One of the most important sections of the book of Numbers now lies open
before us, presenting for our consideration the deeply interesting and
instructive ordinance of “The Red Heifer.” A thoughtful student of
Scripture would naturally feel disposed to inquire why it is that we get
this type in Numbers and not in Leviticus. In the first seven chapters
of the latter book we have a very elaborate statement of the doctrine of
sacrifice, and yet we have no allusion whatever to the red heifer. Why is
this? What are we to learn from the fact that this beautiful ordinance
is presented in the book of Numbers and no where else. We believe it
furnishes another striking illustration of the distinctive character of
our book. The red heifer is pre-eminently a wilderness-type. It was God’s
provision for defilements by the way, and it prefigures the death of
Christ as a purification for sin, to meet our need in passing through a
defiling world home to our eternal rest above. It is a most instructive
figure, and unfolds most precious and needed truth. May the Holy Ghost,
who has penned the record, be graciously pleased to expound and apply it
to our souls.
“And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, ‘This is the
ordinance of the law which the Lord hath commanded, saying, Speak unto
the children of Israel that they bring thee a red heifer without spot,
wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke.’” (Ver. 1, 2.)
When, with the eye of faith, we gaze upon the Lord Jesus, we not only see
Him to be the spotless One in His own holy Person, but also One who never
bore the yoke of sin. The Holy Ghost is ever the jealous Guardian of the
Person of Christ, and He delights to present Him to the soul in all His
excellency and preciousness. Hence it is that every type and every shadow
designed to set Him forth exhibits the same careful guardianship. Thus,
in the red heifer we are taught that not only was our blessed Saviour
as to His human nature intrinsically and inherently pure and spotless,
but that as to His birth and relationships He stood perfectly clear from
every mark and trace of sin. No yoke of sin ever came upon His sacred
neck. When He speaks of “My yoke” (Matt. xi. 29.), it was the yoke of
implicit subjection to the Father’s will in all things. This was the only
yoke He ever wore; and this yoke was never off for one moment during the
entire of His spotless and perfect career—from the manger, where He lay a
helpless babe, to the cross, where He expired as a victim.
But He wore no yoke of sin. Let this be distinctly understood. He went
to the cross to expiate our sins, to lay the ground-work of our perfect
purification from all sin; but He did this as One who had never, at any
time during His blessed life, worn the yoke of sin. He was “without sin,”
and as such, was perfectly fitted to do the great and glorious work of
expiation. To think of Him as bearing the yoke of sin in His life, would
be to think of Him as unfit to atone for it in His death. “_Wherein_
is no blemish, and _whereon_ never came yoke.” It is quite as needful
to remember and weigh the force of the word “whereon” as of the word
“wherein.” Both expressions are designed by the Holy Ghost to set forth
the perfection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who was not only
internally spotless, but also externally free from every trace of sin.
Neither in His Person nor yet in His relationships was He in any wise
obnoxious to the claims of sin or death. He—adored forever be His blessed
name!—entered into all the reality of our circumstances and condition;
but _in_ Him was no sin, and _on_ Him no yoke of sin.
“Touched with a sympathy within,
He knows our feeble frame;
He knows what sore temptations mean,
For He has felt the same.
“But spotless, undefiled, and pure,
The great Redeemer stood,
While Satan’s fiery darts He bore,
And did resist to blood.”
“And ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her
forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face.” (Ver. 3.)
The thoughtful reader of Scripture will not pass over any expression,
how trivial soever it may seem to be. Such an one will ever bear in mind
that the book which lies open before him is from God, and therefore
perfect—perfect as a whole—perfect in all its parts. Every little word
is pregnant with meaning; each little point, feature, and circumstance
contains some spiritual teaching for the soul. No doubt, infidels and
rationalists altogether fail in seizing this weighty fact, and, as a
consequence, when they approach the divine volume, they make the saddest
havoc. They see flaws where the spiritual student sees only gems; they
see incongruities and contradictions where the devout, self-distrusting,
Spirit-taught disciple beholds divine harmonies and moral glories.
This is only what we might expect, and it is well to remember it
nowadays. “God is His own interpreter” in Scripture as well as in
providence; and if we wait on Him, He will assuredly make it plain. But
as in providence “blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan His ways in
vain,” so in Scripture it is sure to err, and scan His lines in vain.
And the devout poet might have gone farther; for, most surely, unbelief
will not only scan God’s ways and God’s Word in vain, but turn both the
one and the other into an occasion of making a blasphemous attack upon
God Himself—upon His nature, and upon His character, as well as upon the
revelation which He has been pleased to give us. The infidel would rudely
smash the lamp of inspiration, quench its heavenly light, and involve us
all in that deep gloom and moral darkness which inwrap his misguided
mind.
We have been led into the foregoing train of thought while meditating
upon the third verse of our chapter. We are exceedingly desirous to
cultivate the habit of profound and careful study of holy Scripture.
It is of immense importance. To say or to think that there is so much
as a single clause, or a single expression, from cover to cover of the
inspired volume, unworthy of our prayerful meditation, is to imply that
God the Holy Ghost has thought it worth His while to write what we do not
think it worth our while to study. “All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God.” (2 Tim. iii. 16.) This commands our reverence. “Whatsoever
things were written aforetime were written for our learning.” (Rom. xv.
