HOLINESS TO THE LORD: verses 6-8.
"All the days that he separateth himself unto the Lord he shall come at no dead body. He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die; because the consecration of his God is upon his head. All the days of his separation he is holy unto the Lord."
Here we have a most solemn and important prohibition—to refrain from all uncleanness caused by contact with death. Death is the wages of sin: the consecrated one was alike to keep aloof from sin and from its consequences.
No requirement of God's Word is more clear than the command to honour and obey our earthly parents; but even for his father or mother a Nazarite might not defile himself: "he that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me."
But let no young Christian think lightly of the requirements of parents, when these do not conflict with God's written Word. Young Christians are sometimes distressed because their desire to preach the Gospel to the heathen has been opposed by parents: such should be encouraged to thank God for the obstacle; and to seek by prayer its removal. When they have learnt to move man through God at home, they will be the better prepared to do the same thing in the mission-field. Where there is fitness for the work, the way will probably be made plain after a time of patient waiting.
These verses teach us that mere contact with death is defiling: how vain then is the imagination of the unconverted that by dead works—the best efforts of those who are themselves dead in trespasses and sins—they can render themselves acceptable to God! The good works of the unsaved may indeed benefit their fellow-creatures; but until life in Christ has been received, they cannot please God.