Notes of an Address at Chelmsford 1983
Numbers 19 might seem a very complicated chapter, yet it brings before us a very simple, yet profound, lesson. We were talking last night about the tremendous work of the Lord Jesus in purging or cleansing us, making us fit for the presence of God, not only now but for all eternity. That was a work that was done once and for all. I want to speak tonight about a different feature of cleansing, a feature of cleansing that involves some faithfulness on our part in the application of what is available for us. When we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour and come under the shelter of the precious blood of Christ, something takes place in us that never needs to be repeated. God is satisfied with that work, it is not a question of what we can do to merit God’s favour, but rather God blesses us on the basis of the greatness of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. What we have been reading this evening has to do with people marching through a wilderness on their way to the promised land. They were all covered by the blood (Ex. 12), they were in covenant relationship with God through the blood of the covenant (Ex. 24), that never needed to be repeated, but in marching through a wilderness they were going to contract uncleanness and defilement, and so they had to be cleansed, they had to be kept clean.
I want you to notice this because this is extremely important. In verse 13, it says a person who is unclean “defileth the tabernacle of the Lord”, and in verse 20 it says an unclean person has “defiled the sanctuary of the Lord”. These are the two important statements in this portion that we have read together. It is not a question of some idea that has crept into the mind of Moses, it is the holiness and cleanliness in a moral sense that is necessary in relation to God’s people, who surround Him, because of God in their midst. This is the standard, it was not the standard of Moses, but of God, and this Tabernacle, this sanctuary, this holy place, God’s dwelling place, must not be defiled by our carelessness, our negligence, or even by our self- will. So provision is made for all who come in contact with uncleanness as they walk through the wilderness that they might apply to themselves the water of separation and be clean according to the mind of God.
This is the only place in the Bible where this particular sacrifice is mentioned, except a brief reference to it in Hebrews 9 where it tells us that, ‘Yes, that sacrifice was satisfactory in a partial sort of way, but it points forward to a greater sacrifice that is not partial, but is fully available for everyone at all times and is able to meet the need of any who require it.’ So this is what we want to see, not so much all the detail of the sacrifice of the red heifer (interesting though it might be), but to find its fulfilment in our Lord Jesus Christ.
I do not need to tell you that we live in a polluted world. It does not matter where we go today, it does not matter whatever media we look at or read, every kind of defilement, impurity, pollution and sin exists in the world today, and very depraved or very refined it defiles nonetheless. You do not go very far as a Christian before you come in contact with it, and it has its defiling effect. We may not deliberately associate ourselves with sin, we may not deliberately set out to be occupied with sin or impurity or pollution, but sooner or later as a Christian we will come face to face with it and it has a defiling influence. Then we want to go to the breaking of bread, we want to remember the Lord Jesus, we want to worship God, we want to go to the prayer meeting and take part in prayer, we want to go to some meeting where the word of God is read and these polluting influences are in our minds, may be in our hearts, and we must first get rid of them because it is the only way we can enjoy the presence of God. Our mind, our eyes, our ears, any way in which we are occupied with the defiling, evil pollution affects us in our response to God and so this is why we want to speak a little this evening about the sacrifice of the red heifer.
Those who attend the meetings continually will come across two words which are often used, one is ‘objective’ and the other is ‘subjective.’ They are very good words in their own place, they reveal to us things that are worthwhile, but they may not always be understood, and so I want to try to explain them for a moment. If we speak, as we did last night, about the death of Christ in all its greatness and value and perfection, satisfying the heart of God we could say that is what is meant by what is ‘objective truth’, it deals with the greatness of the Person and work of Christ, but then if I am to apply all the teaching connected with that death to my personal life, day by day, that is what we term ‘subjective’, it is what is going to be wrought out in my life as I gaze upon the perfect example and the perfect work of our Lord Jesus Christ. To be even more simple, if I am looking at a beautiful scene with a view to painting it I am looking at the object, that is my objective, to produce that scene on a canvass. I look at it, I absorb all its features and then I begin to give my impression of it on canvass. So what I am gazing at objectively is produced subjectively on the canvass. So what we are speaking about tonight is the value of the death of Christ having its effect upon our lives; seeing the perfection of His work, how He overcame sin, and how He was separate from sin, and in the power of the Holy Spirit and the work of God, that being applied to our lives producing in us the features that are pleasing to God. God is in the midst of His people and He desires a people like Himself, set apart, holy, in order to respond to Him. That was true long ago in the nation of Israel and, praise God, it is still true today. There is a company of people in the world but they belong to God, they have been cleaned by the precious blood of Christ and God desires from them a testimony that is consistent with what He has done for them in Christ. Praise God it is possible for Christians to walk through this polluted world in such a way as to please God. I are not talking in theories, what I am saying is true, and in every real Christian there is, and ought to be, a desire to be free from every polluting thing.