4.) This awakens our personal interest. The former of these quotations
proves that Scripture comes _from God_; the latter proves that it comes
_to us_. That and this, taken together, bind us to God by the divine link
of holy Scripture—a link which the devil, in this our day, is doing his
very utmost to snap; and that, too, by means of agents of acknowledged
moral worth and intellectual power. The devil does not select an ignorant
or immoral man to make his grand and special attacks upon the Bible, for
he knows full well that the former could not speak, and the latter would
not get a hearing; but he craftily takes up some amiable, benevolent,
and popular person—some one of blameless morals—a laborious student, a
profound scholar, a deep and original thinker. Thus he throws dust in
the eyes of the simple, the unlearned, and the unwary.
Christian reader, we pray you to remember this. If we can deepen in
your soul the sense of the unspeakable value of your Bible, if we can
warn you off from the dangerous rocks and quicksands of rationalism and
infidelity, if we are made the means of stablishing and strengthening
you in the assurance that when you are hanging over the sacred page of
Scripture you are drinking at a fountain every drop of which has flowed
into it from the very bosom of God Himself,—if we can reach all or any of
these results, we shall not regret the digression from our chapter, to
which we now return.
“And ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her
forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face.” We have,
in the priest and the victim, a joint type of the Person of Christ. He
was at once the Victim and the Priest. But He did not enter upon His
priestly functions until His work as a victim was accomplished. This
will explain the expression in the last clause of the third verse—“_one
shall slay her before his face_.” The death of Christ was accomplished
on earth, and could not, therefore, be represented as the act of
priesthood. Heaven, not earth, is the sphere of His priestly service. The
apostle, in the epistle to the Hebrews, expressly declares, as the sum
of a most elaborate and amazing piece of argument, that “we have such a
High-Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty
in the heavens; a Minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle,
which the Lord pitched, and not man. For every high-priest is ordained
to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this
Man have somewhat also to offer. _For if He were on earth, He should not
be a priest_, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according
to the law.” (Heb. viii. 1-4.) “But Christ being come a High-Priest of
good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made
with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of
goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption.” “For Christ is not entered
into the holy places made with hands, the figures of the true, but _into
heaven itself_, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” (Chap. ix.
11, 12, 24.) “But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins,
forever _sat down on the right hand of God_.” (Chap. x. 12.)
From all these passages, taken in connection with Numbers xix. 3, we
learn two things, namely, that the death of Christ is not presented
as the proper, ordinary act of priesthood; and further, that heaven,
not earth, is the sphere of His priestly ministry. There is nothing
new in these statements—others have advanced them repeatedly, but it
is important to notice every thing tending to illustrate the divine
perfection and precision of holy Scripture. It is deeply interesting to
find a truth which shines brightly in the pages of the New Testament
wrapped up in some ordinance or ceremony of Old-Testament times. Such
discoveries are ever welcome to the intelligent reader of the Word. The
truth, no doubt, is the same wherever it is found; but when it bursts
upon us, with meridian brightness, in the New-Testament scriptures,
and is divinely shadowed forth in the Old, we not only have the truth
established, but the unity of the volume illustrated and enforced.
But we must not pass over unnoticed the place where the death of the
victim was accomplished. “That he may bring her forth without the camp.”
As has already been remarked, the priest and the victim are identified,
and form a joint type of Christ; but it is added, “one shall slay her
before his face,” simply because the death of Christ could not be
represented as the act of priesthood. What marvelous accuracy! And yet it
is not marvelous, for what else should we look for in a book every line
of which is from God Himself? Had it been said, He shall slay her, then
Numbers xix. would be at variance with the epistle to the Hebrews. But
no; the harmonies of the volume shine forth among its brightest glories.
May we have grace to discern and appreciate them.
Jesus, then, suffered without the gate.—“Wherefore Jesus also, that He
might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate.”
(Heb. xiii. 12.) He took the outside place, and His voice falls on the
ear from thence. Do we listen to it? do we understand it? Should we
not consider more seriously the place where Jesus died? Are we to rest
satisfied with reaping the benefits of Christ’s death, without seeking
fellowship with Him in His rejection? God forbid! “Let us _go forth_,
therefore, unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.”[18] There
is immense power in these words. They should rouse our whole moral being
to seek more complete identification with a rejected Saviour. Shall we
see Him die outside, while we reap the benefits of His death and remain
within? Shall we seek a home and a place and a name and a portion in
that world from which our Lord and Master is an outcast? Shall we aim
at getting on in a world which could not tolerate that blessed One to
whom we owe our present and everlasting felicity? Shall we aspire after
honor, position, and wealth where our Master found only a manger, a
cross, a borrowed grave? May the language of our _hearts_ be, “Far be the
_thought_!” and may the language of our _lives_ be, “Far be the _thing_!”
May we, by the grace of God, yield a more hearty response to the Spirit’s
call to “_go forth_.”
Christian reader, let us never forget that when we look at the death of
Christ, we see two things, namely, the death of a victim and the death of
a martyr—a victim for sin, a martyr for righteousness—a victim under the
hand of God, a martyr under the hand of man. He suffered for sin that
we might never suffer. Blessed be His name for evermore! But then, His
martyr-sufferings—His sufferings for righteousness under the hand of man,
these we may know; “for unto you _it is given_, in the behalf of Christ,
not only to believe on Him, but also to _suffer_ for His sake.” (Phil. i.
