04.08. THE ASHES OF THE RED HIEFER
THE ASHES OF THE RED HIEFER Numbers 19:1-22.
WE have the divine comment on this chapter in those words of the inspired Apostle (Hebrews 9:13-14),” For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” The subject of this chapter is the DEFILEMENT of DEATH, and how it is to be put away. The application of the ASHES of the HEIFER had only a value as rendering a defiled person CEREMONIALLY CLEAN, but it could not “make the corners there unto perfect”(Hebrews 10:1-2) as pertaining to the conscience.
“God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Dead works bring defilement to the conscience, and render one unfit for LIVING service to a LIVING God. What is man’s condition till he is born of the Spirit? Spiritual death. Death reigned from Adam to Moses (Romans 5:12-14), and to the present time, and men are “dead in trespasses and sins”; hence the words of Christ, “Ye must be born again”(John 3:7). When the Triune God created man in His own image and after His likeness (Genesis 1:26-27) He made him spirit, soul, and body, three natures in one person, “Jehovah Elohim formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a LIVING soul” (Genesis 2:7). The inferior creatures became living souls by an act of CREATIVE POWER, MAN by the BREATH of the LIVING GOD. Life is in the blood, mortal life is sustained by breathing the atmospheric air; DEATH IS ceasing to breathe. A powerless soul is a dead soul; as the soul of man became living by the inbreathing of life FROM the Father, Triune; God, the Son and the Holy Ghost, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree they ceased to breathe spiritually, communion with God ceased; and the word was fulfilled, “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). “Their eyes were opened,” but their mouths were closed to communion with God, their SOULS DIED and their ronies became MORTAL. Communion lost is PARADISE LOST: Communion restored is PARADISE REGAINED. A picture of Paradise is graphically drawn by the Spirit of God in the first chapters of Genesis. How much is enfolded in those words (ch. 3:8, 9). “They heard the voice of Jehovah Elohim [the Triune God] walking in the garden in the cool [breeze] of the day.”
How did they know the voice of God? When God put our first parents in the Garden of Eden, He gave them occupation for the body in dressing and keeping it, food for the mind in the study of natural history, but reserved the evening hour for Himself. The evening BREEZE which refreshed the body was a type of the SPIRIT who maintained their communion with God. In the evening of that day when Adam and Eve had sinned, the footfall of God was heard as usual. Where was the response? Communion was gone. “Adam, where art thou?” Out of communion with God, hid behind the trees of the garden. This condition of spiritual death could only be met by atonement, as suggested by those words, “the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head”; and by the action of God, Who clothed our first parents in the skin of the slaughtered victim. In the type of the RED HEIFER we have God’s provision for putting away the defilement of spiritual death, “Jehovah spake UNTO MOSES AND UNTO AARON,” not to them separately as before; and ELEAZAR was to carry out the ordinance. The “red heifer” was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ INCARNATE, “God manifest in flesh.” The name “Adam” signified RED EARTH, out of which man was formed, and the word “red” here employed conveys in the original that thought. Typically there is a distinction between the male and female offerings the male was offered for actual sin, the female for passive defilement, such as by contact or the contamination of nature, It was to be a red heifer on “which never came yoke,” emblem of the sinless obedience of the Lord Jesus, Who was never subject to the will of man, but to His heavenly Father.
Leviticus 19:1-3. The children of Israel were to GIVE the RED HEIFER to ELEAZAR the priest. AARON was a type of the Lord Jesus in His humiliation on earth who offered Himself without spot to God. ELEAZAR is a type of the Lord Jesus NOW in His RESURRECTION PRIESTHOOD, bringing to remembrance the sacrifice already offered. In MELCHISEDEC the kingly and priestly offices were united, and in the MILLENNIUM CHRIST will be a priest after the order of Meichisedec. As Eleazar brought the heifer without the camp, and one slew her before his face; even so Jesus, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, once for all suffered without the gate (Hebrews 13:12). This action of Eleazar is like the Lord’s Supper, the memorial of an action once accomplished, whereas the mass is a fictitious repetition of it.