Now you might say, before we come to the detail of it, ‘Why all this mention about a dead man, or a bone or a grave?’ The answer is very simple, anything that is dead or anything that is connected with death is a remembrance of sin. The divine record tells us that “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Rom. 5:12). This is the plain statement of the word of God, and no matter in what way we see it anything connected with death is a reminder to us that sin has invaded this world, everything connected with death is a mark of sin. So that is why we have to apply this water of purification to be kept clear from the defiling things that are in this world. You say, ‘What a morbid tale, what a poor kind of message to give.’ No, my dear friends, because what I bring before you tonight is the perfection of the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. What I bring before you is the power of the Holy Spirit as He uses the living and abiding word of God to cleanse our lives, and if these things are not attractive to us then surely there is something wrong with our spiritual appetite.
“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…” (v. 2)
The people were to bring a red heifer (a female animal), and it had to be without spot or blemish and upon which never had come yoke. The reason I mentioned those words ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ is that generally speaking when we speak about the woman or the female animal in Scripture it brings before us what is subjective. When I was a young believer an old brother said, “Whenever you get the man mentioned that is the ‘position’, and whenever you get the woman mentioned that is the ‘condition’.” That may have been a very simple way of explaining it but I have learned that that definition is a very true one. So the female animal here brings before us the idea of the application of this death to ourselves that there might be some reflection of it in our lives.
Firstly it had to have no spot. It is easy to turn to the New Testament and find the antitype. We read in Peter’s epistle about the Lamb of God “without blemish and without spot’ (1 Pet. 1:19). We cannot possibly mistake the reference and here the red heifer has to be without spot. What does it mean? It means there was nothing on the animal that should not have been there, a spot indicated some form of disease, something extraneous to the animal, something that was attached to the animal that should not have been there. What does that mean in connection with the Christ of God? When we think of that glorious Man as He walked through this world not one thing attached to Him as He lived that life of devotion to God. It is very, very difficult to live in this world without adopting its phraseology, without coming under its influence. We all know this. We hear again and again vulgar expressions or things which are dishonouring and it is so easy to adopt them, so easy to let them into the ear, into the mind and eventually they are expressed by the mouth.
Nothing like that ever happened in Jesus. He never adopted the prevailing sentiments of the age, He never slipped down below the standard that was pleasing to God, every moment of his life was a moment that was lived for God, for His will, for His glory. He secured a zealot as one of His disciples, and that was a very powerful sentiment at the time of the Lord Jesus. The party of the zealots despised the Roman rule and, oh, how they yearned by foul means or fair to be free from that yoke. The Lord Jesus brought into His little company of disciples Simon the zealot, but he never in any way imbibed the sentiments of the zealot party, or any other prevailing sentiment, be it politics, religion, the ideas of the day, none of them found inlet in our Lord Jesus Christ not for one moment. That was far beneath His dignity and glory. He was without spot. Not a single influence of this world found an inlet into His life, and not one particle of sin ever stained that glorious Man.