29.) It is a positive _gift_ to be allowed to suffer with Christ. Do we
so esteem it?
In contemplating the death of Christ, as typified by the ordinance of the
red heifer, we see not only the complete putting away of sin, but also
the judgment of this present evil world. “He gave Himself for our sins
that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the
will of God and our Father.” (Gal. i. 4.) Here the two things are put
together by God; and, most surely, they should never be separated by us.
We have the judgment of sin, root and branch, and the judgment of this
world. The former should give perfect repose to the exercised conscience,
while the latter should deliver the heart from the insnaring influence of
the world, in all its multiplied forms. That purges the conscience from
all sense of guilt; this snaps the link which binds the heart and the
world together.
Now, it is most needful for the reader to understand and enter
experimentally into the connection existing between these two things.
It is quite possible to miss this grand link, even while holding and
contending for a vast amount of evangelical truth; and it may be
confidently affirmed that where this link is missing, there must be a
very serious defect in the Christian character. We frequently meet with
earnest souls who have been brought under the convicting and awakening
power of the Holy Spirit, but who have not yet known, for the ease of
their troubled consciences, the full value of the atoning death of
Christ, as putting away forever all their sins, and bringing them nigh
to God, without a stain upon the soul or a sting in the conscience. If
this be the present actual condition of the reader, he would need to
consider the first clause of the verse just quoted—“He gave Himself for
our sins.” This is a most blessed statement for a troubled soul. It
settles the whole question of sin. If it be true that Christ gave Himself
for my sins, what remains for me but to rejoice in the precious fact that
my sins are all gone? The One who took my place, who stood charged with
my sins, who suffered in my room and stead, is now at the right hand of
God, crowned with glory and honor. This is enough. My sins are all gone
forever. If they were not, _He_ could not be where he now is. The crown
of glory which wreathes His blessed brow is the proof that my sins are
perfectly atoned for, and therefore perfect peace is my portion—a peace
as perfect as the work of Christ can make it.
But then let us never forget that the very same work that has forever
put away our sins has delivered us from this present evil world. The
two things go together. Christ has not only delivered me from the
consequences of my sins, but also from the present power of sin, and
from the claims and influences of that thing which Scripture calls “the
world.” All this, however, will come more fully out as we proceed with
our chapter.
“And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger,
and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the
congregation seven times.” Here we have the solid ground-work of all
real purification. We know that in the type before us it is only, as the
inspired apostle tells us, a question of “sanctifying to the purifying
of the flesh.” (Heb. ix. 13.) But we have to look beyond the type to
the Antitype—beyond the shadow to the substance. In the sevenfold
sprinkling of the blood of the red heifer before the tabernacle of the
congregation, we have a figure of the perfect presentation of the blood
of Christ to God, as the only ground of the meeting-place between God
and the conscience. The number “seven,” as has frequently been observed,
is expressive of perfection; and in the figure before us, we see the
perfection attaching to the death of Christ as an atonement for sin,
presented to and accepted by God. All rests upon this divine ground. The
blood has been shed and presented to a holy God as a perfect atonement
for sin. This, when simply received by faith, must relieve the conscience
from all sense of guilt, and all fear of condemnation. There is nothing
before God save the perfection of the atoning work of Christ. Sin has
been judged, and our sins put away; they have been completely obliterated
by the precious blood of Christ. To believe this, is to enter into
perfect repose of conscience.
And here let the reader carefully note that there is no further allusion
to the sprinkling of blood throughout the entire of this singularly
interesting chapter. This is precisely in keeping with the doctrine of
Hebrews ix, x. It is but another illustration of the divine harmony
of the volume. The sacrifice of Christ, being divinely perfect, needs
not to be repeated. Its efficacy is divine and eternal. “But Christ
being come a High-Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more
perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this
building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own
blood, He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained _eternal_
redemption. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and _the ashes of
a heifer_ sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the
flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from
dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. ix. 11-14.) Observe the force
of these two words, “_once_” and “_eternal_.” See how they set forth the
completeness and divine efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ. The blood
was shed once and forever. To think of a repetition of that great work
would be to deny its everlasting and all-sufficient value, and reduce it
to the level of the blood of bulls and goats.
But further—“It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things
in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things
themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered
into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true;
but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor
yet _that He should offer Himself often_, as the high-priest entereth
into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then _must He
often have suffered_ since the foundation of the world; but now _once_ in
the end of the world hath. He appeared _to put away sin_ by the sacrifice
of Himself.” Sin, therefore, has been put away. It cannot be put away
and at the same time be on the believer’s conscience. This is plain. It
must either be admitted that the believer’s sins are blotted out, and his
conscience perfectly purged, or that Christ must die over again. But this
latter is not only needless, but wholly out of the question; for, as the
apostle goes on to say, “as it is appointed unto men _once_ to die, but
after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of
many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time,
without sin, unto salvation.”
There is something most marvelous in the patient elaborateness with which
the Holy Ghost argues out this entire subject. He expounds, illustrates,
and enforces the great doctrine of the completeness of the sacrifice in
such a way as to carry conviction to the soul, and relieve the conscience
of its heavy burden. Such is the exceeding grace of God, that He has not
only accomplished the work of eternal redemption for us, but, in the most
patient and painstaking manner, has argued and reasoned, and proved the
whole point in question, so as not to leave one hair’s breadth of ground
on which to base an objection. Let us hearken to His further powerful
reasonings, and may the Spirit apply them in power to the heart of the
anxious reader.
