II. Atonement
Redemption by blood and by power being set forth under the first type, the book of Leviticus furnishes the second scripture, in connection with approach to God, standing before Him, and worship. Let us bear in mind that it is the shadow, and not the very image. As with redemption given to an earthly people, in view of the antitype with higher, deeper, and eternal results, so also is it in Lev. 16 where is unfolded the way to God, and having to do with Him in His sanctuary. Thus we see the distinctive truth on the one hand of God appearing as the judge where sin is, but providing the sacrificial means, whereby He could pass over the guilty, and on the other of His appointing the way of approach, consistent with the holiness and majesty of His throne in the sanctuary, as typically seen here. True, the first type laid the basis for the grand and blessed truth of Jehovah come to dwell in the midst of His redeemed people.
With this Leviticus opens, followed by all the varied offerings, and the necessity of having priesthood established, where we at once see the sad failure in the offering of strange fire. But it is the appointed sacrifice, and particularly the use of the blood, on the great Day of Atonement that presents our subject of the way to God and its results. Here the claims of Jehovah and the need of those approaching Him are clearly set forth. There is no uncertain sound: the holiness of the throne and the guilt of the worshipper must find their meeting-place in death and shed blood. Whether for Aaron and his sons or for the people, Jehovah enjoined the death of the appointed victims. If the blood of the slain lamb must be sprinkled on the lintel and side-posts of the houses in Egypt, so that the eye of a sin-hating God might rest on it to free Israel from the pending judgment, equally so must the blood of the bullock and of the goat be taken and sprinkled for those having to do with Him in His sanctuary. Whether Aaron acted for himself and his sons or for the people, he represented all on the unique atonement-day. The word of Jehovah was, “Thus shall Aaron come.”
The blood of each slain victim must be taken within the veil and sprinkled with his finger both upon and before the mercy-seat. But before the blood-sprinkling there was the sign of perfect personal acceptance in the cloud of incense with which the same hands were filled to put upon the altar. Thus for Israel or any others it is established even in a typical way, that the only means of approach to God was by death and sprinkled blood. But this had to be repeated year by year, for no earthly victims could (as the Holy Ghost comments in Heb. 10) perfect those who approached as to the conscience. Not only are these aspects of death absolutely requisite, but the carcasses of the victims must be carried forth and wholly burnt without the camp. Independent of the Burnt-offering, afterward slain, and the many other things of moment on that typical day, the foundation-truth of this way and means of having to do with Jehovah in His sanctuary, and for the established relationship of an earthly nation for His worship as well as acceptance, could only be by death and shed blood.
How significant the voice for to-day, particularly when we consider this one death, His death, in which all centers for God and man. It is not to be wondered at that the Christ of God is thus shadowed. How urgent and momentous it is, that each evangelist should by the Holy Spirit not only present Him in His person, life, and character, but give solemn and varied aspects of His sufferings and death with their effects. Blessed indeed when in any measure God's light, purpose, and truth appear. In eternity we shall know, as we are known. What unfathomable depths of a death, known only to God the righteous Judge of sin, and to the Lamb, the holy and righteous Sufferer Who sustained the judgment due to it! It is especially in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, that His victim character as the Sin-offering appears. Both the sufferings of Gethsemane, and the actual death due to sin are recorded. There was the cup which justice mixed and He in holy horror anticipated. If He desired that it might pass from Him, yet drink it He would, to do the will of God. Then at the cross itself, when under the judgment of God, and making peace by His death and precious blood, He cried “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me”? This consummated the answer to every typical death. The wages of sin was paid, the glory of God vindicated and established, to the everlasting glory of Him Who bore the cross. It was when Jesus died that God gave witness to it by rending the veil, proving that the distance was gone and the way opened; man and God were brought together.
If the Gospels furnish the facts of the death of Christ, it is the Epistles that give the many and varied applications of the one death which is to God's glory, and to blessing without end. It has already been seen as to Ex. 12, both in 1 Peter and the Epistle to the Romans. Antitype to Leviticus is largely found in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Drawing near to God as a worshipper is blessedly seen after the truth of Aaron's Antitype has been gone into, both as to sacrifice and death, giving the entrance by blood into the heavenly sanctuary. It is important to see that there is contrast, particularly in the case of Aaron who needed a slain bullock and the blood of atonement equally for himself, his sons, and the people. But Christ offered Himself for others as the spotless victim to God. Aaron entered within the veil of the earthly tabernacle every year with the blood of animals, and then withdrew; but Christ entered heaven itself in the eternal value of His own blood.
