(Num. 29.)
The book of Numbers is, pre-eminently, a wilderness book. Its very opening lines bespeak its character throughout. “The Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai,......take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families by the house of their fathers, with the number of their names, every male by their polls; from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: thou and Aaron shall number them by their armies” (Chap. 1:1-3.) And again, as another indication of the character of the book, we read, “And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father’s house.” (Chap. 2:1,2.) Finally, each one was required to “declare his pedigree,” as well as to rally round his proper standard. These things were specially needed for the walk and warfare of the wilderness. The true pedigree must be known, and the proper standard adhered to, else there will be uncertainty and confusion. The two things were intimately connected. If a man did not know his father’s house, he could not recognize his father’s ensign. If he did not know whence he had sprung, he could not tell where he was to stand in the day of battle. He should be able to trace his genealogy up to the great original source, the ancient stock; and he should also be able to take his stand, with certainty and decision, beside the divinely appointed standard. Uncertainty or vacillation is unworthy of a soldier.
The spiritual application of all this is too plain to need explanation. We, too, must be able to declare our pedigree and we must keep close to our standard, else we shall fail in the day of battle. The walk and warfare of the wilderness demand clearness as to these points. “He that is born of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.” “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.” “Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?”
But we merely refer to the above as illustrating the true character of the book of Numbers — a character fully sustained throughout. In the book of Genesis, we see the election of the people of God; in Exodus, their redemption; in Leviticus, their priestly service and worship; and, in Numbers, their walk and warfare in the wilderness. These are the grand prominent characteristics of the books, while, as might be expected, many other things are presented in connection.
Now, this will account to the reader for the fact of our having the ordinance of the red heifer introduced in the book of Numbers, and not, as we might naturally expect, in the book of Leviticus, where all the offerings and sacrifices are so minutely recorded. It is a provision for defilements by the way, and furnishes a striking and beautiful type of the death of Christ, as a purification for sin to meet our need in passing through a defiling world —a moral wilderness — onward to our eternal rest above. It is truly a most instructive figure, and tells forth 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.” 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 wore the yoke of sin. The Holy Ghost is ever the jealous Guardian of the Person of Christ, and delights to present Him to the soul in all His beauty and preciousness. 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 Savior intrinsically pure and spotless, but that He stood perfectly clear and free from every mark and trace of sin. No yoke of sin ever came upon His sacred neck. When He speaks of “My yoke,” it is 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 groundwork 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 free, and as such, was fitted to do the great 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 as needful to remember the “whereon” as the “wherein.” Both expressions are designed by the Holy Ghost to set forth the perfection of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who was not only internally spotless, but also externally free from every trace of sin. Neither in His Person, nor in His relationships, was He, in any wise, obnoxious to the claims of sin or death. He entered into all the reality of our circumstances and our 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.” The thoughtful student of scripture will not pass over any expression, how trivial soever it may seem to be. Every little word is pregnant with meaning. Each little point, feature, and circumstance contains some spiritual teaching for the soul. Of course, infidels and rationalists do not see this, and hence when they approach the divine Volume, they make the saddest havoc. They see flaws where the spiritual student sees 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, now-a-days. “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 further, for 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, and quench its heavenly light, and involve us all in that deep gloom and moral darkness which enwrap his own misguided mind.
We have been led into the foregoing train of thought while pondering the third verse of our chapter. We are exceedingly desirous to cultivate the habit of profound and careful study of 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 worth our while to ponder. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” This commands our reverence. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.” 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 an immoral man to attack the Bible, for he knows full well that the former could not speak, and the latter would not be listened to. 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 can stablish, strengthen, and settle 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 truly desirable results, we shall not regret the digression from our chapter to which we shall now return.
“Ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest.” 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; and this will explain the expression in the last clause of the third verse, “one shall slay her before his face.” Heaven, not earth, is the sphere of Christ’s priestly service. The apostle expressly declares, as the sum of a most elaborate and amazing piece of argument, that, “we have such an high priest, who is set on 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. 8:1-41Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; 2A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. 3For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. 4For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: (Hebrews 8:1‑4).) “Put Christ being come an 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. 9:11, 12, 24.) “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God.” Chap. 10:12.
From all these passages, taken in connection with Num. 19:3,3And 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: (Numbers 19:3) we learn two things, namely, that the death of Christ is not presented as the proper, ordinary act of priesthood, and further, that heaven, and 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 everything tending to illustrate the divine perfection and precision of 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; hut when it breaks upon us with meridian brightness in the New Scriptures, and is dimly shadowed’ forth in the Old, we not only have the truth established, but the divine 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.” The priest and the victim are identified, and form a joint type of Christ; but it is added that “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 we read, “lie shall slay her,” then the nineteenth chapter of Numbers 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. 13:1212Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. (Hebrews 13:12).) 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 ponder more deeply and 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.” There is immense power in these words. They should rouse our whole moral being to seek more complete identification with a rejected Savior. 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 was 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 this language come forth, in glowing fervor from our hearts, and be inscribed in unmistakable characters upon our entire course and conduct! May we yield a full, clear, and 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 as a Victim, that we might never suffer. Blessed be His name, for evermore. He suffered for sin that we might never taste such suffering. 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; having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.” (Phil. 1:29, 3029For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; 30Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me. (Philippians 1:29‑30).) It is a positive gift to be allowed to suffer with Christ. Do we so esteem it?
To be continued, if the Lord will.