“For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very
image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered
year by year continually make the comers thereunto _perfect_. For then
would they not have _ceased to be offered_? because that the worshipers
_once purged_ should have had _no more conscience of sins_. But in those
sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it
is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away
sins.” But that which the blood of bulls could never do, the blood of
Jesus has forever done. This makes all the difference. All the blood that
ever flowed around Israel’s altars—the millions of sacrifices offered
according to the requirements of the Mosaic ritual—could not blot out
one stain from the conscience, or justify a sin-hating God in receiving
a sinner to Himself. “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of
goats should take away sins.” “Wherefore when He cometh into the world
He saith, ‘Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast
Thou prepared Me: in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast
had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it
is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God.’ ... By the which will we are
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ _once_.” Mark
the contrast. God had no pleasure in the endless round of sacrifices
under the law,—they did not please Him. They left wholly unaccomplished
that which He had in His loving heart to do for His people, namely, to
rid them completely of sin’s heavy load, and bring them unto Himself,
in perfect peace of conscience and liberty of heart. This, Jesus, by
the one offering of His blessed body, did. He did the will of God; and,
blessed forever be His name, He has not to do His work over again. We may
refuse to believe that the work is done, refuse to commit our souls to
its efficacy—to enter into the rest which it is calculated to impart—to
enjoy the holy liberty of spirit which it is fitted to yield; but there
stands the work in its own imperishable virtue; and there, too, stand
the Spirit’s arguments respecting that work, in their own unanswerable
force and clearness; and neither Satan’s dark suggestions nor our own
unbelieving reasonings can ever touch either the one or the other. They
may, and, alas! they do, most sadly interfere with our soul’s enjoyment
of the truth; but the truth itself remains ever the same.
“And every priest _standeth daily_ ministering and _offering oftentimes
the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins_: but this Man, after
He had offered _one sacrifice_ for sins, _forever sat down_ on the right
hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His
footstool. For _by one offering_ He hath perfected forever them that
are sanctified.” It is due to the blood of Christ that it should impart
eternal perfection; and, we may surely add, it is due to it likewise that
our souls should taste that perfection. No one need ever imagine that
he is doing honor to the work of Christ, or to the Spirit’s testimony
respecting that work, when he refuses to accept that perfect remission of
sins which is proclaimed to him through the blood of the cross. It is no
sign of true piety, or of pure religion, to deny what the grace of God
has done for us in Christ, and what the record of the Eternal Spirit has
presented to our souls on the page of inspiration.
Christian reader, anxious inquirer, does it not seem strange that when
the Word of God presents to our view Christ seated at the right hand of
God, in virtue of accomplished redemption, we should be virtually in no
wise better off than those who had merely a human priest standing daily
ministering, and offering the same round of sacrifices? We have a divine
Priest, who has sat down forever. They had a merely human priest, who
could never, in his official capacity, sit down at all; and yet are we,
in the state of the mind, in the apprehension of the soul, in the actual
condition of the conscience, in no respect better off than they? Can it
be possible that, with a perfect work to rest upon, our souls should
never know perfect rest? The Holy Ghost, as we have seen in these various
quotations taken from the epistle to the Hebrews, has left nothing unsaid
to satisfy our souls as to the question of the complete putting away
of sin by the precious blood of Christ. Why, then, should you not this
moment enjoy full, settled peace of conscience? Has the blood of Jesus
done nothing more for you than the blood of a bullock did for a Jewish
worshiper?
It may be, however, that the reader is ready to say, in reply to all that
we have been seeking to urge upon him, “I do not, in the least, doubt
the efficacy of the blood of Jesus. I believe it cleanseth from all sin.
I believe, most thoroughly, that all who simply put their trust in that
blood are perfectly safe, and will be eternally happy. My difficulty does
not lie here at all. What troubles me is not the efficacy of the blood,
in which I fully believe, but _my own personal interest in that blood_,
of which I have no satisfactory evidence. This is the secret of all my
trouble. The doctrine of the blood is as clear as a sunbeam, but the
question of _my_ interest therein is involved in hopeless obscurity.”
Now, if this be at all the embodiment of the reader’s feelings on this
momentous subject, it only proves the necessity of his deeply pondering
the fourth verse of the nineteenth of Numbers. There he will see that
the true basis of all purification is found in this, that the blood of
atonement has been presented to God, and accepted by Him. This is a
most precious truth, but one little understood. It is of all importance
that the really anxious soul should have a clear view of the subject of
atonement. It is so natural to us all to be occupied with our thoughts
and feelings about the blood of Christ, rather than with the blood
itself, and with God’s thoughts respecting it. If the blood has been
perfectly presented to God, if He has accepted it, if He has glorified
Himself in the putting away of sin, then what remains for the divinely
exercised conscience but to find perfect repose in that which has met all
the claims of God, harmonized His attributes, and laid the foundations of
that marvelous platform whereon a sin-hating God and a poor sin-destroyed
sinner can meet? Why introduce the question of my interest in the blood
of Christ, as though that work were not complete without aught of mine,
call it what you will,—my interest, my feelings, my experience, my
appreciation, my appropriation, my any thing? Why not rest in Christ
alone? This would be really having an interest in Him. But the very
moment the heart gets occupied with the question of its own interest, the
moment the eye is withdrawn from that divine object which the Word of God
and the Holy Ghost present, then spiritual darkness and perplexity must
ensue, and the soul, instead of rejoicing in the perfection of the work
of Christ, is tormented by looking at its own poor, imperfect feelings.
