had not graciously provided a way of purification. What is our hope? The Lamb of God! In our hopelessness, we find the blessed truth that in this passage, God has yet made a way. The Lamb of God who takes away not only our actual sins, but even original sin. Eve could have cried out, “Oh, Lord, my punishment is great,” but a hope was promised to Eve: one day the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head. Deliverance will come to the sinful womb. That is why to deliver us from original sin, our Lamb had to be born like us to a virgin. Though He was not conceived in sin, Luke 2:22 says His mother fulfilled the purification days of 40 days and came to the temple. God Himself not only became human to save us, but so poor. So poor were Christ’s parents that they were not able to bring a lamb for a burnt offering but could offer a pair of turtledoves. Joseph and Mary may have felt so bad that they were so poor they could not buy a lamb. Oh, they didn’t realize they were bringing the only true Lamb that day to the temple. He will crush the serpent’s head. Who would have thought that the provision for the poorest people—just the addition in verse 8, “And if she is not able to bring a lamb, then she may bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons”—was given by God for the Messiah, that He will come so poor for our sakes that He can only offer two pigeons? And that’s just one of the ways this passage is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. But He amazingly fulfilled the law for us by becoming our lamb, our burnt offering, and our sin offering. It is because of His life and work on the cross that we can come to God, enjoy the presence of God, and eternally dwell in His house forever. Now, how does God apply the work of the Lamb of God to the depraved child?
4. Behold a Lesson of Regeneration for Born Sinners
The woman is made clean after 40 days, but notice in verse 3 how the child is purified. It is by the ritual of circumcision for the son. It says, “and on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.” A rite or ritual of purification enabled the boy child access into the presence of God. In Genesis 17, we find that circumcision was the sign of the covenant, indicating that all of Abraham’s seed, all of the male offspring, were to be circumcised, and that gave them access to the temple and all the blessings of God’s salvation because they had the sign of the covenant. And this idea of the cutting off and the removal of a fleshy foreskin—this is profound symbolism. This depicts the Old Covenant concept of new birth and regeneration in a picture form. The putting away of the flesh, the cursed and unclean and corrupt nature we are born with, leaves a remaining tender, sensible heart toward God. It was an outward symbol of an inward reality. We even see in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 10:6 and Jeremiah 4:4, that even to physically circumcised Jews, God repeatedly said, “Circumcise your heart,” “remove the foreskins of your heart,” “stiffen not your neck,” “harden not your heart,” which is equivalent to regeneration. All of this prefigured the new birth. And we find this clearly in the New Testament. In Romans 2, Paul gives this interpretation of Old Covenant circumcision as a symbol for the new birth. Romans 2:28-29 says, “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. There’s a deeper relevance to circumcision. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, and his praise is not from men, but from God.” Colossians 2:11: “In Christ, you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” You see, God in old picture shadows was teaching Israelites that the only way a depraved child can enter the presence of God and be cleansed is through regeneration. The only solution for total depravity is regeneration. You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. Whatever you do, even if you become a big religious leader like Nicodemus, you can never enter without regeneration. It was done on the eighth day. Why? The Sabbath was on the seventh. In the next chapters, you will notice repeatedly that for leprosy and other uncleanness, all atonement will happen on the eighth day. See, the Old Testament anticipates something special coming on the eighth. The eighth day starts a new week. God completed all creation work in six days, rested on the seventh day. On the eighth day, the old creation started. Guess why the eighth day is important? A new creation will start on the eighth day. All of this is a picture prefiguring the completion of Christ’s atonement work by rising from the dead on the eighth day, on Sunday. Life-giving resurrection power for the new birth, for the regeneration, the circumcision of the hearts of men, came on the eighth day. It is by His atoning death and resurrection completion that we are circumcised and cleansed and we are able to come into the temple of God and fellowship with God. That is why today we have come to church. What day is this? The eighth day. Why do we gather on the eighth day? There is a profound reason for it. The Old Testament expected special things on this day. The Old Testament defiled people were cleansed and expected the eighth day to enter God’s house. Do you see why the New Testament church met on the eighth day? This New Covenant Sabbath day is holy ground. The eighth day. See, this is our New Covenant Sabbath, not haphazardly changed, but profoundly and theologically changed. We are to take off our sandals and greatly respect this day. It is the Lord’s day, the resurrection day. I hope that helps you understand why it is so important not to sleep and watch TV at home on Sunday, but to come to the house of God in the morning and evening. It is a sacred day. Not haphazardly the eighth day, it’s purposefully. This also answers the question of why 40 days for a male child and double that, 80 days, for a female. The male was purified by being circumcised. But there was no act provided for a female, and God had ordained an additional 40 days for female purification. The mother’s extended separation was so that she might endure a longer sentence not only for her uncleanness, but also for her girl child’s uncleanness. The girl, who wasn’t purified by circumcision, had to be purified by the mother’s extra 40 days. Whether male or female, they both need to be purified. They must be purified either by circumcision or the additional 40 days of uncleanness to enter into the presence of God.
