IT is not a question therefore of merely judging the particular offense. Never do we reach the bottom of that which has misled us if we but look at the outward act. What exposed one to it? And what was it that exposed Peter? He thought he loved the Lord better than anybody; he could go where the others could not; he could trust himself who loved Him so truly: never should he deny the Messiah. Peter was satisfied that he loved Jesus more than all, and could face prison, death, anything for His sake. The Lord thus brought to light the root of his failure. There, without one harsh word, without even an ostensible reference to the threefold denial, without the smallest needless exposure to others, the root was laid bare and dealt with; and Simon Peter was perfectly restored, and the Lord now could commit His sheep and His lambs to his tending and feeding. “When thou art restored, strengthen thy brethren.” He was converted (restored) now, and had the promise in the end, when nature's strength should wither, that he should follow Himself even to the death of the cross. Nor is it only in the New Testament that we find this truth. We have there, of course, the doctrine and the application, and such a special instance as I have just cited; but I now go farther, and affirm that it is a principle which is no less true of the Old Testament, though it is only the New Testament which gives us to understand it clearly. The water of separation which the law enjoined on the children of Israel—what did it mean? Water was mingled with the ashes of a heifer that was wholly burned, skin and all, even what was most offensive. The whole was reduced to ashes, being one of the few sacrifices where this was done completely; and why? For the very important reason of vividly expressing in a figure the consuming judgment of God. In no sacrifice was this more fully carried out than in the burning of the red heifer. The ashes (for that was the point) were kept mixed with running water, and the Israelite, if defiled, was ordered to be sprinkled with this as a water of separation. There were two sprinklings; the first on the third day, and the second on the seventh day if the defiled one had been sprinkled on the third. The meaning I take to be that he was sprinkled on the third day, not the first, because one does not show a due sense of sin by being over quick to get through it. You have seen a child who, directly she has been guilty of a fault, readily tells you how sorry she is. But the same child will fall into the fault again no less quickly. Would you not rather see a child that showed more shame, and remained for a while under the feeling of it, than one so very hasty to ask pardon, and then forgetting the sin the very next moment? Alas! we are but naughty children ourselves, and sometimes we have behaved as ill to God our Father.
The only wise God provided this institute for the people passing through the wilderness; for, remark, it appears only in Numbers, the book of the wilderness journey. And there it was, and is, wanted. It contemplates the people, not in Egypt, nor in Canaan, but on their march through the wilderness. Accordingly the Israelite was called to abide under the sense of his uncleanness; he must bear the feeling of defilement till the third day. There must be no haste. The man who was unclean must abandon life to the pain of it for two days, and only on the third day, when there was a full witness (“in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established") is he sprinkled. Such I believe to be the force of the third day here. It has nothing to do with resurrection. It signifies, it would seem, an adequate testimony to his having been unclean; and it is when he feels it before God, and abides under it thus, that the seventh day sprinkling takes effect and the man is clean. Thus it is the reverse of trying to escape and have done with it, as a man would like to do; just as Saul, when he said, “I have sinned,” and then forgot all. Here the unclean was not sprinkled till the third day, and then afterward on the seventh. The one case gives us sin in the presence of grace, as the other grace in the presence of sin. Thus all defilement was now judged and gone. The once defiled Israelite is now fully cleansed. Grace triumphs.
How great, then, the grace of our Lord, Who, while making the fullest provision in case of sin nevertheless in no case makes light of it; even in the very provision for restoring, grace turns all to holy account. Thus is the soul made to feel its sin as it never did before, not the particular act simply, but that which exposed to it, so that one may be profited and strengthened as well as humbled, in a way and degree which had not been the previous experience. Thus, too, where sin abounded, grace yet more, giving a better state to the Lord's praise alone, which could not be if there were no more than the open evil act seen; for we may be as liable to fall again, if not more so. What riches of grace thus meet us! Assuredly it does meet us in the particular act that disgraces and pains us: only according to both Old and New Testament it does not stop there, but would go to the root of the matter, that the defiled might judge self in its roots, and the soul gather strength for itself, minister grace to others, and God be glorified in all things by Jesus Christ our Lord.
May we, then rejoice in the Lord, and rejoice always. May we know how to hold every particle of His truth, in the confidence of His grace. May we look to it, that all the grace and truth we know in Him be used to maintain and vindicate the revealed will and word of God, that it may deal with our own souls as with others, that we may be partakers of His holiness.