“Th’ atoning work is done,
The Victim’s blood is shed,
And Jesus now is gone
_His_ people’s cause to plead.
He stands in heav’n their great High-Priest,
And bears their names upon His breast.”
Here, blessed be God, we have the stable ground-work of “purification
for sin,” and of perfect peace for the conscience. “The atoning work is
done.” All is finished. The great Antitype of the red heifer has been
slain. He gave Himself up to death, under the wrath and judgment of a
righteous God, that all who simply put their trust in Him might know,
in the deep secret of their own souls, divine purification and perfect
peace. We are purified, as to the conscience, not by our thoughts about
the blood, but by the blood itself. We must insist upon this. God Himself
has made out our title for us, and that title is found in the blood
_alone_. Oh, that most precious blood of Jesus, that speaks profound
peace to every troubled soul that will simply lean upon its eternal
efficacy! Why, we may ask, is it that the blessed doctrine of the blood
is so little understood and appreciated? Why will people persist in
looking to aught else, or in mingling aught else with it? May the Holy
Ghost lead the anxious reader, as he reads these lines, to stay his heart
and conscience upon the atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God.
Having thus endeavored to present to the reader the precious truth
unfolded to us in the _death_ of the red heifer, we shall now ask him
to meditate for a few moments upon the _burning_ of the heifer. We have
looked at the _blood_, let us now gaze upon the _ashes_. In the former,
we have the sacrificial death of Christ as the only purification for
sin; in the latter, we have the remembrance of that death applied to the
heart by the Spirit, through the Word, in order to remove any defilement
contracted in our walk from day to day. This gives great completeness
and beauty to this most interesting type. God has not only made provision
for past sins, but also for present defilement, so that we may be ever
before Him in all the value and credit of the perfect work of Christ. He
would have us treading the courts of His sanctuary, the holy precincts
of His presence, “clean every whit.” And not only does He Himself see
us thus, but, blessed forever be His name, He would have us thus in
our own inward self-consciousness. He would give us, by His Spirit,
through the Word, the deep inward sense of cleanness in His sight, so
that the current of our communion with Him may flow on without a ripple
and without a curve. “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His
Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John i.) But if we fail to walk in
the light—if we forget, and, in our forgetfulness, touch the unclean
thing, how is our communion to be restored? Only by the removal of the
defilement. And how is this to be effected? By the application to our
hearts and consciences of the precious truth of the death of Christ. The
Holy Ghost produces self-judgment, and brings to our remembrance the
precious truth that Christ suffered death for that defilement which we
so lightly and indifferently contract. It is not a fresh sprinkling of
the blood of Christ—a thing unknown in Scripture,—but the remembrance of
His death brought home, in fresh power, to the contrite heart, by the
ministry of the Holy Ghost.
“And one shall burn the heifer in his sight.... And the priest shall take
cedar-wood and hyssop and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the
burning of the heifer.... And a man that is clean shall gather up the
ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place,
and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a
water of separation: it is a purification for sin.”
It is the purpose of God that His children should be purified from all
iniquity, and that they should walk in separation from this present evil
world, where all is death and defilement. This separation is effected
by the action of the Word on the heart, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
“Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ,
who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present
evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.” (Gal. i. 4.)
And again, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing
of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us,
that He might _redeem_ us from all iniquity, and _purify_ unto Himself a
peculiar people, zealous of good works.” (Titus ii. 13, 14.)
It is remarkable how constantly the Spirit of God presents, in intimate
connection, the full relief of the conscience from all sense of guilt,
and the deliverance of the heart from the moral influence of this present
evil world. Now, it should be our care, beloved Christian reader, to
maintain the integrity of this connection. Of course, it is only by
the gracious energy of the Holy Ghost that we can do so; but we ought
to seek earnestly to understand and practically carry out the blessed
link of connection between the death of Christ as an atonement for sin
and as the moral power of separation from this world. Many of the people
of God never get beyond the former, if they even get that length. Many
seem to be quite satisfied with the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins
through the atoning work of Christ, while, at the same time, they fail to
realize deadness to the world in virtue of the death of Christ and their
identification with Him therein.
Now, when we stand and gaze upon the burning of the red heifer in
Numbers xix.—when we examine that mystic heap of ashes, what do we
find? It may be said, in reply, We find our sins there. True, thanks
be to God and to the Son of His love, we do indeed find our sins, our
iniquities, our trespasses, our deep crimson guilt, all reduced to ashes;
but is there nothing more? can we not, by a careful analysis, discover
more? Unquestionably. We find nature there, in every stage of its
existence—from the highest to the lowest point in its history. Moreover,
we find all the glory of this world there. The cedar and the hyssop
represent nature in its widest extremes; and in giving its extremes,
they take in all that lies between. “Solomon spake of trees, from the
cedar-tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of
the wall.”
“Scarlet” is viewed, by those who have carefully examined Scripture on
the point, as the type or expression of human splendor, worldly grandeur,
the glory of this world, the glory of man. Hence, therefore, we see in
the burning of the heifer, the end of all worldly greatness, human glory,
and the complete setting aside of the flesh with all its belongings.