Hence the question of sin being forever settled, Christ forever (or, in perpetuity) sat down on the right hand of God. Such is the mighty work and glorious seat of Him Who became the Antitype to all shadowed forth on the paschal night, and not least on the Day of Atonement. Well might the Holy Ghost come and bear witness to the value of such a death, and its infinitely greater results of blessed contrast, as compared with a nation of earthly worshippers, with Aaron and his sons their priests. Christ has entered heaven, having obtained eternal redemption: and before He comes the second time, the new and living way is open to the believer, who is privileged as a purged worshipper to draw near, not with a conscience eased for a year by the blood of bulls and goats, but ever purged and at rest before God by the blood of Jesus, the everlasting accepted sacrifice, triumphing over all dread of judgment.
Perfect thus as to conscience (with sins remitted to be remembered by God no more), and invited to draw near to God where Christ is, who would not glory in such a death and adoringly worship with all believers? It is the earnest of the everlasting and holy worship which the redeemed will render as its fruit on high.
III. Purification
The foregoing essays have shown, that sacrifice met the full judgment of sin, and opened the way of drawing near to God in holiness, righteousness, and peace. It remains to be seen in type and antitype what the third aspect presents in the same death of God's only and well-beloved Son. “The Lord's death,” ever living in the hearts of the redeemed for eternal praise and worship (but higher still) has, in the estimate of God Himself, righteously founded a basis for His own glorious power, even to create the new heavens and the new earth, where sin and death can never come to disturb His eternal rest. His rest is to be shared in unbroken blessedness by all who in faith have their part in Him and His work, whether we look back on typical days or in the present retrospect, since Christ came, died, and went to heaven, the antitype and substance for life, salvation, and glory.
It is not surprising therefore that the Book of Numbers furnishes a characteristically significant type of Christ's death. The book itself is assuredly as distinct as Exodus and Leviticus, giving us, not redemption by blood and power, nor the way of approaching Jehovah, but the wilderness with its daily walk and circumstances. This too did Jehovah regulate, their leader and protector, whose sanctuary went with them so that they might ever have to do with Him. It was a holy privilege and grave responsibility for a typically redeemed people brought to God, but traversing the wilderness on their way to the promised earthly Canaan. The same nature Israel had before leaving Egypt, sadly expressing itself toward God their Deliverer. For they murmured against Him, loathed the manna provided for their daily food, and despised the pleasant land to which He was faithfully leading them according to His own ways and means. Nothing therefore but His priestly and prerogative grace, as Aaron's chosen and preserved rod of fruit declared, could secure and take them in. How could such a stiff-necked, fickle, rebellious people be maintained consistently with what He is in the holiness of His nature and the majesty of His presence, although hidden within the veil of His earthly tabernacle? It is here the third typical aspect of the death of Christ in its force and suitability comes in. It is provided by Jehovah to meet defilement by the way; so that His people in their wilderness journey might have to do with Him day-by-day. The appointed sacrifice must be a red heifer without spot, that had never borne the yoke (a point of deep import), not only slain but all the carcass, &c. with its blood (save a part enjoined to be sprinkled) consumed in the fire, with hyssop, cedar wood, and scarlet. The whole was to be reduced to ashes, witness therein being given, that death in its extreme effects had taken place. In guarded jealousy a clean person must gather the ashes and lay them up without the camp in a clean place, to be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel as a water of separation. “It is a purification for sin.”
The same infinite wisdom which provided the lamb in Egypt to shut out God as a judge, and the bullock and goat for Aaron's approach as the representative of Israel, makes provision to maintain them by cleansing and purifying from all defilement by the way. What a blessed evidence even, to an earthly people of His loving nearness, and of their having to do with Him in consistency with what He is! It is a fact ever to be borne in mind by us now, leaving it to the same God to define solemnly and clearly what would defile His people; for His sanctuary is their standard.
