6.29.26 – Did Yeshua Ever Become Unclean? Part 6

There is a second question hiding in the first question from yesterday's study. If He did not become impure, does that mean He never kept the purity laws—never brought sacrifices for impurity, never went to the mikveh, and so on? Does it mean that? Drumroll, please? I do not know. But here is something to think about, especially for the critic who would wave all of this off and say, "Of course He was never subject to that impurity nonsense—He did not do that legalism!"

Remember what we learned about the tzaddik—the righteous one. One thing we always find is true: the tzaddik is with his people. He identifies with them. He does not hold himself above them; He is down in the middle with them.

Now think about who Yeshua was understood to be—the Messiah of Israel. A teacher with students, living in public, constantly watched, and measured against everything the people expected of a faithful Son of the covenant. The Messiah of Israel was never imagined as someone who would put an end to the Torah or brush it aside—contrary to what you might have been taught somewhere along the way (Matt. 5:17–18). That is not what "fulfill" means. If anything, He was expected to live more faithfully than anyone alive. So if He had carried Himself as a man who stood above Torah, who treated the purity laws as beneath Him because He was too "pure" to be touched by them, that would not have marked Him as Israel's Messiah. It would have done the opposite—it would have disqualified Him in the eyes of the people and the teachers.

Yes, He sparred with the teachers many times—no question. But why would He ever step outside the Torah on purpose, even if impurity could not touch Him, and hand them an accusation against Him? He would not. He was keenly aware of how these things looked—what we now call the "optics." He would not needlessly scandalize people, nor cause His followers to stumble by openly breaking with practice. So it is very likely He did go down to the mikveh. He likely kept the purifications. Here is the point: He would have done every bit of it, even if impurity never could touch Him, even if none of it mattered. He would still go, because faithful identification with the people demanded it—the way it always had.

Look at the handwashing dispute. The Pharisees come and ask, "Why do Your disciples eat with unwashed hands, breaking the tradition?" They ask about the disciples—they never ask why He does not wash (Matt. 15:2). And remember, that was not even a command from the Torah; it was a fence around the Torah to wash before eating. Yet even here, we see the accusation goes right around Him. He kept the practices of the people.

And look at what He does when He cleanses the man with tzara'at—healing that had already flowed out of the man's flesh. What does Yeshua tell him? "Go and offer the sacrifice for your cleansing." He sends the man into the Torah's prescribed procedures (Lev. 14–15). He does not say, "Do not worry about all that—you have been close enough to Me. I am completely pure, above all impurity. Do not pay attention to that legal stuff; it is not important." He honored the Torah way.

Now this can make more sense to us in the scene at the Jordan River, when Yeshua comes to be immersed. John says, "Wow, dude, what are You doing? I should be baptized by You!" And Yeshua answers: "Let it be so now, to fulfill all righteousness" (Matt. 3:15). He steps into the water and stands with the people in the same water—all those who needed baptism for repentance. He did not need that, but the same instinct carried Him, I would say, to the mikveh, to the Temple, through the purifications, regardless.

So can we say He kept the purification laws anyway—went down to the mikveh, went up to the Temple—for the sake of His people and His mission? Would He do those things? The Gospels never tell us; they never pause to ask whether He needed the waters of the red heifer because of corpse contamination or any of that (Num. 19). They are simply not interested in settling that for us. But everything about the way He carried Himself says very likely—and yes, it is hard to make arguments from silence—but here is what we know for certain: no ordinary man walked the streets of Jerusalem or the roads of Galilee where holiness came off of Him. Life came off of Him. Everywhere He met death and disease, they were undone. The flow ran the other way—life, cleansing, restoration. And at the very same time, we know Him as the observant Jew that He was.

So is our question settled? Unfortunately, this is not one of those times where I can do a cute little thing and say, "The answer is this or that." It does not work here because we still do not know. The answer is what I gave you at the beginning: we will know when Messiah comes and explains it all. This is not a hill to die on anyway. But as I love to do, it gives you some food for thought—maybe something you never even considered—and content for discussion, especially with people who would think you are crazy for even asking the question. So what do we do with it? We just tuck it away.

One more amazing thing to consider about Yeshua: the One out of whom living water flows, the Word made flesh, the Master over the forces of death—and a faithful, Torah-keeping, Temple-honoring Jew, the Messiah of Israel and the cosmos. It is just one more way to get more out of the Gospels than words on a page.

He is even more amazing than we have considered!

Shalom,
Alan