In this week’s Bible Lesson, there are several examples of Jesus touching those who he was healing – a dead man, two blind men and a leper.
This must have shocked the onlookers, since this was contrary to Old Testament teaching – in the case of the dead man:
Numbers 19:11 The one who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days.
Numbers 19:13 Anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a man who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from Israel.
Numbers 19:22 Furthermore, anything that the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and the person who touches it shall be unclean until evening.
However, Jesus did not fear the ceremonial defilement of contact with the dead.
Considering the story in Luke 7: 11-16, I asked myself, “Did Jesus actually break a ceremonial law by touching the bier? There is no record that Jesus submitted to a cleansing routine that was required, and so he could have been cut off from the temple.”
Mary Baker Eddy commented, “ Jesus restored Lazarus by the understanding that Lazarus had never died, not by an admission that his body had died and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus lived or died in this body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated it.
My own conclusions are that Jesus did not break a temple law, since he thought of the man as the image of Life and knew there is no death. Therefore, he didn’t touch a dead man’s bier. He touched a living man’s bier.
Or speaking in the relative sense, it seems to me that Jesus, knowing only Life, caused the healing BEFORE he touched the man’s bier – and so he touched a living man’s bier.
So, I think that Jesus did not disobey the requirement of temple purification when touching the bier: firstly because he touched a living man’s bier, and secondly because he had fulfilled God’s law of knowing only purity. There was no need for purification.
TRUE LAW of TOUCH: Mark 16:18 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
Genesis 3:3 but from the fruit of the tree [belief of good and evil] which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.
Let our hearts be touched / moved by God’s word.
THE TRUE UNTOUCHABLES
Psalm 105:15 “Do not touch My anointed ones, And do My prophets no harm.”
In the usual meaning of the word ‘untouchables’, Dalits, also known as “Untouchables,” are members of the lowest social group in the Hindu caste system. The word “Dalit ” means “oppressed” or “broken” and is the name members of this group gave themselves in the 1930s.
However, the true meaning is that we are children of the Highest, the King of Kings. Beloved, guarded, spiritually intact, and untouchable by any belief of evil.
LAYING ON OF HANDS: is the traditional religious view of laying physical hands on a physical body, and having the faith that God will bring health to a physical body. This is not what Christian Science teaches, since we know that Jesus used absent prayer to treat the centurion’s servant (see Matthew 5: 8-13) which shows that touching is not a necessity part of the healing process.