Numbers 19
This was a special provision to meet wilderness defilement. Our standing as Christians before God is founded on the accomplished work of the cross (Lev. 16). Our whole condition as sinners has been divinely met, and that for God and eternity, by the blood of Jesus. Our weakness, infirmity, and sorrow as saints have their blessed answer in the unchangeable priesthood of the Son of God on high; while positive failure and defilement, contracted while passing on to our eternal rest, are securely provisioned for in the advocacy of Christ with the Father, in answer to which the spirit brings the written Word (the running water, Num. 19) and the remembrance of Christ in agony and death (the ashes, Num. 19) to bear upon the conscience of the erring one. Confession full and thorough follows, and the result is that the impaired communion with God is again restored. But be it carefully noted that this is Divine provision for a saint of God, one whose standing is in Divine righteousness, and of whose eternal safety there is not the least doubt.
The red heifer must be spotless, unblemished, “wherein is no blemish,” and “upon which never came yoke.” Thus is Christ set forth in the absolute perfection of His nature, and in the holiness of His life. Like the sin offering, the animal was wholly consumed outside the camp, but with this marked peculiarity that the fat and the blood — the excellency and the life — were also consumed, save a little of the blood, which was reserved, and sprinkled seven times (perfection) before the Tabernacle. Thus the witness of death was brought before the eye of God. Cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet were then cast into the midst of the burning. Human nature in its best estate (cedar), in its lowest forms (hyssop), and all earthly glory (scarlet) for the Christian, went in the cross of Jesus. The ashes — remembrance of Christ’s agony and wrath of God — were carefully gathered up as a “purification for sin,” and along with running water — figure of the searching and convicting Word of God — were sprinkled by a clean person on the defiled one, on the third and seventh days. The third day’s sprinkling was in view of his sin, the second sprinkling was in light of God’s grace. The first would lead to a deepening sense of what sin is in light of what Jesus suffered, and the other application of the ashes and water would as surely lead to a more profound sense of what grace can accomplish as the fruit of the cross.
Blessed Saviour, we will soon be with Thee, and our sinning and our suffering will be all over.