This renders the burning of the heifer deeply significant. It shadows
forth a truth too little known, and when known, too readily forgotten—a
truth embodied in these memorable words of the apostle, “God forbid that
I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the
world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
We are all far too prone to accept the cross as the ground of escape from
all the consequences of our sins, and of full acceptance with God, and,
at the same time, refuse it as the ground of our complete separation from
the world. True it is, thanks and praise be to our God, the solid ground
of our deliverance from guilt and consequent condemnation; but it is
more than this. It has severed us forever from all that pertains to this
world, through which we are passing. Are my sins put away? Yes, blessed
be the God of all grace. According to what? According to the perfection
of Christ’s atoning sacrifice as estimated by God Himself. Well, then,
such precisely is the measure of our deliverance from this present evil
world—from its fashions, its maxims, its habits, its principles. The
believer has absolutely nothing in common with this world, in so far
as he enters into the spirit and power of the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That cross has dislodged him from every thing here below, and
made him a pilgrim and a stranger in this world. The truly devoted heart
sees the dark shadow of the cross looming over all the glitter and glare,
the pomp and fashion of this world. Paul saw this, and the sight of it
caused him to esteem the world, in its very highest aspect, in its most
attractive forms, in its brightest glories, as dross.
Such was the estimate formed of this world by one who had been brought up
at the feet of Gamaliel. “The world is crucified unto me,” said he, “and
I unto the world.” Such was Paul, and such should every Christian be—a
stranger on earth, a citizen of heaven, and this not merely in sentiment
and theory, but in downright fact and reality; for as surely as our
deliverance from hell is more than a mere sentiment or theory, so surely
is our separation from this present evil age. The one is as positive and
as real as the other.
But here let us ask, Why is not this great practical truth more pressed
home upon the hearts of evangelical Christians at the present moment? why
are we so slow to urge upon one another the separating power of the cross
of Christ? If my heart loves Jesus, I shall not seek a place, a portion,
or a name where He only found a malefactor’s cross. This, dear reader,
is the simple way to look at the matter. Do you really love Christ? has
your heart been touched and attracted by His wondrous love to you? If so,
remember that He was cast out by this world. Yes, Jesus was and still is
an outcast from this world. There is no change. The world is the world
still; and be it remembered that one of Satan’s special devices is to
lead people to accept salvation from Christ, while at the same time they
refuse to be identified with Him in His rejection—to avail themselves of
the atoning work of the cross, while abiding comfortably in the world
that is stained with the guilt of nailing Christ thereto. In other words,
he leads people to think and to say that the offense of the cross has
ceased; that the world of the nineteenth century is totally different
from the world of the first; that if the Lord Jesus were on earth now,
He would meet with very different treatment from that which He received
then; that it is not now a pagan world, but a Christian one, and this
makes a material and a fundamental difference; that now it is quite right
for a Christian to accept of citizenship in this world—to have a name, a
place, and a portion here, seeing it is not the same world at all as that
which nailed the Son of God to Calvary’s cursed tree.
Now, we feel it incumbent on us to press upon all who read these lines
that this is, in very deed, a lie of the arch-enemy of souls. The world
is not changed. It may have changed its dress, but it has not changed
its nature, its spirit, its principles. It hates Jesus as cordially as
when the cry went forth, “Away with Him! Crucify Him!” There is really no
change. If only we try the world by the same grand test, we shall find
it to be the same evil, God-hating, Christ-rejecting world as ever. And
what is that test? Christ crucified. May this solemn truth be engraved
on our hearts. May we realize and manifest its formative power. May it
detach us more completely from all that belongs to the world. May we be
enabled to understand more fully the truth presented in the ashes of the
red heifer. Then shall our separation from the world, and our dedication
to Christ, be more intense and real. The Lord, in His exceeding goodness,
grant that thus it may be, with all His people, in this day of hollow,
worldly, half-and-half profession.
Let us now consider for a moment how the ashes were to be applied.
“He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.
He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day
he shall be clean; but if he purify not himself the third day, then the
seventh day he shall not be clean. Whosoever toucheth the dead body of
any man that is dead, and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle
of the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel; because the
water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his
uncleanness is yet upon him.”
It is a solemn thing to have to do with God—to walk with Him, from day
to day, in the midst of a defiled and defiling scene. He cannot tolerate
any uncleanness upon those with whom He deigns to walk, and in whom He
dwells. He can pardon and blot out: He can heal, cleanse, and restore;
but He cannot sanction unjudged evil, or suffer it upon His people.
It would be a denial of His very name and nature where He to do so.
This, while deeply solemn, is truly blessed. It is our joy to have to
do with One whose presence demands and secures holiness. We are passing
through a world in which we are surrounded with defiling influences.
True, defilement is not now contracted by touching “a dead body, or a
bone of a man, or a grave.” These things were, as we know, types of
things moral and spiritual, with which we are in danger of coming in
contact every day and every hour. We doubt not but those who have much
to do with the things of this world are most painfully sensible of the
immense difficulty of escaping with unsoiled hands. Hence the need of
holy diligence in all our habits and associations, lest we contract
defilement, and interrupt our communion with God. He must have us in a
condition worthy of Himself. “Be ye holy, for I am holy.”
