In 2 Thess. 1:8, when the Lord appears in vengeance on guilty living men, the Gentiles are distinguished as those that know not God, the Jews as those that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus. It was the privilege of Jews to have God in the world entering into every need and difficulty, every responsibility and danger, as the Gentiles had not. They had even the visible sign of His glory in the tabernacle till their apostasy. Hence they had Him enjoining what was due to His presence in their midst, although in a way altogether inferior to that enjoyed by the Christian and in the church.
But earthly and temporal as it was, it accounts for such requirements as we read here and elsewhere. We have had its application to human birth (in chap. 12) and (in chap. 13) to sin in the life, as a deadly and defiling thing, a living death, which necessitated exclusion from tent, camp, and worship, and (in 14) the striking means required for cleansing him when cured without telling us how cure could be. Here we have other and lesser sources of defilement on which we may say a little. They indicate the sad and shameful effects of sin.
The principle is a great one. All is judged, even for fallen man, according to His presence who deigned to dwell there. A human standard, if indeed any pretended to have it, was well enough for a heathen. An Israelite was to submit to the God of Israel regulating the entire life, public and private, of His earthly people. Impossible, if Jehovah were their God and they His people, to evade those terms. Piety would welcome them with heart and soul.
So it will be finally under Messiah and the new covenant when He will write His law in their heart; and they shall know Him from the least to the greatest, for He will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. Alas! they, ignorant of their sin, had at Sinai forgotten to plead His promise, and even taken their stand on their own obedience; so that ruin soon befell them, and all went on worse and worse, till there was “no remedy” on that footing. Then came the rejection of their only hope. A brighter day awaits them when their heart turns to the Lord (2 Cor. 3), and He will save them with a divine salvation.
“1 And Jehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2 Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, If any man hath a flux from his flesh because of his flux, he [is] unclean. 3 And this shall be his uncleanness in his flux: whether his flesh run with his flux, or his flesh be closed from his flux, it [is] his uncleanness. 4 Every bed whereon he that hath the flux lieth shall be unclean; and everything whereon he sitteth shall be unclean. 5 And whosoever toucheth his bed shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 6 And he that sitteth on [anything] whereon he that hath the flux sat shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 7 And he that toucheth the flesh of him that hath the flux shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 8 And if he that hath the flux spit upon him that is clean, then he shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 9 And what carriage (or saddle) soever he that hath the flux rideth upon shall be unclean. 10 And whosoever toucheth anything that was under him shall be unclean until the even; and he that beareth those things shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 11 And whomsoever he that hath the flux toucheth without having rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his raiment, and bathe [himself] in water, and be unclean until the even. 12 And the earthen vessel that he that hath the flux toucheth shall be broken; and every vessel of wood shall be rinsed in water” (vers. 1-12).
Man is not as God created him; he is fallen: and here we read how God instructed the Israelite of old to judge his state. It was not nature, but nature ruined and unclean; so are its unclean emotions. They are tainted and defile. So Jehovah spoke to Moses and Aaron. The physical uncleanness speaks to us of a deeper evil. So the Lord taught even the multitude: “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth the man” (Matt. 15:11). And when Peter, feeling Pharisaic opposition, asked more, the Lord replied, “Do not ye understand that all that entereth into the mouth goeth into the belly and is cast out into a sewer? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth out from the heart; and those things defile the man. For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, theft, false witnessing, blasphemies: these are the things which defile the man.” The outside satisfies those who have not faith and count God as themselves. But God will have us take account of the humiliating truth, if the uncleanness flow out, or even if suppressed within by night or by day (3, 4) as to things or persons (5-12). Every case demanded purifying. To the Jew it was water; to us the washing of water by the word, the water that flowed from Christ in death, to which the apostle who saw bears record in Gospel and Epistle.
Our word of confession is due to God; but Christ's word has virtue in it through the Spirit and His own advocacy. Thus is communion maintained. To be born again and forgiven is not enough. We are brought into divine fellowship, and all that is unsuitable in us God will have us to judge. It would be hard if He had not provided all that sustains or restores. It is careless or unholy, now that He is at all the charge for our blessing, if we avail not ourselves of it conscientiously. Vigilance as well as dependence on Him and the heart's submission to His word with confidence of His love in Christ are ever needed. Weak, exposed with such a nature, and a subtle foe to take advantage, we are only kept by God's power through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.