Leviticus 13:45-46
And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.

We need not stand before the Lord and cry, “Unclean, unclean,” for He already knows our defiled state. We are born in sin and plagued by it. It has infected us and goes much deeper than skin level. The corruption of it threatens to consume us. We are wholly unclean, and thus we must dwell without the camp, separated from fellowship with God.

There is no remedy that we can get on our own. There is nothing we can do but simply acknowledge that this is our state. There is no washing with water to be clean. It takes a much more thorough cleansing to be free from sin, and it only comes by the blood of Jesus Christ. And when that cleansing fountain pours over us, our sins are washed away, and we are wholly clean of what once marked our lives and our souls with corruption and death.

And so, newly clean, we can cast off those old garments and be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. We can abandon our dwelling place without the camp and draw near to God, who invites us to dwell with Him forever. Gone from our lips is the cry of “unclean,” replaced by the glorious song, “Redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb,” made new, made whole, made pure, and made to be conformed to His image, to go forth in service, and to proclaim before all what good things He has done for us.