According to the Levitical law (Lev. 13&14), strict guidelines were set by which the priest was to inspect one suspected of having leprosy and pronounce him clean or unclean. The law did not give a person leprosy nor did it cleanse one who had leprosy. It merely set the standard by which a person was declared clean or unclean. If the priest found certain conditions present, he pronounced the person a leper and unclean. Likewise, if certain other conditions were found, the person was declared not to have leprosy and pronounced clean. The holy law of God stands in the same relationship to us. It does not make us sinners; it cannot cleanse us from sin; it sets the standard by which our condition is determined. Before this law, we are all guilty; we are all as an unclean thing! But, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us." As the Redeemer of His people, by His perfect obedience to the law, He honored and magnified the law for us. By His sacrificial death, He died, the clean for the unclean, "The just for the unjust that He might bring us to God." In Him we have the very righteousness of God as our righteousness. This is why, when our Lord cleansed the leper in Matt. 8:1-4, He told him to go his way and show himself to the priest. Because he was clean, the law must pronounce him to be so. Beloved, if you are washed in the blood of Christ, do not fear the law. It can only pronounce you clean (Rom. 8:33-34).