(13)
Scripture Reading: Num. 19
In this message we will cover chapter nineteen of Numbers, which deals with the water for impurity. However, before I come to this matter, I would like to say a word about the way the book of Numbers is sectioned.
The first section (1:1—9:14) shows the formation of the children of Israel into an army. From 9:15 they began as the army to set out on their journey. They traveled only a little more than three days before the troubles, turmoils, and rebellions came in. These things began to take place in chapter eleven.
Chapters eleven through fourteen form one group, in which we see four aspects of rebellion. First, the people on the border, on the edge, of the camp murmured evil against God (11:1-3; cf. Deut. 8:2). Second, the mixed multitude, those who were not clear about their status and family, lusted according to their fleshly desires (Num. 11:4-35). Third, Miriam and Aaron, who were very close to Moses and in the center of the administration, rebelled (12:1-16). Fourth, the children of Israel were unbelieving concerning entering into the good land. That was a rebellion out of the unbelief of a fleshly people (13:1—14:38).
Chapter fifteen is an insertion in which ordinances were given in three directions: concerning God's provision of different offerings, which are aspects of Christ; concerning the keeping of the Sabbath, which is to receive what God has done for us; and concerning the people's dress, which signifies that our living should have some beauty and that our conduct should be under a heavenly ruling.
Immediately after the three ordinances were given, in chapter sixteen a nationwide, universal, popular rebellion occurred. Two hundred fifty of the top leaders and well-known men from among the children of Israel rebelled to such an extent that there is no word to describe it. In the whole Bible we cannot see another occasion where God was so angry with man that He judged the leaders of the rebellion by causing the earth to open its mouth and swallow them up with their families and possessions.
It is noteworthy that some of the children of Korah did not join the rebellion. Rather, they departed from it. Eventually, Samuel, a descendant of Korah (1 Chron. 6:33-37), became a great prophet and a Nazarite priest. Samuel's grandson, Heman, became a psalmist and a holy singer in God's temple under the Levitical service arranged by David.
Chapter seventeen records that at the end of that vast, terrible rebellion, God vindicated Aaron by the resurrected Christ in His resurrection power. This power was displayed in a dead and dried up piece of wood that budded, blossomed, and bore fruit, even unto maturity.
Chapters eighteen and nineteen are another insertion. Apparently chapter eighteen is a regulation that reconfirms the compensation, or reward, given to the Aaronic priesthood and the Levitical service to the priesthood. Actually it is a strong vindication added to the previous vindication, the budding rod.
Because a company of the Levites had rebelled against the priests, the people became confused. Thus, after the turmoil, God reconfirmed the priesthood. God had already confirmed the priesthood in the books of Exodus and Leviticus. Now, in Numbers, God reconfirmed the reward to the priesthood and the Levitical service. This was a strong vindication against the rebellion.
If we read chapters eighteen and nineteen in a superficial way, we will not be able to appreciate the background and atmosphere that remained after the rebellion. A particular kind of atmosphere was created among the children of Israel toward the priests and the Levites. Both had nothing as an inheritance to live on. They lived solely on what the children of Israel would give them in the way of tithes. The practice was that the people gave tithes to the Levites, the Levites in turn gave tithes to the priests, and the priests then offered something to God. This means that the priests, the Levites, and even God Himself lived on the mercy of the children of Israel. The Levites lived on the giving of the sons of Israel; the priests lived on the giving of the Levites; and God lived on the giving of the priests, the Levites, and the sons of Israel. If the people had refused to give, all three — the Levites, the priests, and God Himself — would have had nothing to eat. Therefore, at this juncture God came in to reconfirm His reward to the priests and to all the serving ones of the priesthood. This became a covenant, a perpetual statute, for the children of Israel to keep throughout their generations (18:11, 19, 23).
Chapter nineteen of Numbers is a very peculiar chapter in the Bible. It is not easy to understand why this chapter is here. In this chapter a heifer is burned with other items, and the ashes are used to make a water for impurity. By reading the whole chapter we can understand that the impurity, the uncleanness, refers mainly to the filthiness of death. This water is a provision to get rid of the effect and impurity of death.
Immediately after the rebellion in chapter sixteen, death was everywhere. In one day fourteen thousand seven hundred people died, and their carcasses lay everywhere. In many of the tents in the camp, there were dead bodies. A man became contaminated by touching a dead body (19:11), by being present when a person died (v. 18), or by entering the tent where a dead body had been (v. 14). The entire population of two million Israelites was under the effect of death. They were all in a situation of impurity. Thus, there was the need for the water for impurity to annul the effect and impurity of death.