When we turn to the New Testament we find this mentioned over and over again. Peter says that “He did no sin” (1 Pet. 2:22), Paul says “He knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21) and John says that “in him sin was not” (1 John 3:5), not in any shape or form. So that at the close of His life He could say to His enemies, “Which of you convinces me of sin?” (John 8:46), in other words, ‘You have an opportunity. You make accusations, you want to kill me, now there is an opportunity for you to tell me which of you convinces me of sin?’ and not one of them could find anything in that glorious Man, He was indeed without spot. We could spend a great deal of time to enlarge upon this, that the Lord Jesus Christ was totally and completely apart from sin. I want to mention this in passing because it is important. It may be that you will hear misguided Christians saying that it was possible that the Lord Jesus could have sinned, but we must totally reject that idea, it is a lie of the Devil, and it is sad to hear persons who love the Lord Jesus give expression to such an idea. If the Lord Jesus could have sinned that means He had a sinful nature, but John tells us that the divine nature “it cannot sin” (1 John 3:9), it is incapable of sinning. Therefore, if the Lord Jesus could have sinned it meant that He had a sinful nature because that is the only nature that can express sin, and we say, ‘No, the Bible teaches that when the Lord Jesus was born He was not born in sin as we are, as every son of Adam was, He was born holy, intrinsically so, “that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Persons might think they are doing a fine thing when they then say, ‘Of course, He did not sin’, they are very careful to add that, but they maintain that He could have. No, we say, the holy thing that was born was, shall I say, reverently, the product of the work of the Holy Spirit, apart altogether from human generation or the human race, there was no spot, no sin, nothing in His life that answered to sin. There are various things that attract us, and what attracts you might not attract me, sinful things that I desire you might abhor, sinful things that you like I might abhor; we have a nature that responds to different kinds of sin, but not the Lord Jesus. Never had He to turn aside from the gross forms of sin or the refined forms of sin that we see in this world, there was not a single inlet in that mind or in that heart, He was totally and completely apart from it. He had no spot.
The red heifer also had to be without blemish. It was to be a perfect animal physically. And so the life of the Lord Jesus was a life where every feature was pleasing to God and expressed in the power of the Holy Spirit, all blended into one perfect whole and the fragrance of it ascended to God in a way that delighted His heart. What a life! We might see in Moses a man who was dedicated to the will of God and with his courage and resoluteness serving God in this way, but sometimes he expressed features that were displeasing to God. We might find the same in David, a man of God, a man whose life pleased God and yet he sunk into the depths of sin. We can find this in so many, Abraham the friend of God, mighty man of faith, failing so often on the line of nature, and many, many others could be referred to, but in the Lord Jesus Christ all was perfect. “Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:7). Nothing was lacking. And at the end of His life He offered Himself spotless to God. Oh, what a life it was, a life wherein nothing was lacking. In every detail God’s will was perfectly expressed in that glorious Man.
What a joy it was to the heart of God to look down upon that Man who for thirty years had been cast upon God. God was His resource, His object. Then for three and a half years in public witness in the midst of so much opposition and hatred, He again demonstrated all the great attributes of God and demonstrated them perfectly. There was nothing lacking. No wonder God could open the heavens upon His at the commencement of that pathway, and again near the close of that pathway, and express His delight (Matt. 3:16, 17:5).
Then it says of the red heifer, “upon which never came yoke”. It had never ploughed in the field, had never done servile service, no yoke was ever to have been put upon this red heifer that was sacrificed. It was an unbroken animal. What does it mean in connection with the Lord Jesus? In Scripture bondage is presented often in connection with sin. Other things are referred to as bondage. Paul refers to the law as a system of bondage again and again in the Galatian epistle. The Lord Jesus was never under bondage to any man, never under bondage to any principle, never under bondage to any form that belonged to man, but He was under bondage to God. Oh, what a Man He was! What a glorious Man! We find in Romans 6 and 7 that Christians can be set free from the bondage of sin in order to be under bondage to God. Bondage to sin is a terrible form of bondage, but to be under bondage to God is a tremendous blessing.
Recently in our local newspaper articles have been given about drugs and the terrible consequences of drug taking. How very sad that in the city of John Knox drug taking is now at a very, very high level and there is a great deal of concern about it in all the responsible quarters, and it is not just sniffing glue, or these soft drugs as they call them, but hard drugs, heroin and cocaine, and what havoc they are causing. One young man wrote in the paper about the awful bondage that it produces. It begins with a desire to get ‘a kick’ and then after a few kicks the joy and the thrill and the sensation die, and he said one feels oneself in a horrible bondage, a miserable and tortured existence of the worst kind, a ruin of one’s life physically, morally and in every other way, and in the particular company that he kept so many of his friends had died under this horrible bondage. He was fortunate, he got treatment to get off the addiction but he is now a physical wreck, and he will be like that until the end of his life. He was warning young people to avoid those features of evil that are so available for them, but at what a price.
