Following the previous articles, here and here, which treat of fundamental issues regarding any purported relationship between Covid and the Church, another much overlooked reason why masks are inappropriate in the Church assembly is that it violates a basic principle of God’s Law.
Leviticus chapters 13 and 14 give the Lord’s instruction on how to treat those who may be sick with an infectious disease. In short, those sick or potentially sick with an infectious disease are always instructed to be quarantined. The basic principle is given thus:
And the priest shall examine the disease and shut up that which has the disease for seven days. (Leviticus 13:50; cf. Leviticus 13:4-5, 21, 26, 31, 33, 54)
Furthermore:
He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. (Leviticus 13:46)
In other words, the medical principle is that of quarantining the sick. Moreover, the sick may require some sort of marker to identify them as sick, so that people know to be careful:
The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, 'Unclean, unclean.' (Leviticus 13:45)
Not only are his clothes and hair to reflect his condition, notice also that he is supposed to cover his upper lip, which could be construed as a kind of masking. It shows an awareness of infectious diseases passable through the nose and mouth to others.
The fundamental distinction at play here is between clean and unclean:
And the priest shall examine him again on the seventh day, and if the diseased area has faded and the disease has not spread in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only an eruption. And he shall wash his clothes and be clean. (Leviticus 13:6; re: clean, cf. Leviticus 13:13, 17, 23, 28, 34, 37, 39-41, 58-59; re: unclean, cf. Leviticus 13:3, 8, 11, 14-15, 20, 22, 25, 27, 30, 36, 44-46, 51, 55, 59)
Nowhere do we see those without symptoms commanded to dress or be treated as if they are sick.
We do have a case where the clean are commanded to leave the location of a possible unclean disease:
Then he who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, "There seems to me to be some case of disease in my house." Then the priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest goes to examine the disease, lest all that is in the house be declared unclean. And afterward the priest shall go in to see the house. (Leviticus 14:35-36)
But this does not connect even remotely to the principle of marking the sick with torn clothes, loose hair, or face covering. It also shows that the clean, who were in the presence of a potentially unclean location, were not instructed to quarantine themselves or take the markers of uncleanness. Nor do we see the priest being commanded to cover his face.
What is implicit in the distinction between clean and unclean is the idea of separation. In other words, clean and unclean should not be confused. What is diseased is to be distinguished from the apparently well, and they are not to be treated alike. The markers of the clean are not to be given to the unclean, nor the markers of the unclean to the clean. It is similar to men’s and women’s clothing:
A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 22:5)
Confusion of such fundamental distinctions is an abomination, which is a principle at the heart of God’s condemnation of homosexuality:
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)
And:
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)
In other words, the Biblical point at hand is that to confuse what God distinguishes, or to separate what God sees as one (as the concept of race implicitly does to humanity), both alike are an abomination. Thus, to put the markers of the unclean on the clean is similarly abominable:
You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material. (Leviticus 19:19)
Notice that not even the wearing of a cloth garment made of two kinds of material accords with divine law, the point again being to understand that God’s will is unto the preservation of the integrity of each class of persons, animals, and things.
Therefore, at the very least, it is unbiblical to ask people who have no symptoms of an infectious disease to dress in the clothes of those possessing infectious diseases. And to compel them to wear them is godless and unethical.
Lastly, as a final consideration, those who stray from the principle of Christian love and freedom and therein seek to compel God’s people to wear masks in the assembly, not only contrary to the spirit of God’s Law, thereby also break the law of love, for love “does not insist on its own way,” and moreover “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:5, 7).
