LEVITICUS 12

THE PURIFICATION OF WOMEN

I.   Reason: The child that is born is unclean.  Children are born  sinners - They don't become sinners.

A.     Cain and Abel are born outside the Garden of Eden. (After  sin)  Gen. 3:16.

B.     I Tim. 2:9-15 - Reason for the place of women.

1.       Adam was created first.

2.       Eve was deceived more easily than Adam.  Sin has passed  through the male, not the female.

a.      V. 15 - Eve, or woman, not condemned into bearing  children.  She was supposed to bear children  before sin.  But in giving birth, her life is  returned to her. At birth a woman enters into the pangs of  death.  The original intention was that birthing  would be easy, like in the animal world.

b.      It is woman's place to continue serving God in  these circumstances.

II.   A discussion of the number of days.

A.     Uncleanness - separation.

1.       male 40 days.

a.      circumcised the 8th day - shows that depravity is  through the male.

b.      40 is the number of judgment.

1)      flood - 40 days and 40 nights of rain.

2)      spies in Canaan for 40 days

3)      40 years in the wilderness

4)      Jonah preached that in 40 days God will  destroy Nineveh.

5)      Moses was on Mt. Sinai for 40 days getting  the law.

6)      Elijah was 40 days under the Juniper Tree  complaining about the judgment of God.

7)      Christ was tempted for 40 days.

8)      40 days after the resurrection, Christ  ascended to heaven.

9)      Therefore, some people believe Adam and Eve  lived 40 days in the Garden of Eden before  they sinned.  There is no proof.

2.       Female - 80 days.

a.      14+66=80.

b.      Because woman is in the transgression - I Tim.  2:9-15.

B.     To show children about Total Depravity.  They would notice  that every time a baby was born to their mother or some of  the women they knew, there was a time of separation.  This  would lead them to ask questions as to why.  They would then  be told in a quite normal way about Total Depravity and then  of a Saviour in Jesus Christ. (The Messiah to come.)

III.   Why not today?  There are other methods of sanitation that apply  today.

IV.   The Sacrifice.

A.     The same sacrifice was given for the male and the female.

B.     The sacrifice was young, yet there was depravity within.

C.     There are no exceptions to this rule.

1.       Luke 2:22 - Mary brought the same sacrifice.  She gave  the sacrifice because of her side of the birth of Christ.      The Holy Spirit was His Father. The sacrifice wasn't given because of any sinfulness or  sin nature on the part of Christ, but that all parts of the  law would be fulfilled by Christ.

2.       By disobeying the command to not eat of the Tree of  Knowledge of Good and Evil, sin has ravished the world.