CHAPTER 19

(1454 B.C.)

THE RED HEIFER

¹And the LORD spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,

²This is the Ordinance of the Law which the LORD has commanded (Williams says, This Chapter being found in Numbers and not in Leviticus shows inspiration. Had the sacrifice of the red heifer been invented by Jewish Priests, as some affirm, they would have placed it in the Book of Leviticus), saying, Speak unto the Children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke (the heifer symbolizes Christ; it was spotless externally and without blemish internally; without yoke means it was free from any bondage whatever; as well, the color red refers to the fact that Christ robed Himself with the red earth of manhood):

³And you shall give her unto Eleazar the Priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face (Christ was led of the Spirit to Calvary, where He offered up Himself):

⁴And 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 (the sprinkling of the blood seven times speaks of a perfect Redemption, all made possible by the death of Christ on the Cross, necessitating the shedding of His Blood [Eph. 2:13-18]):

⁵And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn (the fire had a double meaning: 1. It spoke first of all of the Judgment of God upon Christ, instead of upon us to whom it rightfully belonged all of humanity; and, 2. The Judgment poured out upon Christ signified that all sin was atoned; Justification means that one is declared by God as not guilty, but it goes further and means that one is also innocent; it also refers to the fact that every sin is forgiven, and taken away; and last of all, the justified person is placed in a position before God as if he had never sinned; that is Justification [Rom. 5:1-2]):

⁶And the Priest shall take cedar wood (typical of the Cross), and hyssop (typical of the Humanity of Christ), and scarlet (typical of the shed Blood), and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer (meaning that the heifer is a Type of Christ dying on the Cross of Calvary, atoning for the sin of mankind).

⁷Then the Priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the Priest shall be unclean until the evening. (Even though the Priests were Types of Christ, still they were only types; consequently, when dealing with sin, which this ritual did, they became unclean, and had to go through a cleansing process. The difference in the Type and Christ is that Christ dealt with sin on the Cross, but dealt with it in regard to its penalty. His Perfection was never marred or sullied by sin. In other words, He sanctified the Cross with His Perfection and, above all, His shed Blood.)

⁸And he who burns her (the heifer) shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the evening.

⁹And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place (signifying that the price that Christ would pay would be total, and would leave nothing of sin; the nothingness was symbolized by the ashes), and it shall be kept for the congregation of the Children of Israel for a water of separation: it is a purification for sin (of course, this was only a symbolism of the real purification that would come with the death of Christ on the Cross; in the symbol, the ashes would be mixed with water, and then applied to that which was polluted).

¹⁰And he who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening: and it shall be unto the Children of Israel, and unto the stranger who sojourns among them, for a Statute forever (the word forever pertained to the entirety of the time of the Law; when Jesus came, this was fulfilled, and was no longer needed, because His Blood cleanses from all sin [I Jn. 1:7]).

WATER OF PURIFICATION

¹¹He who touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days (death in all its forms is the ultimate conclusion of sin, and is a result of the Fall).

¹²He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean. (Williams says, Restoration was only possible after an application of the ashes of the heifer on the third day and on the seventh day. The three days prior to the first purging fastened on the conscience the hatefulness of sin to God; the four days prior to the second and final application of the ashes and running water instructed the conscience as to the perfection of the purge and the wonders of the grace that provided it.

He goes on to say, Possibly the third day pointed to the Resurrection of Christ; the seventh day to His return in Glory. During the first period only an imperfect sense of the fullness of His Sacrifice is possible; but in the coming glorious seventh day there will be a perfected consciousness of this fullness.)

¹³Whosoever touches the dead body of any man who is dead, and purifies not himself, defiles the Tabernacle of the LORD (the uncleanness of death was not simply a personal matter; it involved, if not duly purged, the whole congregation, and reached even to God Himself, for its defilement spread to the Sanctuary); and that soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his unclean ness is yet upon him (the ashes were to be mixed with the water, and then applied to that which was polluted; it was called the water of separation).

¹⁴This is the Law, when a man dies in a tent: all who come into the tent, and all who are in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.

¹⁵And every open vessel, which has no covering bound upon it, is unclean. (Pulpit says, If the vessel was open, its contents were polluted by the odour of death.)

¹⁶And whosoever touches one who 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 (this means that if a bone is touched, even though a thousand years old, it will defile the individual who does the touching, and will bring about exclusion from the camp, at least for seven days; even then, the purification process must be engaged).

¹⁷And for an unclean person they shall take the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel:

¹⁸And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons who were there, and upon him who touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave (this is what Jesus was referring to in Matthew 23:27):

¹⁹And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at evening (the words at evening refer to the defiled person pronounced clean; this speaks of the preciousness of Christs atoning Blood, and its sufficiency to cleanse from all sin; at the evening of life, this is the greatest assurance of all).

²⁰But the man who shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he has defiled the Sanctuary of the LORD: the water of separation has not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean (in New Covenant terminology, this speaks of the individual who ignores the only remedy for sin, which is the shed Blood of Jesus Christ, thereby placing his faith in something else; he will be eternally lost).

²¹And it shall be a perpetual Statute unto them, that he who sprinkles the water of separation shall wash his clothes; and he who touches the water of separation shall be unclean until evening.

²²And whatsoever the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and the soul that touches it shall be unclean until evening. (All of this is meant to portray the awfulness of sin. The whole design of this ritual is meant to impress upon mankind this truth. The defilement of sin reached even to the very means Divinely appointed as a remedy. This is what Paul meant when he said, Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? [Rom. 7:24]. When he used the pronoun Who instead of what, the Apostle was on his way to truth.)