But the anxious reader, whose whole soul breathes after holiness, may
eagerly inquire, What, then, are we to do, if it be true that we are thus
surrounded, on all hands, with defiling influences, and if we are so
prone to contract that defilement? Furthermore, if it is impossible to
have fellowship with God with unclean hands and a condemning conscience,
what are we to do? First of all, then, we should say, be watchful; wait
much and earnestly on God. He is faithful and gracious—a prayer-hearing
and a prayer-answering God—a liberal and an unupbraiding Giver. “He
giveth _more_ grace.” This is positively a blank check, which faith
can fill up to any amount. Is it the real purpose of your soul to get
on—to advance in the divine life—to grow in personal holiness? Then
beware how you continue, for a single hour, in contact with what soils
your hands and wounds your conscience, grieves the Holy Ghost and mars
your communion. Be decided: be whole-hearted. Give up at once the
unclean thing, whatever it be,—habit, or association, or any thing else.
Cost what it may, give it up; entail what loss it may, abandon it. No
worldly gain, no earthly advantage, could compensate for the loss of a
pure conscience, an uncondemning heart, and the light of your Father’s
countenance. Are you not convinced of this? If so, seek grace to carry
out your conviction.
But it may be further asked, What is to be done when defilement is
actually contracted? How is the defilement to be removed? Hear the reply
in the figurative language of Number xix.—“And for an unclean person,
they shall take of the _ashes_ of the burnt heifer of purification for
sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel: and a clean
person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon
the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there,
and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave:
and the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day and
on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and
wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even.”
The reader will remark that in the twelfth and eighteenth verses there
is a double action set forth. There is the action of the third day and
the action of the seventh day. Both were essentially necessary to remove
the ceremonial defilement caused by contact with the varied forms of
death above specified. Now, what did this double action typify? what is
it that, in our spiritual history, answers thereto? We believe it to
be this: When we, through lack of watchfulness and spiritual energy,
touch the unclean thing and get defiled, we may be ignorant of it, but
God knows all about it. He cares for us, and is looking after us; not,
blessed be His name, as an angry judge, or stern censor, but as a loving
Father, who will never impute any thing to us, because it was all, long
ago, imputed to the One who died in our stead. But though He will never
impute it to us, He will make us feel it deeply and keenly. He will be
a faithful reprover of the unclean thing; and He can reprove all the
more powerfully simply because He will never reckon it against us. The
Holy Spirit brings our sin to remembrance, and this causes unutterable
anguish of heart. This anguish may continue for some time; it may be
moments, days, months, or years. We once met with a young Christian who
was rendered miserable for three years by having gone with some worldly
friends on an excursion. This convicting operation of the Holy Ghost we
believe to be shadowed forth by the action of the third day. He first
brings our sin to remembrance; and then He graciously brings to our
remembrance, and applies to our souls, through the written Word, the
value of the death of Christ as that which has already met the defilement
which we so easily contract. This answers to the action of the seventh
day—removes the defilement and restores our communion.
And be it carefully remembered that we can never get rid of defilement
in any other way. We may seek to forget, to slur over, to heal the wound
slightly, to make little of the matter, to let time obliterate it from
the tablet of memory. It will never do; nay, it is most dangerous work.
There are few things more disastrous than trifling with conscience or
the claims of holiness. And it is as foolish as it is dangerous; for God
has, in His grace, made full provision for the removal of the uncleanness
which His holiness detects and condemns. But the uncleanness must be
removed, else communion is impossible. “If I wash thee not, thou hast
no part _with_ Me.” The suspension of a believers’s communion is what
answers to the cutting off of a member from the congregation of Israel.
The Christian can never be cut off from Christ; but his communion can be
interrupted by a single sinful thought, and that sinful thought must be
judged and confessed, and the soil of it removed, ere the communion can
be restored. It is well to remember this. It is a serious thing to trifle
with sin. We may rest assured we cannot possibly have fellowship with
God and walk in defilement. To think so, is to blaspheme the very name,
the very nature, the very throne and majesty of God. No, dear reader; we
must keep a clean conscience, and maintain the holiness of God, else we
shall very soon make shipwreck of faith, and break down altogether. May
the Lord keep us walking softly and tenderly, watchfully and prayerfully,
until we have laid aside our bodies of sin and death, and entered upon
that bright and blessed world above, where sin, death, and defilement are
unknown.
In studying the ordinances and ceremonies of the Levitical economy,
nothing is more striking than the jealous care with which the God of
Israel watched over His people, in order that they might be preserved
from every defiling influence. By day and by night, awake and asleep, at
home and abroad, in the bosom of the family and in the solitary walk, His
eyes were upon them. He looked after their food, their raiment, their
domestic habits and arrangements. He carefully instructed them as to
what they might and what they might not eat, what they might and what
they might not wear. He even set forth distinctly His mind as to the
very touching and handling of things. In short, He surrounded them with
barriers amply sufficient, had they only attended to them, to resist the
whole tide of defilement to which they were exposed on every side.
In all this, we read, in unmistakable characters, the holiness of God;
but we read also, as distinctly, the grace of God. If divine holiness
could not suffer defilement upon the people, divine grace made ample
provision for the removal thereof. This provision is set forth in our
chapter under two forms, namely, the blood of atonement and the water
of separation. Precious provision! a provision illustrating at once the
holiness and the grace of God. Did we not know the ample provisions of
divine grace, the lofty claims of divine holiness would be perfectly
overwhelming; but being assured of the former, we can heartily rejoice
in the latter. Could we desire to see the standard of divine holiness
lowered a single hair’s breadth? Far be the thought! How could we? or
why should we? seeing that divine grace has fully provided what divine
holiness demands. An Israelite of old might shudder as he hearkened to
such words as these: “He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be
unclean seven days;” and again, “Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any
man that is dead, and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of
the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel.” Such words might
indeed terrify his heart. He might feel led to exclaim, What am I to do?
