Lessons From The Red Heifer

by H. Brindle | Category: General | Feb 1961

(Numbers 19)

The slaying and burning of the red heifer was God's provision for the defilement of death. The Israelite who came into contact with a dead person became defiled. Sometimes many were so affected. It is significant that the statute relative to the red heifer, in Numbers 19, was given after Israel refused to enter the land. Death claimed all the fighting men save two.

The ashes of the heifer with living water, described as " a water of separation," when sprinkled upon the defiled on the appointed days wrought cleansing. In Hebrews 9 we have defilement through dead works; from such defilement the blood of Christ can cleanse the conscience. The red heifer was a sin offering. It must be a heifer upon which never came a yoke, and it must be without blemish. It was slain outside the camp and was witnessed by Eleazar, the priest. " One shall slay her before his face ... and one shall bum the heifer in his sight." (Please read Acts 10.41 and 1 Peter 5.1.) With his finger he took the blood, and sprinkled it toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times.

The shadow or type in the burning of the red heifer will help us to enter into the spirit of the words in Psalm 22, "My heart is like wax; It is melted in the midst of My bowels.... Thou hast brought Me into the dust (ashes) of death." The character of the fire in the burnt offering was of a slower kind and it rather fed upon the offering as if with delight. When the sacrifice was fully subjected to the fierce heat, cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet (wool) were cast into the midst of the burning. Each of these in some way added virtue and worth to the sacrifice. Yet, we sing truly,

"All are too mean to speak His worth,

Too mean to set the Saviour forth."

Cedar wood points to the humanity of the Lord Jesus; in this case it probably speaks of His excellencies as a Man (see Matthew 8. 27; Luke 7.16, 9.48). In the eyes of enlightened ones, "His aspect is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars" (Song of Songs 5.15). The fact that men totally failed to recognize His glorious worth, and finally gave to Him the very lowest place, only serve to enhance His beauty, for sure we are that as God beheld Him upon the Cross, none of the cedar-like excellence of His Manhood was affected by the shameful tree. At Calvary the cedar was cast into the midst of the burning : there men confessed, "He saved others." It was there He reached the dying robber, and many myriads besides.

The place given to hyssop in the Bible indicates that it speaks of faith. So very different from the strong and majestic cedar, this little plant grew by clinging to the wall (1 Kings 4.88), aptly foreshadowing the One who, belonging originally to heights far, far above Lebanon, condescended to fill a little place, being made to trust upon His mother's breasts (Psalm 22.9). The world was made by Him, the heavens are the work of His fingers, and yet He was meek and lowly, and was led as a Lamb to the slaughter. In reproach, His enemies witnessed of Him in the utter loneliness of the Cross, "He trusted in God." Truly the hyssop was cast into the midst of the burning, and sweet and real were the psalmist's words of Christ at that time, " Thou wilt not leave My soul in Sheol." What acceptance such faith would find with God!

So truly did the Saviour become sin for us that His inward experience is reflected in the words, "I am a Worm, and no man A reproach of men, and despised of the people" (Psalm 22.6). This may be an answer to the scarlet (worm scarlet) which Eleazar used in conjunction with the cedar and the hyssop. Scarlet may speak of the kingship of Christ, for He died with this title over His head, yes, and He was crowned as well, but He was bruised (crushed) for our iniquities.

The climax of the impressive type outside the camp of Israel was the gathering and the carrying-away of the ashes (dust). Psalm 22.15 has the same word; these ashes differ from the altar ashes which properly were fatty ashes, but the ashes of Numbers 19 might have been blown away with the wind. What a tragic end the Cross was to such a noble life, which would no glory borrow, no majesty from earth! To those sad men and women who loved Him to the end, His death left them with what seemed to some, no doubt, a mere handful of ashes, what remained of hope in their breasts seemed liable to be blown away.

We cannot enter into His thoughts as He felt His strength being dried up like a potsherd, but His simple faith never failed; with them it was different; they were slow to believe what the prophets had spoken. Joseph and Nicodemus, clean men, carried the precious body away, like the ashes of old, and in this wondrous death there is power to separate, to cleanse souls from death and this defiling world. The ashes in Numbers 19 were laid up in a clean place, so that when any in Israel were defiled this means of cleansing was available. Where there was neglect (verse 18), or disregard (verse 20), the unclean brought defilement upon others, indeed upon the sanctuary of the Lord. That soul was cut off from Israel. But even such as did submit themselves to the statute affected others, for whatever or whoever came into contact with the unclean person also became unclean, to the very one who touched the water. How serious this matter is in this day of the substance, compared with that of the shadow! If a man defiled the dwelling place of God by having made contact with the bone of a man, and remained uncleansed, should we not be more alive to the defiling influences of this unclean world? Hebrews 9 sums it up under the expression of " dead works" and serious is the effect of such upon an enlightened conscience, if it remains uncleansed by the blood of Christ.

There is a point worth noting in verse 15, where we read of open vessels with no covering bound upon them being made unclean by death. How suggestive this is of the need to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, to gird up the loins of the mind, and to exercise increasing care as to that to which we lend our ears.

Perhaps there is no season when the effects of defilement trouble us so much as on the Lord's day in our most holy exercises, when the mind should be free from such distraction.

In conclusion we turn in thought to the Song of Songs where the words are found ; "A garden shut up is my sister, my bride a spring shut up, a fountain sealed" (4. 12). "It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, "Open to me ... my undefiled" (5.2).

H. Brindle | Feb 1961
General