Touching a dead body, or contact with death in any way or measure, made all unclean and unfit for Him. Such is the holiness of Jehovah for Israel; Whose love no less provided for the unclean person and even their vessels, in applying the ashes with running water sprinkled upon the unclean on the third and the seventh days. Otherwise they would be cut off. Here the privileges of the redeemed, not redemption, are taught. So it is blessedly seen in the antitype having in view communion (not salvation) for those already in relationship to Him. Of course the antitype must ever surpass the type; yet in this instance the sacrifice utters marvelous language in the victim reduced to ashes. Is it not in character with the prophetic Psa. 22 which opens with “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” and goes on to “Thou hast brought Me unto the dust of death?” This the believer sees made good in Christ's own sufferings and death on the cross when God and He settled the question of sin, exhausting once and forever the judgment due to it. Yet who but the sufferer and God can fully estimate its depth and infinite value?
Hence the ashes were laid up as the divine provision, not only for daily walk before Jehovah, but as we can see for present communion with the Father and the Son whilst passing through this evil and defiling world. He Who was God manifest in flesh, shedding light and love in character with what He was, and when in this dark world of sin could say “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again,” no less said “Now is my soul troubled, Father save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour.” This anticipated hour stands alone in the history of the universe, when He Who knew no sin and did no sin was made sin, and the full action of the divine fire in righteous judgment wholly spent itself on His blessed spotless person. There too, after the full moral test of man, the cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet find their antitype. The two extremes of man's nature in creature greatness and littleness, as well as the glory of the world, were judicially brought to an end in the judgment of the cross.
Clearly it was the one and same death where sin was consumed and God's own glory secured. Christ the Son of man had as the corn of wheat to fall into the ground and die; that by His death all fruit might come. The risen One associates His brethren with Himself and declares His Father to be their Father and His God their God. If such is declared in John 20 to be the fruit of His death, it is in the First Epistle of John that life and relationship in divine certainty are fully declared; as in John 13 is the antitype for communion and restoration associated with the red heifer. The pure source, God's love, and the means, Christ's death, are thus gone into, suitably to eternal life in Christ and relationship to His God and Father. But such grace needed to be, and is, clearly defined. All believers can now gratefully exclaim, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God!” and further, “Beloved, now are we children of God.” It is expressly written that such should know they have eternal life and their sins forgiven; yea, “fellowship with the Father and with the Son.”
To this the apostle John in the First Epistle addresses himself, that the children's joy might be full even in this world; a world knowing neither grace nor truth. If Jehovah in His sanctuary was Israel's standard for defilement, God is light in Whom is no darkness at all: such is the standard of those set in that light where the blood of His Son cleanses from all sin. No wonder the apostle says, “My little children, I write unto you that ye sin not; but if any one sin, we have an Advocate with the Father.” It is He Who (in John 13) with water in a basin girded Himself and began to wash His disciples' feet. Jesus, Who came from and returned to God, was on the cross the propitiation for the sins of His own, and also for the whole world. For all sinners were indebted to Him for a death so varied in its manifold aspects.
There is no new application of the, shed blood, which in its divine value is made good to believers once for all. If one sin, the word of God in the power of the Spirit is applied, in answer to loving action of the heavenly Advocate with the Father. This brings before the soul, not only its sin involving loss of communion, but the deep sense of the sacrifice and death of Jesus. This is the true Red Heifer reduced to ashes purifying from defilement along the way. There is the Passover, and the Day of Atonement, the basis for shelter and for acceptance; and there is no less provision also for needed restoration on the way to eternal glory.
Such are the course and ways of God in holiness and love, which all do well to heed in this day of deplorable laxity and worldliness. Let us cherish present fellowship in obedience to our God, Who has formed our relationship in the power of the indwelling Spirit. Happy thus to be journeying through the world, not to an earthly Canaan, but to the Father's house on high, introduced there by Him crowned with the return of Him Whose death secured it and all things. His promise abides for to-day as fresh as at first, “I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am ye may be also.” May communion with the Father and the Son in the power of His life and of the blessed hope be more fully known by all God's children in true separation from all that is contrary. That death He enjoins to be specially before His own on the first day of the week, when gathered to remember Him. Therein do we announce His death till He come. G. G.