The Walking Death: Sin's Public Relations Text: Leviticus 13:45-46
Introduction: The Uncomfortable Holiness of God
We live in an age that has domesticated God. Our modern sensibilities prefer a God who is more of a celestial therapist, a divine affirmation machine, whose chief attribute is being nice. But the book of Leviticus will not let us get away with such sentimental nonsense. Leviticus is a splash of ice water to the face of our therapeutic age. It reminds us that our God is a consuming fire, that holiness is not a suggestion, and that the chasm between a holy God and sinful man is terrifyingly real.
Nowhere is this more graphically illustrated than in the laws concerning leprosy. We must be clear from the outset. The condition described here, tsara'ath, is not a one-to-one correspondence with what we now call Hansen's disease. It was a broader category of infectious skin diseases, and it also applied to mold or mildew in garments and houses. But its primary function in the ceremonial law was not medical; it was theological. Leprosy was a living, walking parable of sin. It was a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality. It was what sin looks like on the outside. It corrupts, it isolates, it spreads, and it makes a man unclean, unfit for the presence of God and the fellowship of His people.
The laws in this chapter are intensely practical for us, but not in the way our public health officials might think. They are not primarily about social distancing to avoid a physical contagion. They are about the spiritual contagion of sin and the radical measures required to deal with it. These verses before us describe the final state of the person confirmed to have the disease. He is, for all intents and purposes, a dead man walking. He is a walking funeral. And his condition is not a private matter between him and his dermatologist. It is a public declaration, a corporate concern, because sin is never a purely private affair. It always affects the camp, the covenant community. This passage, then, is a graphic lesson in the nature of sin, the necessity of holiness, and the profound grace found only in the one who was not afraid to touch the leper.
The Text
As for the leper who has the infection, his clothes shall be torn, and the hair of his head shall be uncovered, and he shall cover his mustache and call out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall remain unclean all the days during which he has the infection; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his place of habitation shall be outside the camp.
(Leviticus 13:45-46 LSB)
A Living Funeral (v. 45)
We begin with the prescribed public posture of the leper.
"As for the leper who has the infection, his clothes shall be torn, and the hair of his head shall be uncovered, and he shall cover his mustache..." (Leviticus 13:45a)
Every single one of these requirements is a sign of mourning. Tearing one's clothes was a common expression of profound grief or horror, as when Jacob heard the news about Joseph, or when the high priest heard what he considered blasphemy from Jesus. An uncovered head, with disheveled hair, was likewise a sign of deep distress and lamentation. Covering the lower part of the face, the mustache, was a gesture of shame and sorrow. You see this in Ezekiel, when God tells him not to mourn for his dead wife as a sign to the people: "Bind on your turban and put your sandals on your feet, and do not cover your mustache" (Ezek. 24:17). The leper is commanded to adopt the full uniform of a mourner at a funeral. Whose funeral? His own.
The ceremonial law was teaching Israel that to be unclean was to be dead. Sin is not just a mistake or a poor choice; it is a state of spiritual death. It separates us from the land of the living, from the source of all life, who is God. The leper was a walking corpse, a visible sermon illustration of the wages of sin. He was to live out, in his own body, the reality of what sin does to every man. It makes him a walking ghost, estranged from God and from true life.
This is precisely how the apostle Paul describes our condition outside of Christ. We were "dead in the trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1). We were not just sick, or struggling, or in need of a little help. We were dead. Corpses. We were lepers, and the stench of our decay was rising before a holy God.
The Sinner's Public Relations (v. 45)
The leper's posture is not enough. He must also make a verbal declaration.
"...and he shall cover his mustache and call out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’" (Leviticus 13:45b LSB)
This is not a quiet mumble. He is required to cry out, to warn anyone who might approach him. He is a walking biohazard, and he must function as his own warning siren. Imagine the psychological weight of this. Your entire identity, your public announcement to the world, is reduced to this one, devastating word: "Unclean!" Not, "I have a disease," but "I am unclean." The condition defined the man.
