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The law of cleansing after childbirth

The law of God reflects the righteous nature of God. Therefore, the law also defines the opposite of righteousness—that is, lawlessness, or sin. Hence 1 John 3:4 says, “sin is lawlessness.”

The law is also prophetic, because it is the revelation of wisdom—the way in which God works out His divine plan for creation from start to finish. So we read in Deuteronomy 4:6,

⁶ So keep and do them [the commandments], for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”

Wisdom is in conforming to the nature of God.

Finally, because the New Covenant is based on the promise of God to make us righteous by the inner working of the Holy Spirit, the law prophesies of the condition of all mankind at the end of His Story, when God is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).

God is love, wisdom, and power. Love is His motivation; wisdom is His plan; power is what makes it all possible.

Most Christians fail to study the law seriously, and so they tend to have gaps in their understanding of God’s nature, plan, and power to win in the end. Many who actually study the law fail to understand certain portions of the law, and this can cause such students of the law to skip over those laws as if they have no relevance today.

One such law is found in Leviticus 12:2-4,

² When a woman gives birth and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean for seven days… ⁴ Then she shall remain in the blood of her purification for thirty-three days…

In other words, bearing a son renders the mother unclean for a total of 40 days. Again, we read in Leviticus 12:5,

⁵ But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean for two weeks… and she shall remain in the blood of her purification for sixty-six days.

In other words, bearing a daughter renders the mother unclean for a total of 80 days.

These laws seem strange and even discriminatory. Is it twice as bad to give birth to a girl than to give birth to a boy? For that matter, seeing that God commanded to “be fruitful and multiply” in Genesis 1:28, why would the mother become unclean when fulfilling this commandment? Why is there a penalty attached to fulfilling the Fruitfulness Mandate?

Many years ago, when I first embarked on a study of the law, I was confused by Leviticus 12, its purpose and relevance. So, as was my practice, I took it to God and asked Him for an answer. His reply was simple: “The law is prophetic.” The implication was: “That is a hint; you figure it out from there.”

It was then that the Holy Spirit was stirred in me to see the meaning of this prophecy. First, if Adam had begotten children prior to his sin, he would have brought forth children who were in the image of God, because he himself had been made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). By the law of biogenesis, like begets like. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve bore no children until after they had sinned and after they had become mortal and corruptible. Hence, their children were born in their imperfect image. Adam and Eve had lost the image of God, and it would take the rest of history for God’s original design to be fulfilled.

For this reason, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 3:18,

¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Christ came and showed us what the image of God looks like (Hebrews 1:3). He is the Pattern Son and the Forerunner of all who follow in His footsteps. The fact that He had to come to earth to do this ministry shows that mankind lost the image of God through Adam’s sin. Christ, being “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), succeeded where the first Adam failed, and this opened the way for all of us to follow Him into this glory that God planned for humanity.

The image of God is our birthright and is the foundation of truth and hope of the Sonship message.

Eighty Days of Uncleanness

When we view humanity as a whole (a single body), we see that Adam brought forth children in his own imperfect image, not in God’s image. This is because we were all born through corruptible and mortal seed from the fleshly man, Adam (1 Peter 1:23-25). Hence, Eve (and all mothers after her) were unable to fulfill the Fruitfulness Mandate in the way that God intended.

The only way for a woman to avoid being unclean after childbirth was for her to be impregnated by incorruptible seed, as Peter tells us. This is, of course, the heart of the New Covenant message. Jesus was begotten by God and was therefore the Son of God (Matthew 1:18). He was “the exact representation of His nature,” that is, God’s nature—the nature of His heavenly Father. Apart from the virgin birth of Christ, this would have been impossible.

This also explains why Eve, “the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20) was rendered unclean when she began bearing children. If she had borne a child that was in God’s image, she would not have been unclean, and the law in Leviticus 12 would not have applied to her.

On the prophetic level, we can say that when Eve brought forth her imperfect, fleshly children, she (as a type of “the mother of all the living”) became unclean. For how long? A study of biblical chronology shows that it was 80 Jubilee cycles from Adam to the year 26-27 A.D. Hence, actual history shows us that a “day” was measured on the divine timetable as a Jubilee cycle.

When I learned of this chronology in 1991, I concluded that the Messiah could not have begun his ministry prior to the 80^th Jubilee from Adam. Furthermore, this suggested that on a prophetic level, the children born to Adam and Eve were being pictured as a female child.

Forty Days of Uncleanness

When Jesus finished His first work, dying on the cross and being resurrected to life, He became the First fruits of His body. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:20,

²⁰ But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.

Believers in Christ, those who support His claim to the throne as the Messiah, are given the birthright (John 1:12, 13). These believers, in turn are the first fruits of creation itself, as we read in James 1:18,

¹⁸ In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.

The second coming of Christ is necessary to join the Head with the Body in order to complete the Body of Christ. This overlays the Pentecostal Age from 33 A.D. to 1993, that is, 40 Jubilee cycles. Again, the reason it required 40 “days” (Jubilees) is because the church itself was yet imperfect. Though it was a male child, prophetically speaking, this child was righteous only by imputation, where God calls what is NOT as though it were (Romans 4:17 KJV).

The reason for the 40 Jubilees in this case was to cleanse the “mother” and prepare for the third “child” to be born. Paul calls this “the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19). This time period was also foreshadowed in Scripture by other biblical examples. Israel was in the wilderness for 40 year after Moses led them out of Egypt at Passover; so also the church was led out of the house of bondage by one like Moses at Passover.

Again, King Saul, who was crowned on the day of “wheat harvest” (i.e., Pentecost), reigned 40 years, establishing the pattern for the Pentecostal Age yet to come. See 1 Samuel 12:17. The church has followed Saul’s imperfect example for the past 40 Jubilees, and this is why the prophetic “mother” was unclean for 40 Jubilees.

But today (since 1993), we have been in the midst of a great preparatory work anticipating the birth of the true sons of God. The 80 Jubilees, followed by the 40 Jubilees, has brought us to the 120 Jubilees in Kingdom history. We who live into that day, along with those who have qualified for the first resurrection, will be joined as one body that will constitute the first truly spiritual “child” that is in the image of God.

This body of people will receive their birthright and will be raised to glory.