How can I ever get on? It seems perfectly impossible for me to escape
defilement. But then, what of the ashes of the burnt heifer? what of the
water of separation?—what could these mean? They set forth the memorial
of the sacrificial death of Christ applied to the heart by the power of
the Spirit of God. “He shall purify himself with it the third day, and
on the seventh day he shall be clean; but if he purify not himself the
third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.” If we contract
defilement, even though it be through negligence, that defilement must
be removed ere our communion can be restored. But we cannot get rid of
the soil by any effort of our own; it can only be by the use of God’s
gracious provision, even the water of purification. An Israelite could no
more remove, by his own efforts, the defilement caused by the touch of a
dead body, than he could have broken Pharaoh’s yoke, or delivered himself
from the lash of Pharaoh’s taskmasters.
And let the reader observe that it was not a question of offering a fresh
sacrifice, nor yet of a fresh application of the blood. It is of special
importance that this should be distinctly seen and understood. The death
of Christ cannot be repeated. “Christ being raised from the dead dieth
no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died,
He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.” We
stand, by the grace of God, in the full credit and value of the death of
Christ; but, inasmuch as we are surrounded on all sides by temptations
and snares, and as we have within us such capabilities and tendencies,
and further, seeing we have a powerful adversary who is ever on the watch
to insnare us, and lead us off the path of truth and purity, we could
not get on for a single moment were it not for the gracious way in which
our God has provided for all our exigencies in the precious death and
all-prevailing advocacy of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not merely that
the blood of Jesus Christ has washed away all our sins, and reconciled us
to a holy God, but “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous.” “He ever liveth to make intercession for us,” and “He is able
to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.” He is ever in
the presence of God for us. He represents us there, and maintains us in
the divine integrity of the place and relationship in which His atoning
death has set us. Our ease can never, by any possibility, fall through
in the hands of such an advocate. He must cease to live ere the very
feeblest of His saints can perish. We are identified with Him and He with
us.
Now, then, Christian reader, what should be the practical effect of all
this grace upon our hearts and lives? When we think of the death and
of the burning—of the blood and of the ashes—of the atoning sacrifice,
and the interceding Priest and Advocate, what influence should it exert
upon our souls? how should it act upon our consciences? Should it lead
us to think little of sin? should it cause us to walk carelessly and
indifferently? should it have the effect of making us light and frivolous
in our ways? Alas! for the heart that can think so. We may rest assured
of this, that the man who can draw a plea from the rich provisions of
divine grace for lightness of conduct or levity of spirit, knows very
little, if indeed he knows any thing at all, of the true nature or
proper influence of grace and its provisions. Could we imagine for a
moment that the ashes of the heifer or the water of separation would have
had the effect of making an Israelite careless as to his walk? Assuredly
not. On the contrary, the very fact of such careful provision being made,
by the goodness of God, against defilement, would make him feel what a
serious thing it was to contract it. Such, at least, would be the proper
effect of the provisions of divine grace. The heap of ashes, laid up in a
clean place, gave forth a double testimony; it testified of the goodness
of God, and it testified of the hatefulness of sin. It declared that God
could not suffer uncleanness upon His people; but it declared also that
He had provided the means of removing it. It is utterly impossible that
the blessed doctrine of the sprinkled blood, of the ashes, and of the
water of separation can be understood and enjoyed without its producing a
holy horror of sin in all its defiling forms. And we may further assert
that no one who has ever felt the anguish of a defiled conscience could
lightly contract defilement. A pure conscience is far too precious a
treasure to be lightly parted with, and a defiled conscience is far too
heavy a burden to be lightly taken up. But, blessed be the God of all
grace, He has met all our need, in His own perfect way, and He has met
it, too, not to make us careless, but to make us watchful. “My little
children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” But then He
adds, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous. And He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours
only, but for the whole world.” (1 John.)
But we must draw this section to a close, and shall merely add a word on
the closing verses of our chapter. “And it shall be a perpetual statute
unto them, that he that sprinkleth the water of separation shall wash his
clothes, and he that toucheth the water of separation shall be unclean
until even. And whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean,
and the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even.” (Chap.
xix. 21, 22.) In verse 18 we are taught that it needed a clean person
to sprinkle the unclean, and in verse 21 we are taught that the act of
sprinkling another defiled one’s self.
Putting both these together, we learn, as another has said, “that any
one who has to do with the sin of another, though it be in the way of
duty, to cleanse it, is defiled; not as the guilty person, it is true,
but we cannot touch sin without being defiled.” And we learn also that
in order to lead another into the enjoyment of the cleansing virtue of
Christ’s work, I must be in the enjoyment of that cleansing work myself.
It is well to remember this. Those who applied the water of separation
to others had to use that water for themselves. May our souls enter
into this. May we ever abide in the sense of the perfect cleanness into
which the death of Christ introduces us, and in which His priestly work
maintains us; and, oh, let us never forget that _contact with evil
defiles_! It was so under the Mosaic economy, and it is so now.