When the Lord introduced the Rod of Priesthood as His unfailing way of bringing in a failing people home to glory, all hung from that moment on it, whether to sustain, to restore, or to meet their need. The details of its establishment in the Type, and its varied provisions and exercises are found in Num. 17-20.
In Num. 17 we find Priestly authority established in Aaron and his sons: and in Num. 18 Priestly service to maintain the people in communion; they should bear the iniquity of the Sanctuary, and of their priesthood before the Lord. With them rested the charge of the Sanctuary — God’s dwelling — and of the altar — the place of intercession for the people. There are things which those in this place of nearness to God — His priesthood, now have to sustain; which others — who keep the more distant place, and enter not upon its exercise (though all His people are Priests) — have not to bear. We see this amongst the people of God even now. Those who have never entered on their Priestly place in practical power, do not sustain the reproach of Christ as those who have done so; although the former enjoy the result of this nearness of the latter; and partake of the spiritual communications vouchsafed to those who are in the secret of the Lord. Still, the most holy things of the offerings of the Lord —the varied details of the sacrifice of Christ (Num. 17:99And Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord unto all the children of Israel: and they looked, and took every man his rod. (Numbers 17:9)); as well as the best of oil and wine (Num. 17:12, 1312And the children of Israel spake unto Moses, saying, Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish. 13Whosoever cometh any thing near unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die: shall we be consumed with dying? (Numbers 17:12‑13)), first ripe fruits of the Land, are their portion. That is, they feed on Christ s work, and Christ s person in a manner, and in the midst of the Holy things; which those who keep in the greater distance lose. You see this illustrated constantly in the spiritual saint; as also in the unspiritual, who holds truth in a carnal way. And, it is grief to say, there is much truth held carnally by the people of God. You will see those who do not doubt their salvation, and yet who plainly are unspiritual saints. Then when trial comes; or some intervention of God s hand to break up the fallow ground of their hearts; they have to go through much deep exercises and fears — finding they have to do with God in a way that their lives had never experienced. Yet all the while faith is not lost: Christ has sustained it in their souls by His unceasing Priestly grace. “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not:” yet they have to be sifted like wheat. Well, if the sifting out of the chaff leaves the pure grain behind; and well, if when converted they may strengthen their brethren. In Num. 19 we find another feature which flows from Priestly service; that is, in a certain sense, advocacy to restore and purify when defiled. And I may here remark that in Num. 20, we find the exercise of Priesthood with regard to the needs and murmurings of the people; and at its close, the perpetuity
of it touched upon in the stripping of Aaron and the clothing of Eleazar; a living Priest goes up to Mount Hor, from the presence of the people; and a living Priest comes down — re-appearing without a break, in their sight.
Num. 19 is the only reference to the work of Christ we find in the journey of the people through the desert. This is most significant and instructive. In fact it is the key of the book. The Redemption of Israel out of Egypt gives character to the book of Exodus. The propitiatory work of the great day of atonement (Lev. 16) characterizes the Book of Leviticus after Priesthood failed. And the maintenance, or restoration of the unclean to communion, is peculiar to the Book of Numbers. Each are suited to the books in which they are found, as well as to the state of the people; and the aspects in which the Lord is seen.
I do not purpose dwelling too largely on the details of Num. 19; which are full of interest. Rather do I desire grace for a practical application of the truths there presented us.
One thing strikes us; there never was a return to the blood sprinkling of redemption on the night of the Passover in Egypt. The blood once appropriated by our souls, and satisfying to God, never needed to be applied again. Its efficacy was abiding and eternal. Just as we never find a recurrence of the application of the precious blood of Christ to our souls, in the teaching of the New Testament.