Probably, in Exodus and Leviticus God did not have the thought concerning the water for impurity, because in those times there was not such a popular, universal death as in Numbers. In Numbers 19 death overshadowed the entire people of God. After the death of the fourteen thousand seven hundred, virtually all the tents and every vessel in the tents became contaminated. Wherever anyone went or whatever he touched, he became unclean.
In chapter seventeen, the budding rod was a vindication of the priesthood. Then, in chapter eighteen, the regulations were restated as a reconfirmation of the compensation to the priests and the Levites so that the problem would be settled forever. Finally, in chapter nineteen, the water for impurity was invented to deal with the universal effect of death among God's people.
Let us first consider the composition of the water for impurity and see how this water was composed.
"This is the statute of the law which Jehovah has commanded, saying, Tell the sons of Israel to bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect, and upon which a yoke has never come" (19:2). This heifer, the principal component of the water for purification, signifies Christ for our redemption.
The color red signifies the likeness of the flesh of sin, for the bearing of man's sin outwardly. When Christ was incarnated, He became in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3).
The heifer was without blemish. This signifies that Christ was without sin. Although Christ was in the likeness of the flesh of sin, within Him there was no sin. He did not have the sinful nature.
The heifer had no defect. This indicates that Christ was perfect.
The heifer had never been under a yoke. This signifies that Christ was never used by anyone, especially by or for God's enemy, Satan.
"You shall give her to Eleazar the priest, and she shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered before him" (Num. 19:3). Christ was crucified outside the camp (Heb. 13:12), on Calvary, a little mount outside the city of Jerusalem.
"Eleazar the priest shall take some of her blood with his finger, and shall sprinkle some of her blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times" (Num. 19:4). On the day of propitiation, the blood of propitiation was brought into the tabernacle (in the middle of the camp) and was sprinkled upon the ark and toward the veil (Lev. 4:5-7; 16:14-15). However, the heifer was slaughtered outside the camp, far away from the tent of meeting, yet the blood was sprinkled seven times toward the front of the tent of meeting.
Her skin, flesh, and blood, with her dung, were to be burned in the sight of the priest (Num. 19:5).
"The priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet, and cast them into the midst of the burning of the heifer" (v. 6). Cedar wood signifies Christ in His dignified humanity, hyssop signifies Christ in His humbled humanity, and scarlet signifies redemption in its highest significance. This means that the high and dignified Christ and the lowly and humbled Christ in His redemption were elements put into the composition of the water for impurity.
Numbers 19:9 refers to the ashes of the heifer. The burning of the heifer with the other elements produced ashes, which signify Christ reduced to nothing. These ashes were kept for the water for impurity; it was a purification of sin, or a sin offering.
Verse 17b speaks of running water. Literally, the Hebrew word translated "running" means living. This living water signifies the Holy Spirit in the resurrection of Christ. In the water for impurity, there is the efficacy of Christ's redemption with the washing power of the Spirit of His resurrection.
The next matter we need to see is how the water for purification was used.
The water for impurity was to be sprinkled upon the unclean persons: those who touched a dead body, or came into a tent or were already in a tent in which a man died, or touched one who had been slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave (vv. 11-14, 16-20). This is a picture of the situation of the children of Israel at that time. The uncleanness of death was everywhere.
The impurity in this chapter does not refer to sin but to death. Death comes out of sin, and sin is the root of death (Rom. 5:12). From the sin of rebellion, death became prevailing among the children of Israel. Thus, there was the need for the water for impurity. Only the working of Christ's redemption, through His dignified and humbled humanity, with His death and the Spirit of His resurrection, could heal and cleanse the situation.
The water was also to be sprinkled upon the tent in which a man died and upon all the open vessels and furnishings in the tent, for their cleansing (Num. 19:15, 18).
The priest who sprinkled the blood of the heifer and burned its skin, flesh, and blood, with its dung, the man who burned the heifer, the man who gathered up the ashes of the heifer, and the man who sprinkled the water for impurity were to wash their clothes and bathe themselves in water (vv. 7-10, 18-19). This signifies that whoever was involved with the water for impurity became unclean and needed to be washed and cleansed. After this, the entire situation of the children of Israel was cleansed from the effect of the death that came in from their sin of rebellion.
I hope that we all will keep in mind the four rebellions in chapters eleven through fourteen; the insertion in chapter fifteen, with the ordinances concerning the offerings, the keeping of the Sabbath, and the people's dress; the widespread rebellion in chapter sixteen; the vindication through the budding rod in chapter seventeen; and confirmation of the reward to the priests and the Levites in chapter eighteen. Following all this, we see in chapter nineteen the water for impurity to cleanse away and annul the effect of the death that came from the great rebellion.
