“1 The Lord instructed Moses: 2 Command the Israelites to send away anyone from the camp who is afflicted with a skin disease, anyone who has a bodily discharge, or anyone who is defiled because of a corpse. 3 You must send away both male or female; send them outside the camp, so that they will not defile their camps where I dwell among them. 4 The Israelites did this, sending them outside the camp. The Israelites did as the Lord instructed Moses.”
Numbers 5:1-4
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Besides the obvious application of removing any chance of affecting others and causing an infectious breakout in the camp, there are deeper applications to this law and others like it.

The Israelite people were just learning what it meant to be their own people, in truth, to be God’s people. They had no idea what it meant to be a group called out, to be holy. They had been slaves, objects of ridicule, disdain and abuse. They had no self image, not pride as a nation, and God begins to instate these laws as a part of that process of becoming a distinctive nation, each one with both immediate, physical reasons, and deeper, underlying spiritual reasons, too.

They weren’t just going to be a physically clean people. That would be a distinctive, but it would be an odd one if tI stood alone. The purity of their lives would stand as a marker of the purity of their hearts, and in turn their dedication to God. The purity of their camps, the way they all lived their lives, would be just a part of what made them stand out among the nations. It is a point of curiosity, but also a point of conversation. “Why do you all live this way? What compelled you to follow all those rules?” a neighbor might ask. And they then have an open door to share with them the story of hope that God had been writing in their nation. When people saw they weren’t like the other nations, that was something that was going to catch their eye and intrigue their heart.

This plan of keeping the camp pure is going to benefit everyone physically, from a health standpoint, but more than that, it is a constant physical reminder of a Spiritual truth. God values the purity of the individual. The heart matters just like the body matters just like the mind matters. We must be made pure in Him so we might be used by Him to glorify Himself. As we GoLove the nations in His Name, we must carry that distinctive with us, that our God purifies, cleanses and forgives. We stand as the representatives of grace. And if it means something to us, then we must live like it does. If being the people of God is important, then we must live a life that reflects that understanding. If being the people of God is a special, valuable thing, then our lives must make that abundantly clear.

To refuse Him, in order to do our own thing, is to be put outside the camp, and no one wants to live apart. In Christ, we have been given the purity that God requires. In the sacrifice of Messiah, we have been made clean. Washed in the water and the blood, our lives of purity, inwardly and outwardly, stand as markers to the world around us of His power, His faithfulness and His love that reconciles. If we look like the world, there is no distinctive. But if we live as Christ, then all eyes are drawn to Him.