It is here then the great significance of this “water of purification” — mingled with the “ashes of the Heifer,” is presented to us. We will remark too that it was what we may term “Eleazar” work that we find here. It is not “Aaronic” service — pure and simple. The reason is this — that it is not the highest aspect of our Lord s blessed work; but very necessary yet humbling (may we not say?) to Him; because connected with the failures of His people. Blessed service of love surely in its perfectness, for “his own.” Nor is it the greatness of His work, which the “bullock” would present; the perfection of His patient toil. Nor yet the passive, unmurmuring submission, as a “lamb without blemish or spot”; or as a “sheep before her shearers is dumb.” Here it is a lower aspect than all these: a “Red Heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish; and upon which never came yoke.” The female of the herd, yet inwardly and outwardly clean.
Remark too, the place where her blood was presented. It was not where the God and the High Priest meet, at the Brazen altar without, or at the golden Mercy-seat within; but where God and His people came together for communion, “before the tabernacle of the congregation.” The blood was sprinkled seven times there, just as a memorial of the basis of all.
The Heifer was then consumed. Ashes was all that remained: the irrefragable proof that our sins could never be imputed again. They had been — once, to Christ: He was consumed by the judgment which fell on Him; and blood could not again blot out, what already blood had obliterated. Every portion of this sacrifice was burned outside the camp. There was not the smallest portion kept to be consumed before the Lord. It was more completely in every part consumed, outside the camp, than even the sin-offering in Lev. 4. The very blood was burned there also. The only thing reserved was as much of the blood as the Priest could take on his finger for a memorial and sprinkle seven times “before the tabernacle of the congregation.” She was slain too “outside the Camp.” How completely does this exclude the thought that aught of this sacrifice was atoning; or offered as a propitiatory offering to God. No: all was for the “unclean.” Every one too, in the chapter, who had to do with the ashes was defiled. The Priest who carried out the ceremony; the person who burned the heifer; the man who gathered the ashes; he who sprinkled the water of separation; or who touched the ashes; and whatsoever he touched who had thus touched them: all were unclean! There was but one thing undefilable, and that was the “Ashes of the Heifer.” Yes, reader; what a lesson is here. No one can have to do with sin, even in another, and be undefiled, but God, alone! When He touches sin He withers it; when man does so he either sympathizes with it, or is defiled!
But I must pass on. The ceremony of restoring the defiled or unclean, needs but few words But let us see for a. moment what made it needful. With us it is sin; or the flesh revived in ourselves, or in another. The carnal mind; the unclean lust; the selfish covetousness of the soul; the angry word; the foolish thought. The opened ear which hears the sinful word, or slander. The slanderer himself; the liar; the profane. Are these things possible in the saint of God? Read Colossians 3:5,85Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: (Colossians 3:5)
8But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. (Colossians 3:8); or Eph. 4:28-32; 5:3-528Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. 29Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. 30And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. 31Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:28‑32)
3But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; 4Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. 5For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. (Ephesians 5:3‑5), and say if God proclaims this; or read your own heart, reader, if you know it somewhat, and tell me what you think. One moment’s working of sin, in whatever shape it may be found, secretly or openly, and you are an unclean man; “cut off” from the fellowship of God s Spirit, and of the Father and the Son; from the saints too, who are maintained in the communion which you have lost.
Of course you must be a saint to have lost it; and you must be a saint to be restored; both are true. If not a saint you never had it; nor could you be restored to what you never had. So that this does not interfere with your salvation. But I need not press this, in a day when salvation is somewhat truly known.
The sin committed suddenly in your presence, which you were not party to, has made you an unclean man, as well as him who committed it! This is solemn. If a man died suddenly in a tent (Num. 19:1414This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days. (Numbers 19:14)), all those present, or who came in, were unclean. How could they avoid this? you say. I reply — Will God lower His standard of holiness because man would excuse himself under the plea that he could not avoid it? Never, my friend. He provides the way in which you shall be restored; but He will not declare you clean when it is not so. An “open vessel” too; your opened ear for instance, “which hath no covering bound on it” (Num. 19:1616And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. (Numbers 19:16)), when your ear is not closed to all else but Christ; is defiled. But we must proceed.
