THE PUBLIC EXCLUSION OF THE UNCLEAN
This law, like many others, in part a sanitary law; but also educational in spiritual truth, and typical of eternal realities. Two truths taught:—
I. THE HOLINESS OF GOD. This lesson, so hard to the Israelites, was impressed on them in many ways, e.g; sacred men ministering in sacred places, on sacred days, etc. This holy God dwelt in the midst of their tents, and walked among them (Le Numbers 26:11, Numbers 26:12). The God of life and purity was utterly alien from death and impurity. Defilement, whether willful or unavoidable, could not be tolerated in his presence. If the polluted are retained, God withdraws. Sin is "the abominable thing" which God hates. He is "of purer eyes than to behold evil" (Jeremiah 44:4; Habakkuk 1:13).
II. THE EXCOMMUNICATING POWER OF SIN. The consequences to the excluded Hebrews, though limited, were by no means light. They had to suffer loss of privileges, ceremonial and spiritual, and a sense of humiliation from the notoriety of their position. For the time they were out of communion with God and his people. Thus sin has an isolating power. Apart from an act of ecclesiastical excommunication or Divine judgment, its tendency is to separate us from the people of God through want of sympathy. We cease to enjoy their privileges even if not debarred from them. We lose self-respect when sin is exposed, if not before. We are out of communion with God, into whose presence we cannot truly come with sin indulged in our hearts (Psalms 66:18; Ezekiel 14:3). God's salvation is from sin, not in sin. No wonder, therefore, that the impure are sentenced—