Leviticus 19:4. On the day of atonement the blood was carried within the vail, but in this case Eleazar with his finger sprinkled the blood towards the face of the tent of the congregation seven times, to show that the blood had efficacy to restore communion in its sevenfold perfection.
Leviticus 19:5. The entire victim was carried without the camp and consumed. The Lord Jesus was treated by God as made sin, though Himself sinless. Leviticus 19:6. A s the cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet were cast into the midst of the burning, so the divine glory, human humiliation, and earthly dignity of the Lord Jesus gave their value to His atoning work.
Leviticus 19:7-8; Leviticus 19:10. The priest, he who burnt the heifer, and also he that gathered the ashes, were all three to wash their clothes, and be unclean until the evening; showing that, as these things represented realities, there was need for ceremonial purification.
Leviticus 19:9. The ashes of the heifer, which included the blood, were to be laid up in a clean place, and by a clean man without the camp to be KEPT. They were to be treated as holy, and not to be counted an unclean thing (see Hebrews 10:28-29). The place of keeping was to be without the camp, so as to be available for those who could not enter into the camp. It was to be for a water of separation or cleansing; for its antitype, the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin. But the BLOOD of CHRIST not only cleanses the heart from all unrighteousness, and from the contamination of sin, but it also, THROUGH THE ETERNAL SPIRIT, purges the conscience from the guilt of sin, and “from DEAD WORKS TO SERVE THE LIVING GOD.” In Hebrew the words “it is a purification for sin,” are, literally, “it is a sin offering,” because it is that which has made atonement for it.
Leviticus 19:10. “A statute forever.” An everlasting statute; there is no cleansing in any other way, for any, either saint or sinner (Acts 4:12).
Leviticus 19:11-13. God has graciously shown us the danger of defilement in such a world of sin and spiritual death as this. Also, the secret cause of hindered communion through its defilement, and the remedy in Christ Jesus. The BURNING of the HEIFER and GATHERING the ASHES showed the crucifixion and burial of Jesus; the THIRD DAY typified His resurrection, it was therefore on the third day it was to be applied, that is, the soul should realize not only His death but His resurrection for His cleansing. “He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25). The SEVENTH DAY, or day of rest, when the cleansing was complete, typified the perfect atonement of Jesus, and the consequent REST into which the soul enters by faith in Him.
“He shall purify himself with it.” There is no true purification by any other means. “Purifieth not himself.” It is remarkable that this in Hebrew really is, make one’s self sin, because the only way to purify is by taking the guilt, confessing it, and then applying to the sacrifice of Christ by faith we are cleansed.
“Defileth the tabernacle of Jehovah.” If through the influence of surrounding evil, or evil things, our souls have got into a dead and carnal state, without applying the remedy as here set forth, we bring in the withering power of spiritual death when we meet the assembled saints, and lose the blessing of living communion; and until by the Holy Spirit the truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus is applied, the soul continues in this sad condition.
Leviticus 19:14-16. This the defiling influence of spiritual deadness in one professing the name of Christ in his ROUSE and around him, and those who are not GUARDED, but open to the influence, as many are; yet the soul in the lively exercise of faith and watchfulness may escape. The heart should be kept carefully CLOSED to the influence of dead, carnal profession.
“Seven days.” It is not temporary, which will pass off in a time, but SEVEN DAYS is put for continuance, and it can only be removed in God’s appointed way.
Leviticus 19:16-22. In the twelfth verse the command was “He shall purify himself with it”; a personal application by faith in Christ. In these verses it is an action to be done by another who is CLEAN; as said the apostle, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness” (Galatians 6:1); it is by way of discipline, one dealing with the sin of another, that it may he put away; and the spiritual man may have need to cleanse himself from the defiling influences with which he has to deal. The ASHES of the burnt heifer were the memorial of the sacrifice of Christ; the running or LIVING WATER, a type of the Holy Spirit giving divine and spiritual efficacy to that atoning blood when applied to the heart and conscience. The Hyssop may remind us of that deep contrition and humiliation in which the blood of atonement should be applied and apprehended, so that we may well say with the psalmist, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalms 51:7).