“The grace of God in a man’s heart, is a tender plant in an unkindly soil.” It is like the “Sensitive Plant,” which when it grows naturally abroad, droops and closes its leaves even at the approach of the footstep of man, or the brushing of the dewdrops off the grass-plat near where it grows. The Spirit is grieved within us, and we need a “clean person” now to act.
Here too we find the “Bunch of Hyssop” in the hand of this “Clean Person”; not in our own. Each man s hand grasped this in Exodus 12 for himself; each dipped it in the blood in the basin; each went forth and struck the lintel and two side posts of the door of his house — and each appropriated this as his only shelter from the destroyer. The poor thief on the cross did so in the depths of his humiliation when he bowed in faith and justified God for his righteous sentence and suffering. There God met him, and Christ took the lost sheep to His home rejoicing! But here all is changed. The Hyssop is in the hands of another. It is not man now appropriating Christ; but the Advocate about to bring the soul of the defiled to its true and real state of humiliation and judgment of self for its sin.
Does my reader ever suppose that when his soul has turned aside and been defiled, he would have turned back again, but for the advocacy of the Lord? When the sin has been committed, and its pleasure has gone; whose hand has grasped the Bunch of Hyssop, and has applied the remembrance of His anguish in bearing that sin away? Then again, with the water of His word mingled therewith, sprinkled it on that man whose back is turned on his Master, and sent him away to “weep bitterly”?
When David’s murder and adultery were accomplished, and he strove to hold his head high; and forget his crime, who sent Nathan the prophet, with the word of God to open David’s eyes, which lust had closed? Was it to restore David to His favor for which Nathan was sent? Nay, but to do a “third day” work (Num. 19:1212He 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. (Numbers 19:12)), and to bow his soul down in the agony in which we behold him prostrate on the earth, with the cry, “I have sinned against the Lord.” “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow (Psa. 51:77Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. (Psalm 51:7)).” This was true “third day” conviction. It was the deep sense in the soul of self loathing; and self judgment, in the sight of God, who had not imputed, but had put away his sin. There was no restored communion here: there was anguish and sorrow. But on the “seventh day” the child of adultery died. And again the Hyssop is dipped in ashes and running water, and sprinkled upon the soul — prostrate man. Can he not now feel his hopes revive in God? His real state (not merely his felt state) has been reached. He can say, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit” (Psa. 51:1212Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. (Psalm 51:12)). Now he can wash his face and anoint himself, and enter into the house of the Lord and worship. A man now who knows his own heart better, and has learned a deeper lesson of the heart of God! This was the “seventh day.”
Look at Peter. In high handed self confidence he denied his Lord, and when the cock crew — the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. He had not felt his sin, nor his departure from Christ ere this; but the look of Christ entered his soul — the “third day” had arrived for him; and bitter tears, which could never blot out his sin, disclosed to him the depths of his departure from the Lord, and the sense of being unclean and defiled. But for him there was a seventh day too. The joyous heart which girt his fisher’s coat unto him, and leaped into the sea to greet his Master, proves a heart restored; a “seventh day” reached; even before the springs of departure were fathomed in his soul in the interview which followed. Sin in him had triumphed for the moment over the grace of Christ; but grace in Christ had finally triumphed over his sin!
Well; “there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared.” But when we have tasted the bitterness of thus sinning against our God; and some taste this more than others: we learn to walk more softly and distrustfully of ourselves. But let me beseech of you my reader — Do not trespass upon the grace which restores thus. The conscience becomes blunted; the soul grows deadened, under the power of this sinning and repenting; the joy of the heart in Him is sapped and eaten away. He is surely faithful and just to forgive us our sins, yea, moreover, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness; but if so, the aged Apostle adds; “my little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” Yet “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 sins of) the whole world” (1 John 2:1, 21My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1‑2)).”