The Uncleanliness of Our Last Enemy Text: Numbers 19:11-13
Introduction: The Shadow of Death
We live in a culture that is terrified of death, and so it pretends death is not there. We hide our dead away. We use euphemisms. We tell ourselves that death is a natural part of life, like autumn leaves or the setting of the sun. But the Scriptures will have none of this sentimental nonsense. The Bible tells us that death is an enemy. It is the last enemy to be destroyed. It is an invader, a grotesque aberration, a consequence of sin. Death is not natural; it is a curse. It is the wages of sin, and the payment is always collected.
In the Mosaic law, God gave Israel a series of object lessons, a vast audio-visual aid to teach them the grammar of holiness. These ceremonial laws were not arbitrary hoops to jump through. They were pictures, parables in action, designed to instill in the people a deep sense of the profound chasm between God's perfect life and the defilement that sin brings. And nowhere is this lesson taught more starkly than in the laws concerning contact with a dead body. In our passage today, we see that the ultimate ceremonial contamination, the highest level of ritual uncleanness, came from touching a corpse. Why? Because touching a corpse was to touch the ultimate physical manifestation of sin's victory. It was to handle the wages of Adam's rebellion.
Our modern sensibilities might find this strange. We think of germs and hygiene. And while these laws certainly had a salutary effect on public health, that was a secondary benefit. The primary purpose was theological. God was teaching His people that He is the God of the living, not the dead. His tabernacle, the place where His glorious presence dwelt, could not be approached by those stained with the shadow of death. To be unclean was to be barred from fellowship, to be put outside the camp. To remain unclean was to be cut off entirely. This was a picture of spiritual death. And so, in this seemingly obscure passage about ritual purification, we find a profound diagnosis of our condition apart from Christ and a glorious foreshadowing of the only cure.
The Text
‘The one who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days. That one shall purify himself from uncleanness with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and then he will be clean; but if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean. Anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a man who has died, and does not purify himself, makes the tabernacle of Yahweh unclean; and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for impurity was not splashed on him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him.’
(Numbers 19:11-13 LSB)
The Contagion of Death (v. 11)
We begin with the foundational principle in verse 11:
"‘The one who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days.’" (Numbers 19:11)
Notice the bluntness. Touching a dead body makes you unclean. This was the highest degree of ritual impurity in the Old Covenant. It was more defiling than skin diseases, more defiling than bodily discharges, more defiling than any other kind of uncleanness. Why? Because death is the ultimate consequence of sin entering the world. When Adam sinned, death followed. "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned" (Romans 5:12). To touch death was to come into contact with the physical evidence of mankind's rebellion against the living God.
This law was a constant, tangible reminder that sin has real-world consequences. It is not an abstract idea. It brings corruption, decay, and separation. The uncleanness lasted for seven days, a full cycle of time, representing a complete period of separation. You were ceremonially "dead" for a week. You could not enter the courts of the Lord's house. You could not participate in the covenant feasts. You were, for a time, an outsider. This was a powerful picture of how our sin separates us from fellowship with a holy God. God is life, and in Him is no darkness, no decay, no death at all. To approach Him, the stain of death must be dealt with.
The Prescribed Cleansing (v. 12)
But God, in His mercy, does not leave His people in their defilement. He provides a way back. He prescribes a remedy.
"That one shall purify himself from uncleanness with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and then he will be clean; but if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean." (Numbers 19:12 LSB)
The cleansing required a specific process at specific times. The "water for impurity" mentioned here was not just any water. As the earlier part of this chapter details, it was water mixed with the ashes of a specially sacrificed red heifer (Numbers 19:9). This was a unique sacrifice, its ashes providing a standing basis for purification from the defilement of death. The writer to the Hebrews picks up on this very thing: "For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh..." (Hebrews 9:13). This whole ritual was a shadow, a type, pointing forward to a greater reality.
The timing is also deeply significant. The purification had to happen on the third day and again on the seventh day. Why the third day? This is a clear pointer to the resurrection. Our Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead on the third day, conquering death and breaking its power. The first step out of the uncleanness of death is the application of the power of the resurrection. And why the seventh day? Seven is the number of completion, of perfection. The cleansing had to be brought to its full and final conclusion. It points to our total and complete sanctification in Christ. The third day is justification, the seventh day is glorification. One without the other is an incomplete salvation.
Notice the stark warning: if the process is not followed, "he will not be clean." God's provision must be received on God's terms. You cannot invent your own way back into fellowship. You cannot decide that five days is long enough, or that any old water will do. The way of cleansing is specific because the sacrifice it points to is specific. There is one name under heaven by which we must be saved.
The Penalty for Negligence (v. 13)
The final verse raises the stakes from personal defilement to corporate apostasy. The consequences for ignoring this cleansing are severe.
"Anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a man who has died, and does not purify himself, makes the tabernacle of Yahweh unclean; and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for impurity was not splashed on him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him.’" (Numbers 19:13 LSB)
This is crucial. The unclean person who refuses purification does not just remain in his own private filth. He "makes the tabernacle of Yahweh unclean." By presuming to approach God's dwelling place while still stained with death, he insults the holiness of God. He treats the holy as though it were common. He is dragging death into the presence of Life. This is an act of high-handed rebellion, and it contaminates the entire community.
Therefore, the penalty is severe: "that person shall be cut off from Israel." This is the language of excommunication. It means to be put out of the covenant community, to be treated as a Gentile and a tax collector. Why? "Because the water for impurity was not splashed on him." He rejected God's gracious provision for cleansing. His guilt remains: "his uncleanness is still on him."
This is a terrifying picture of the man who hears the gospel but refuses the cleansing blood of Christ. He touches death every day, for he is dead in his trespasses and sins. God offers him the water of life, the cleansing from sin that Jesus purchased with His own body on the cross. But he scoffs at it. He considers himself "clean enough" or decides he will approach God on his own terms. Such a man does not just remain in his sin; he pollutes the church if he is allowed to remain. He despises the sacrifice of Christ, and his uncleanness remains on him. For such a person, there remains no other sacrifice for sins, but only a fearful expectation of judgment.
The Ashes and the Blood
This entire chapter, with its detailed instructions about a red heifer, cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool, is a beautiful and intricate portrait of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The red heifer, without spot or blemish, which had never been yoked, was taken outside the camp and slain. Jesus, our perfect, unblemished sacrifice, who was not under the yoke of sin, was crucified outside the gates of Jerusalem.
The ashes of that heifer were mixed with living water to create the water of purification. These ashes were a constant, available remedy for the constant problem of death. In the same way, the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross is the constant, ever-available remedy for the defilement of our sin. His blood is the reality to which the water for impurity pointed. The writer to the Hebrews completes the thought we saw earlier: "For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:13-14).
The Old Covenant purification was external, for the "purifying of the flesh." It allowed a ceremonially unclean man to re-enter the earthly tabernacle. But the blood of Christ accomplishes something infinitely greater. It purifies the conscience. It cleanses us from the inside out. It doesn't just deal with ritual defilement; it washes away moral guilt. It doesn't just cleanse us from touching dead works; it cleanses our consciences from dead works to serve the living God. The goal of our cleansing is not just to be made clean, but to be made fit for service, to be brought back into joyful fellowship and worship of the living God.
We have all touched the corpse. We were all born unclean, dead in our sins. But God, in His great mercy, has provided the cleansing agent. He has splashed us not with the water of impurity, but with the very blood of His Son. Our uncleanness is removed. We are not cut off, but brought near. Therefore, let us not treat this cleansing lightly. Let us draw near to the tabernacle of God with true hearts in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. For the one who has been washed is clean indeed.