That is an extreme case. Some of us who have been Christians for fifty or sixty years, as we look back over our lives sometimes unfortunately may be occupied with all the failures, and we say, ‘How sad, we had opportunities to do better but instead of that we wasted those opportunities’ and yet when we look at the other side, praise God we can see many features of His love and power and grace and how He kept us in spite of our folly and our negligence and stupidity. So we say this to the young people, Do not waste your time, it is too valuable to waste. Do not waste your life by coming under bondage, not necessarily to drugs, not necessarily to evil things, but you can come under bondage to things you think are not very harmful, but if it takes away your time from following the Lord it is harmful in the first degree. Anything that comes between you and the Lord, anything that hinders you in your Christian progress is bondage of the worst possible kind. You may think the chain is very comfortable, you might think that the prison, the yoke, is very comfortable, but the time will come, as it has come to most of us who are older, when you will regret wasted time and wasted opportunities. And so to use another figure, it is good to bear the yoke in your youth, to quickly come under the yoke of the will of God. Give Him your life, make it a deliberate yielding on your part however much you may misunderstand or fail to apprehend what it involves for you. It is a wonderful moment in your life when you lay it on the altar to God and desire step by step that He might teach you and help you to live for Him. It will save you from many a pitfall, it will save you from many an uncertainty, because if you give your life to Him that must be the governing principle wherever you go and whatever you do. So do not be like me when you get older, with many regrets, start out now and lessen the opportunity for regrets and follow the pathway that is pleasing to God. So the Lord Jesus never came under any form of sinful bondage, He was never under the direction of anyone, He submitted to some of the things that prevailed, but never in a sinful way, He was ready to pay the Temple Jews, He was ready to render unto Caesar the things which belonged to Caesar, but he was never in bondage, a bondage that demanded of Him to do something that was contrary to the will of God. This is the first thing that the red heifer presents, the perfection of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“… 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…” (v. 3)
Why should this animal be taken? It is a perfect animal, there is no spot on it, no blemish, it is a perfect kind of animal, why should it be taken outside the camp? Because it is going to be directly connected with what is sinful in the sight of God, and it becomes a sacrifice in relation to that. Concerning “the water of separation” at the end of verse 9 “it is a purification for sin” could be equally translated, “it is a sin offering”. Anything that was sinful was hateful to the eye of God, and that is why it had to go outside the camp. Just think for a moment on the physical, literal side of it, an innocent animal, spotless, with no blemish, an animal not accustomed to servile service, that animal taken outside the camp. Why? There is nothing hateful in itself, rather all that is attractive is in it, but it was going to be identified with what is hateful in the sight of God.
“… and Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times: and one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn: and the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.” (vv. 4-6)
The animal is slain and some of its blood is taken and seven times this is sprinkled before the Tabernacle of the congregation. There is an acknowledgement that this is done in relation to God. It is to satisfy Him that its blood is shed. Then these three things, the cedar wood, the hyssop and the scarlet are put into the fire that is consuming the red heifer. What does it mean? The cedar, the hyssop and the scarlet all speak about man, man in his boastful, arrogant, pretentious sinfulness. Whether you think of the mighty imposing man represented by the cedar, all that is dignified outwardly, all that is pretentious, or if you think of the little hyssop in its insignificance, it is the whole spectrum of man in all his sinfulness and waywardness (1 Ki. 4:33), and the scarlet, all the glory of man, all that has to go. It is all connected with the burning of the red heifer.
“And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the red heifer.” (v. 9)
I want you to notice this because it is important, it does not say the man was to gather up the ashes, that would have included the ashes of the cedar wood and the hyssop and the scarlet, but it makes special references of the heifer. What does it mean? It means that as far as God is concerned all the glory of man, all that marks man, every feature that is obnoxious to Him in fallen man has gone forever in the death of Christ. There is no reference to it again so far as God is concerned, He is finished with that kind of man, and all that comes before Him in perpetuity as far as this context is concerned is connected with the death of His glorious Son—the ashes of the heifer.
