Quick Note – Numbers 19:14-21 – Clean for Unclean

Numbers 19:14-21 – “14 This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean seven days. 15 And every open vessel that has no cover fastened on it is unclean. 16 Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. 17 For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and fresh water shall be added in a vessel. 18 Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on whoever touched the bone, or the slain or the dead or the grave. 19 And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. Thus on the seventh day he shall cleanse him, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean. 20 If the man who is unclean does not cleanse himself, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, since he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. Because the water for impurity has not been thrown on him, he is unclean. 21 And it shall be a statute forever for them. The one who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and the one who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening.”

There are a lot of things that I like about the Bible, but one of the things I love most is the interplay between the Old and New Testament.  A lot of people think that they don’t interact with each other, but they are so intertwined that one is dependent on the other; simply put, you need to have knowledge of both if you want a deep understanding of either.  The best way to describe it is with the words of a pastor I knew, “You cannot understand the New Testament without a working knowledge of the Old.”  Things that many Christians overlook, like the Levitical laws or the Temple/Tabernacle schematics, are actually beautiful pictures and insights into what is revealed in the New Testament.  One of these pictures is found in our passage today, which describes how a person is purified after he becomes unclean.  According to the law, when a person dies in front of you or you touch a dead body, you are considered unclean for the next seven days.  Although this may seem a bit extreme, it makes sense, right?  Who doesn’t feel dirty after they have visited a cemetery or a morgue or anything related to the dead?  As with all the laws of God, when a person was unclean, he had to be removed from the assembly of the people of Israel, for he was not allowed to defile the sanctuary of the Lord in the midst of the people.  In order, for that person to return to the assembly, he needed to be washed and purified from his uncleanness.  Like always, God provided a way for those who were unclean to be brought back to Him.

This passage described how that was to be done.  First, a red heifer was sacrificed as a sin offering, and its ashes were brought outside of the camp.  When a person who was unclean wanted to cleanse himself, he would then go outside the camp and mix the ashes with some water.  Another person who had to be clean would then take hyssop, dip it in the mixture, and sprinkle it on the person who was unclean on the third and seventh day of his uncleanness.  Afterwards, he would wash himself, would be considered clean, and would be allowed back into the camp.  The interesting thing though is that the clean person would then be considered unclean until the evening, because he would likely have touched the water mixture for cleansing (vs. 21).  Simply, a person who is clean needed to become unclean temporarily so that an unclean person could become clean.  Without the clean person willingly going out and becoming unclean for another, the unclean person could never be restored into the camp.

Can you already see the correlation this passage has to the New Testament and our salvation?  The hint is that Jesus Christ, the perfect, sinless Lamb of God, came to earth to die for our sins.  Don’t see it yet?  It might be easier to see it if you have 2 Corinthians 5:21 in mind, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  God allowed His undefiled, pure Son to become sin on that cross, so that we might be righteous before Him.  Christ, who was clean, took upon Himself our uncleanness so that we could be clean and have a relationship with the Father.  The rejection of God (“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?), the judgment of God, and the wrath of God all fell on Him as He willingly poured out His life for us.  Wow!  Just look at that picture!  That one purification law was foreshadowing what Christ would do for us.  He willingly came and took our place as unclean so that we might be clean through Him.  What we must do is show our gratitude for His sacrifice by praising Him and living righteously before Him, for that is the reason why He sacrificed Himself – “…So that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Praise God for His awesome and gracious gift!