Numbers 9:6-7 Now there were certain men who were defiled by a human corpse, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day; and they came before Moses and Aaron that day. And those men said to him, “We became defiled by a human corpse. Why are we kept from presenting the offering of the Lord at its appointed time among the children of Israel?”
According to the law, there were many ways in which a person could be defiled and one of those ways was by contact with a corpse. Ritual defilement was taken very seriously, in fact a person who has taken a Nazarite vow would have to start the vow all over again if they happened to be defiled by a dead body even if it were unintentional. For the general population, defilement from contact with a dead body meant being put outside the camp for seven days with purification rituals done on the third day and on the seventh day.
For someone who has been defiled by contact with a corpse, being outside the camp was a temporary situation unless the contact transferred some disease or the person was not purified by water, perhaps by choice, rejecting the prescribed means for cleansing or by simple negligence on their own part. We find in these regulations an interesting picture of salvation, being outside the camp due to sin, but allowed back in after cleansing.
Jesus suffered and died on the cross outside of the city walls of Jerusalem that we might have our sins blotted out so that we could be allowed back inside the camp. One who is cleansed is allowed back in, but there are those who will reject the prescribed means for salvation, choosing not to be washed or putting the washing off too long, perhaps thinking they had plenty of time and could do it later.
I imagine that there have been many people who thought they could receive Jesus on their death bed, but because of some terrible accident or medical emergency they never had that chance. They can’t say they were denied salvation because they had plenty of opportunities to receive the gospel. They simply never took the opportunity and by their own choice then, they are condemned. This is why in the parable of Luke 14 about the great feast, when there is room left over the Master tells his servant to compel people to come in. In like manner, I find no fault in compelling people to receive Jesus, not forcibly, but passionately, just as one might plead with someone to get off the tracks when a train is speeding toward them.
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