“And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel.” (v. 17)
Here we find the connection that is so important to us, the ashes of the heifer, representing the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and the end of the man that has given God so much trouble, those ashes are put into a vessel and connected with this running water. Two things are connected with it. First of all it is pure water. There is reference to the word of God. Secondly there can be the sense of living water, a reference to the Holy Spirit. Both thoughts are connected together. What does it mean? It means simply this, that the power of the Spirit of God using the word of God in its teaching concerning the death of Christ and the depravity of man is applied to us day by day as we walk through a world where death is abounding and defilement is on every hand. You say, that sound a bit complicated, but it is not really if you read the New Testament. If you read Peter’s epistles, for instance, you will find how often he refers to the death of Christ and how the believer is to take character from His wonderful death, His suffering and His example. The believer is to be like Him. So we find Peter writing the word of God for the encouragement and direction of the Christian, applying that death to the life of the Christian, with the power of the Spirit being able to make that good in our lives so that He can reproduce the features of the glorious Man who was here. And to put it in the simplest possible terms, what God wants is for us to be marked by the features of His glorious Son. He does not want us to be marked by the spots that are to be found in this world, He does not want us to reflect those evil features that abound, He does not want us to be lacking in anything that is according to His will, He does not want us to come under the yoke of bondage, whether it be sin or any other form, He wants us to be in the power of that wonderful life, He wants us to reproduce it in our lives and, praise God, that can be done in the power of the Spirit of God.
“He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.” (v. 11)
“And 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.” (v. 16)
Just for a few moments, I want to refer to some of those things that the children of Israel were to avoid. First there was a dead man. Now what harm can a dead man bring to you and to me? He is dead, he cannot do any harm can he? Well, says God, I do not want you to be in contact with death, death is a reminder of sin. Death is a defiling thing. I want you to keep clear of death. How would that work out in practice? If you keep company with a person who has no life towards God, who has no life for Christ, you will find yourself in a defiling position. He cannot tell you anything about God, he cannot tell you anything about Christ, all that he can speak about is nature and the things that belong to this world. You cannot possibly keep company with a person dead towards God. It is absolutely defiling; and so you must apply the word of God to your position and say I want to be in contact with life, and this is what fellowship means in the highest possible sense, when we are together we encourage each other by talking about Christ and encourage each other in the Lord.
“This 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. And every open vessel, which hath no covering bound upon it, is unclean.” (vv. 14-15)
One last reference regarding an open vessel. A vessel is to be covered, nothing contaminating is to be allowed into it. Do we pray before the day begins as we go out into a world that is full of defilement? or do we just carelessly and negligently rush into the world and all its affairs and then suddenly find ourselves bowled over? An open vessel has to be covered, and the best way to cover a vessel is to pray; to go out into the world covered by prayer, depending upon the power of God, giving oneself over to God and His care and His protection. Do not let any Christian think that He is strong enough to meet all the evil things that are in this world, if he is he is speedily heading for disillusionment; the power of evil that is in this world is too great for him, but not too great for God, not too great for Christ, not too great for the word of God. And as we allow that word to have an effect upon our lives then we are greatly encouraged.
Conclusion
I was reading recently about John Newton, the composer of the hymn ‘Amazing grace”. In his journal that he left he said that, unfortunately, as a young man he knew many things but he forgot them so easily. Many things God taught him he so easily forgot, he was not a covered vessel. If we go out into the world and desire that God would help us to encourage and protect us (and He does protect us), then we will find the value of this application of this water of separation that we might respond to God in the way that gives Him gladness of heart. If you forget all else that I have said this evening, please do not forget the spotless perfection of our Lord Jesus Christ, because that is the central point of the teaching and also that that is the kind of life that pleases God. As Christ pleased God in perfection, so, in our measure, as helped by the Spirit, we too can please God by displaying features of that glorious Man in our lives. May it be so for His name’s sake.