5. Practical Lesson for Parents
We need to learn to prudently walk based on the reality that our children are born totally depraved. Some parents go completely wrong by thinking their children are divine beings and give everything to them. No, our children are depraved. Knowing this should result in: Lowered Expectations of Innate Goodness: Realism, not Cynicism. Parents are less likely to be shocked or disillusioned by a child’s selfish, defiant, or manipulative behavior. They understand that these are manifestations of an inherent sin nature, not just a phase or a reaction.
Lowered expectations of innate goodness: Realism, not cynicism. Parents are less likely to be shocked or disillusioned by a child’s selfish, defiant, or manipulative behavior. They understand that these are manifestations of an inherent sin nature, not just a phase or a reaction to bad parenting.
Our only hope for such children is not allowing them to do what they want; our only hope is regeneration. As loving parents, knowing their sad condition—born in sin, alienated from God, accursed under the wrath of God, and hellbound—we need to take out the sharp two-edged knife of God’s word and keep using it on their hearts. We pray that God may one day remove the foreskin of their hearts, circumcise their hearts, and give them new birth. Every time sinful flesh shows its face, we need to wisely and regularly learn to use the knife and show them their heart.
Day and night, we must teach them God’s word. We apply the sword, that sharp edge, to the heart of our child in family devotions. We bring them to Sunday school. They will not want to go to a church with no dancing, jokes, or entertaining messages, and less Bible study. Oh, if we love their souls, we bring them to a church where the sword of God’s word is applied to their hearts, shows them their sin, and regularly brings them to preaching services where the knife is repeatedly applied, and we pray that God should regenerate them. That is the only hope. God’s word is the only means he uses to circumcise the hearts of our children. That is why we don’t do anything else.
How foolish for some parents to take their children to churches because Bible study is boring and they want lively worship. As parents, it is so cruel as pushing our own child into hell. The Old Testament says, “Woe be to the indolent and lazy father who didn’t take out the knife and circumcise his son.” That child had no purification and no access to the presence of God. God even went to kill Moses because he didn’t circumcise his child.
And I say in the New Covenant, woe be to the father and mother who, because of laziness, indolence, or lack of will, don’t take out the sword and daily apply it to the heart of their son and daughter, hoping that the Spirit of God will so press it in that the foreskin of their sinful heart will be thrown away and a sensitive tenderness will come.
May we not be fathers who, on the last day, our son stands before us at judgment, uncircumcised in his heart, and says, “Dad, why didn’t you pull out the knife and lay it to my heart?” May it be on the other hand that we will be able to see our offspring on the last day and say, “Thank you, Dad. I got a circumcised heart, and I bless you that when I got it, when I walked along the way, when I sat down, and when I bent down at night, there was always the double-edged sword at my heart. And bless God, it was applied to my effectual salvation.”
May God help us as we look at this symbolized reality of original sin.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 