This is a picture of what true confession of sin looks like. It is not an excuse. It is not a justification. It is an agreement with God about the reality of our condition. When Isaiah saw the Lord, high and lifted up, his response was not to talk about his good intentions. He cried out, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips" (Isaiah 6:5). He called out his own uncleanness. True repentance begins with this kind of brutal honesty. We must stop making excuses for our sin and start calling it what God calls it: unclean.
This public cry also protected the community. It prevented the unintentional spread of defilement. This teaches us that our sin is not our own business. When we harbor sin, when we refuse to confess it and call it what it is, we endanger the entire camp. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. A little leprosy, ignored and covered up, can defile the entire covenant community. The health of the body requires that sin be identified, confessed, and dealt with, not hidden under a pious mask.
The Duration and the Location of Death (v. 46)
The final verse outlines the consequences of this state of uncleanness.
"He shall remain unclean all the days during which he has the infection; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his place of habitation shall be outside the camp." (Leviticus 13:46 LSB)
The sentence was indefinite: "all the days during which he has the infection." There was no cure for this condition apart from a miraculous, divine intervention. From a human perspective, it was a life sentence. And notice the stark repetition: "he is unclean." The law drives the point home. This is his state. This is his identity.
The result is twofold: isolation and exile. "He shall live alone." Fellowship, one of the greatest blessings of the covenant, is cut off. Sin isolates. It severs relationships. It creates suspicion, bitterness, and distance. The sinner, wrapped up in himself, ultimately finds himself completely alone.
And second, "his place of habitation shall be outside the camp." This is the most devastating consequence. The camp of Israel was where God dwelt. His tabernacle was in the center. To be outside the camp was to be cast out from the presence of the Lord. It was a picture of excommunication. It was a taste of hell, which is the ultimate, eternal exclusion from the presence of God and the glory of His power. This is what our sin deserves. It deserves to be cast out, away from the fellowship of the saints, away from the life-giving presence of God.
The Leper-Cleansing Christ
If the sermon ended here, it would be a message of utter despair. We are all lepers. We are all spiritually dead, unclean, and deserving of exile from the presence of God. We are all outside the camp. But this is precisely why the Gospel is such glorious news. The entire point of this graphic, terrifying picture in Leviticus is to prepare us for the one who came to reverse the curse.
The Gospels tell us of a leper who came to Jesus. He knew the law. He knew he was not supposed to approach anyone. But in desperation, he came and knelt before Jesus, saying, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean" (Matthew 8:2). He didn't ask to be healed; he asked to be made clean. He understood the true nature of his problem. It wasn't just a skin condition; it was a state of being that cut him off from God.
And what did Jesus do? He did the unthinkable. He reached out his hand and touched him. According to the law of Leviticus, whoever touches an unclean thing becomes unclean. This was the logic of the old covenant: defilement is contagious. But when Jesus, the holy one of God, touches the leper, the logic is gloriously reversed. Holiness becomes contagious. Life swallows up death. Instead of Jesus becoming unclean, the leper becomes clean. Jesus absorbs the defilement and imparts His own perfect cleanness.
This is the heart of the gospel. On the cross, Jesus became the ultimate leper for us. He was cast "outside the camp." The book of Hebrews tells us to "go to him outside the camp, bearing the reproach he endured" (Hebrews 13:13). On the cross, He was covered in the filth of our sin. He was isolated, crying out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He endured the ultimate excommunication from the Father's presence so that we, the truly unclean, could be brought near. He took our uncleanness upon Himself and clothed us in His perfect righteousness.
Therefore, we are no longer defined by our uncleanness. We are not commanded to cry out, "Unclean! Unclean!" but rather, "Abba, Father!" We are not exiled outside the camp but are welcomed into the very holy of holies by the blood of Jesus. We are brought into the assembly of the firstborn, the New Jerusalem. The law of the leper shows us the horror of our disease. The gospel of Jesus Christ shows us the glory of the cure. He did not shrink from our filth, but touched us in our corruption, and made us clean.