The Good behind Banishment

Along with the increasingly common view of a hypocritical Church, the very goodness of God is often challenged by non-believers. For example, Leviticus 13:46 states, "As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp." Here the supposed good and loving God banishes sick people not only from His presence, but from the presence of their friends, family, and community. So how does this show goodness?

God jealously love and protects His people. If not dealt with, infectious skin diseases would quickly spread throughout the camp, endangering the lives of everyone. Until cleansing comes, separation of the clean and unclean is necessary for the health of the community. Furthermore, this helps paint a clearer picture of sin and its consequences. Just as God does not want His people to be infected by physical disease, He does not want His people to be infected by spiritual disease, that is, sin. Sin not only infects the sinner but has a nasty habit of terrorizing the lives of others through the sinner. God's goodness exposes our sinful infection so that we might cry out, "Unclean!"

Arthur Pink writes, "Divine light exposes filth within, of which they had no previous realization, causing them to cry with the leper, 'Unclean, unclean!' (Lev. 13:45)...But how thankful we should be if God makes us 'abhor' ourselves (Job 42:6), and thereby make way for prizing Christ all the more!" It is through His goodness that God shows us our spiritual state, so that we might cry out to Him.

Living Life