Exclusions, Inclusions, and Holiness

Deuteronomy 23:1-14
    1 “He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the LORD. 2 “One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD.
    3 “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD forever, 4 because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. 5 Nevertheless the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam, but the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you. 6 You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever.
    7 “You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land. 8 The children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD.
    9 “When the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourself from every wicked thing. 10 If there is any man among you who becomes unclean by some occurrence in the night, then he shall go outside the camp; he shall not come inside the camp. 11 But it shall be, when evening comes, that he shall wash with water; and when the sun sets, he may come into the camp.
    12 “Also you shall have a place outside the camp, where you may go out; 13 and you shall have an implement among your equipment, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and turn and cover your refuse. 14 For the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and give your enemies over to you; therefore your camp shall be holy, that He may see no unclean thing among you, and turn away from you.

Some were excluded from the congregation of God’s people and some were included against the will of some of the people.  Sexual mutilation and out of wedlock birth origin were two brought up to exclude, along with the people of Moab who refused to provide sustenance for Israel on the way out of bondage to the promised country.  Those of Edom, on the other hand were related and included, and the Egyptians who enslaved them as well because Israel was a people alien to them and at first welcomed and well taken care of before the tide turned (Exodus 1:8-10).  We see from these instructions that God sets the standards of inclusion or exclusion from His people (the church), both then and now.  Furthermore, this passage goes on to speak of keeping from evil things if there is to be the Lord’s victory given in the battle, and even their personal waste had to be properly buried outside their camp because of His holy presence there.  If God was to see any unholiness or unclean thing among them, He would not be on their midst and ultimately not in their battles on the way to possess the promised country to come.  We see the analogy of our corporate and personal holiness being a stumbling block to our effective witness and work for the gospel of Christ’s kingdom which begins in and among us here and into eternity.  He tells us to be holy because He is, and Jesus lived out what that means to teach us what that looks like as we follow Him.  That is what called disciples do.  We imitate Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1, 3 John 1:11).  We see for 1 Corinthians 6:9 that He is adamant about our holiness because we were called out of forgiven sin, and we know that are to pursue holiness (Hebrews 12:14) because of that great salvation given by grace in mercy through Jesus the Christ (2 Corinthians 7:1).