Red Heifer, Red Wood, Red Wool, Red Rum

Numbers 19 is, to our modern sensibilities, a bizarre chapter of scripture. First, there is detailed account involving a red heifer and the rituals that surround it. The heifer is a beast, that is unbroken by profane work, thereby suitable for sacred work. She is colored like the source of life. In addition to the heifer, the ritual adds some red wool and some red wood, and a dash of hyssop for purification, and you come out with an  animal that represents life and is used for the purification of its complete opposite – death.

Death is the second jarring image presented in the passage. Jarring not because of its presence – death is a reality to all of us. But it is jarring because it is examined from every possible angle. From touching a body, to being in a room with a body, to touching bones – even a single bone. This seems fine and well, and maybe the first thought we have is “what has this got  to do with me?”

Few of us have or will live out the plot of Stand by Me. We don’t often encounter bodies in the wild, and we certainly don’t poke them with sticks. But we do encounter death. All too tragic and all too real are our encounters with the loss of life among those we love. Consider,  then, that the last thing on our mind when we are in the presence of loved ones, in the presence of tragedy, is that we have somehow become tainted and unclean by death, the most egregious of enemies. Praise the Lord that we don’t have to worry about that, anymore (do we?).

But this wasn’t so for Israel! Israel did have to worry about becoming unclean in the  presence of the dead. To show the seriousness of the whole affair, those performing the  purification acts are considered unclean until evening, and the end of the chapter expresses that  those who aren’t purified are to be cut off from the assembly of God. This is a major deal for  Israel. 

And we may still wonder – how many bodies could Israel find in the wilderness? Is this a real problem? Why do they need such a specific provision for death? Not even 3 chapters earlier, well over 14,700 Israelites died.  14,700 bodies provides a lot of opportunities to become defiled. Consider further that Israel is moving through the wilderness, encountering battlefields (which contain bones), and armies (which produce bodies). Even more  daunting, Israel’s previous plague will quickly take a back seat to an upcoming loss of 24,000 Israelites in Numbers 25! Israel cannot escape death! The Lord in His mercy  provided a sacrifice that needs to be prepared infrequently. Just add some living water from a  stream, mix in the ashes of the heifer, and you can be clean. God provided a way purify those who have come into contact with the dead. 

But that wasn’t enough. The blood of animals would never be enough. Because physical  death wasn’t the even deadliest element of sin, and that’s what this is – a sin offering. And here,  we like the Israelites cannot escape our reality. Death is real, but physical death symbolizes spiritual death. We need to have death washed from us. We inherited it from our older brother,  Adam. We have found the bone in the field; we have breathed in the air of a corpse in the room.  We are no strangers to death because until Jesus saved us, we were the walking dead. 

But Jesus did purchase His people. And Jesus did it by fulfilling the roles of two of the  major characters in this story. It’s easy to see that we are people in need of cleansing. And it also  is easy to see that Jesus is the perfect, unblemished, source of life that the heifer pointed to. As  the author of Hebrews writes, the blood of an animal would never be enough, and the sprinkling of  ashes in water would only clean so much. Jesus is the perfect sacrifice. There is no need to  sprinkle blood after the loss of a loved one. But more than that Jesus is the one whose blood  washes away the true reality of death – He washes away sins of the world. He died so that you  might live.

And Jesus is the high priest. But He is a better High Priest! Why did Eleazar, and not  Aaron, perform the rite? Aaron could not perform the rite, because He would be defiled, and  become impure. He would be unqualified to mediate for Israel as a stained man. He could not  risk the impurity. But not our High Priest. For His Sacrifice, our Priest left the camp. He touched  the blood. He bore the impurity, He became the curse, He wore those spots that Aaron had to  avoid. And He did it to purify a His people, to wash us white as snow (Psalm 51:7). And He did  something Aaron, and the heifer could never have done – He rose spotless from the grave. 

Just as those that rejected the purification ritual were cut off from assembling with Israel,  those who have rejected the purification of Jesus will be cut off from God. There is mercy in this  passage, but there is heat, too. Call upon the name of the Lord. Believe that He is Lord, that He  rose from the dead, take hold of that incredible sacrifice He made for you. You cannot save or  purify yourself. Call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. Otherwise, you will be cut off and  unclean forever. 

There are many things we can do as Christians, but there are two to which this passage points. First, we should all walk in Christ’s ways. Ezekiel 36:26 is an incredible verse, a verse that many know well. God will give you a heart of flesh. And we recognize that that is one of the end results of Jesus’s death on the cross – he accomplished redemption, and that  redemption will be applied to us. A new heart. 

But, many of our memories seem to fade after that memory verse. God says that this new  heart is accompanied by His Spirit, and He says that “you will walk in My statutes, and you will  be careful to observe My ordinances.” One chapter later, in Ezekiel 37:23, we see that this  transformation is part of God’s desire to cleanse his people. God gave us a new heart to cleanse  us. He purified for Himself “a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14). Titus continues to empower this description. He says do not forget what you once were – dead in your sins. But, God appeared to save you so that you would be made heirs and walk  according to that light. 

Secondly, and more importantly, we need to be continually washing ourselves and our  families in the Gospel. Maybe you have children. Maybe sometimes those children take a bath.  Maybe sometimes those children take a bath without soap. What they need is a better bath. But  even a better bath doesn’t last forever – all the soap in the world doesn’t prevent the dirt of the  next days events. We need to wash them, and wash ourselves with something better. 

The sacrifice of Christ is a once for all sacrifice - it doesn’t ever need to be repeated. If the heifer covered a multitude of sins,  Christ covers an infinitude of sins. But, that doesn’t mean that the gospel is simply an entry point into our lives, and if you heard it once you can just leave it by the wayside. Again, like the heifer, this was something prepared in response to and in preparation for impurity. Christ’s death is for sins - past, present, and future.  

Failure to parent your children, failure to lead your families, love your wives, respect  your husbands, failure is going to happen. But Christ’s cross extends into your today and  tomorrow just as much as it covered your past. The Gospel isn’t merely an entry point into  Christianity, or the exit point where we go to heaven. As Alfred Poirier writes in The Peacemaking Pastor, “The Gospel is the air we breathe in the  house of God.” It is the source of life, it is as much a necessity for the saint as it is for the sinner.  The found sheep needs to hear his shepherds voice just as much as the lost one. 

While we shouldn’t be happy about it, we fail. Even the saint is still, like Lazarus, wearing his grave clothes. We live, but the stench of death is still there. Death is the enemy, and  it’s all around us, and our flesh is at war within us. Yet, we have been given a truth that  overshadows that battle. We look to Christ, “knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over him… Even so, consider yourselves to  be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” 

The way we do not let sin reign is to recognize that God’s purification ritual was not  temporary. We must accept that this washing of our sins is sufficient and continue to look toward and lean on that washing. We must continually to that fountain fly, the fountain of life from that once-for-all-slain lamb, whose blood exceeds the blood of all others. As Isaac Watts writes,

Not all the blood of beasts, 
On Jewish altars slain 
Could give the guilty conscience peace 
Or wash away its stain. 
But Christ, the heavenly Lamb, 
Takes all our sins away— 
A sacrifice of nobler name 
And richer blood than they.