LUSTRATION. This means purification by means of a propitiatory sacrifice or certain ceremonies. The word is not found in the Eng. Bible, but its equivalent, purification, and its cognates, is found in both Testaments often. Ceremonial purification was an important part of Israelite religious life, for people regarded as ceremonially unclean were kept from the altar in the sanctuary and were kept from fellowship with their co-religionists.

The law of Moses made clear distinctions between clean and unclean. Uncleanness was primarily ceremonial defilement, not moral, and was contracted in several ways, some of them avoidable, some unavoidable, and provision was made for purification. A person was rendered ceremonially unclean in the following ways: (1) contact with a dead body, esp. a human corpse (Num 19:11-22); (2) leprosy (Lev 13:14); (3) seminal emissions and childbirth (Lev 12, 15); (4) eating the flesh of an unclean fish, bird, and animal (Lev 11; Deut 14:3-21); (5) physical defects or impairments (Lev 21:16-24).

Israelites who had contracted uncleanness were required to separate themselves from the congregation, the length of time depending upon the nature of the uncleanness (Lev 12; 15:11-13). Usually this was seven days; in the case of the birth of a male child it was forty days, and of a female child, eighty days. The mode of purification was bathing the body and washing the clothes in water (Lev 15:8, 10, 11), but for the more serious forms of uncleanness sacrifice was necessary (Lev 12:6; 15:29, 30). People rendered unclean by leprosy (Lev 14) or by touching a corpse (Num 19) were sprinkled with water mingled with blood or ashes. The penalty of refusing to be purified was execution (19:20).

In the NT there are references to ceremonial purification in connection with childbirth (Luke 2:22), leprosy (17:11-19), the Passover (John 11:55; 18:28). In contrast with the Pharisees, Jesus emphasized moral rather than ceremonial purity (Mark 7:1-23). Although Paul made clear that Christ repealed all the Levitical regulations on unclean meats and practices (Rom 14:14, 20; 1 Cor 6:13; Col 2:16, 20-22), He Himself, in order that His message might more readily be received, underwent the rite of purification (Acts 18:18). See Purification.