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!

Loving God by Loving the Church the Way Christ Does – Drive to Make the Church Holy – Pt. 3

Ephesians 5:25b-27 – “…As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

During the last few weeks, we have reflected on how we can show our love for God by loving the church the way Christ does.  We first talked about what the church is and isn’t, so that we can better understand what we are supposed to love (For those of those who have yet to read it, it is archived.  And in summary, we as the body of Christ are the Church.).  Next, we talked about how we can show our love by giving of ourselves to the Church in the same way Christ gave of Himself.  Interestingly enough, we find the next way we can show our love just following up that verse in Ephesians 5:26-27.  In these two verses, Paul gave us a simple and clear reason as to why Christ gave Himself up for the Church – “that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”  Simply put, Christ died for us so that He might make us holy and present us to Himself as holy.  This means that if we are to love the Church the way Christ does, we must seek to make the Church holy.

The word holy in the Greek is hagios, which simply means “separated,” usually in the context of being separated for God (Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words).  Basically, Christ died for us so that we could be live a life separated unto Him.  Unfortunately, the state of the Church today looks nothing like being separated from the world but instead appears to look more and more like it as time progress.  My heart wrenches when it hears the sad commentary on the modern day church.  Divorce rates for proclaimed Christians are just the same as that of unbelievers.  Acts of greed, idolatry, and covetousness within the church match what is seen in the world.  And even sexual immorality is exposed in those who should be leading and shepherding the churches.  Church after church have accepted the “norms” of society and preached a feel-good message in order to fill pews, instead of standing for what is right and rebuking sin.  To think that we who are called to be holy look nothing different than the world we live in.  That is deplorable.  I can almost bet that most people that know us as acquaintances would never be able to tell that we were Christians unless the exact words, “I am a Christian and have placed my faith in Jesus Christ,” came out of our mouths.  It should not be required for us to speak, to wear “Christian” T-shirts, or to carry a big sign that points us out as Christians; instead, it should be evident in our lives that we are Christians by the way we live.  So the question really comes down to this:  If I truly want to help make the church holy, what can I do?

The first thing mentioned in our passage today is that Christ died to sanctify the Church. The word sanctify means to separate as holy, specifically, as unto the Lord; but we can do nothing to sanctify ourselves or the Church, the only person that can sanctify is Jesus Christ, for He is our Sanctification (1 Corinthians 1:30).  Now let me make this as clear as I can, Christ does not only do something to make us holy and separate from the world, He is the reason we are separate from the world.  He does not just make us holy and righteous, which forces us to be different from the world.  No!  He is the reason we are separate from the world – our association with Him, His living in our hearts, our being His bride – these are the reasons we are automatically separated from the world, nothing has to be done.  He is our sanctification.  To clarify this idea before I confuse anyone further, here is an example from pop culture.  Marvel Comics introduced a team of unusual individuals called the X-men in the 1960s.  Each of these individuals were termed mutants because they had “mutant” genes that manifested extraordinary powers that no “normal” humans had.  Whenever these powers showed up, society would know that that person was a mutant and would then immediately ostracize him or her.  But the truth was that whether the person used his powers or not, he was a mutant, because he had this mutant gene already in him.  He could pretend to be something else, but he is truly a mutant and separate.  It is the same in Christianity.  When one receives Christ as Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ immediately begins to dwell in that person’s heart.  Whether he shows it in his life or not is his choice, but Christ already lives in him and sets him apart from the world which does not have Christ.  Christ is the Sanctification, the Separation, the one Thing that makes us holy.  But as stated just previously, we as the Church have the choice whether we will show this Sanctification in our lives or not.  Will we live reflecting Christ to the world by allowing His life to live through us?  Or will we try to hide like mutants pretending to be normal instead of showing the world the extraordinary Change within us?  Paul in Galatians 2:20 states, “I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  Will we allow Christ, our Sanctification, live through us, separating us from the world?

Second, the passage mentions that Christ cleanses the church by the washing of water with the Word.  He began and finished this process when He died on the cross for our sins, cleansing the stain of sin that tarnished our hearts and lives.  From that point forward, we were washed clean never having that stain again.  But occasionally as we live our lives here on earth, we begin to add wrinkles and spots back into the purified garments of our lives as we fail to obey His commandments and as we add idols into our lives that may not necessarily have started out as “evil desires.”  It is then that Christ uses His Word to convict our hearts and cleanse us again, not washing the full body but just as the feet (John 13).  As Christians, we can show this same love for the Church by being watchdogs for our fellow Christians.  When we see our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ falling prey to some sin or some idol, we must be sure to rebuke and reproach them in love and not condemnation.  For love does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6).  We must seek to cleanse it out, but not just in our own way but with the Word of God.  We must drive them to seek the Word of God and allow the Holy Spirit to convict their hearts and lives to return to Christ, their Lord and Master.  May we love the church by seeking to make it clean.

Lastly, our passage reveals the desire of Christ that His church be holy and without blemish when presented to Him.  This last point is so closely connected to the first two that there need not be any extra explanation but a quick and short reminder that if we seek to love the church the way Christ loves it, we must seek its holiness and purity.  We must first seek it in our own personal lives, making sure that there is no log in our eye.  Then, we must extend its reach to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ helping removing the specks from theirs.  May we stand for truth and make sure that Christ is honored and glorified in the church as the church reflects Christ, our Sanctification, to the world.

Why Serve the Lord? For We Have His Family Name

1 Peter 1:15-16 – “…But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.'”
In many different cultures, a person’s family name (last name) is extremely important, in that, whenever a person carrying that name does something it is not only associated with that person but his whole family. If the man did something of honor, his family would receive praise; but if the man committed a heinous crime, his family would receive the blame. Due to the value of the family name in these cultures, children are taught at a very young age to live up to the family values so that no disgrace would fall upon the family. Disney got this right when they depicted the family’s concern for their reputation in the movie Mulan. Due to my Chinese roots, I was taught from childhood to watch my actions so that it would reflect well on my family. Because of this upbringing, I easily understood the concept of protecting the name of Christ when I became a Christian.
When you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are adopted into God’s family, meaning that you have basicallly obtained Christ’s family name. This is why people who have made the decision to follow Christ are called Christians – Christ followers. Since we now carry His family name, it is our obligation to live up to the characteristics associated with that name. For example, Christ’s name is associated with love; therefore, love should be outpouring from our hearts. Not a love that is of human understanding but agape unconditional love. Christ’s name is also associated with justice, meaning that the decisions we make in our life should be just decisions. And most certainly, Christ’s name is associated with holiness. The word holy means “to be separated,” and in the context of Scripture it almost always means to be set apart away from sin and devoted to God. For example, whenever in the Old Testament when a person burnt a sacrifice on the altar in the Tabernacle, what was burnt was considered holy, for it was set apart for God. One of the key reasons why we need to live just and holy lives is because our Heavenly Father is holy, and we are carrying His name – we are associated with holiness. For a Christian to not live a holy life is like a dog not knowing how to fetch. It should be so natural that if it doesn’t happen one should be surprised.
In addition, we must remember that since we carry the name of Christ, we are also adding associations with the name Christian. If we fail to live holy lives and instead live according to the flesh, committing heinous sins, then from that point forwad, people will associate that sin with Christians. It has already happened with the word hypocrite. Due to the disobedient actions of a few Christians, the current way people think of Christians is hypocrites. Would we like immoral, promiscuous, short-tempered associated with our God? Of course not, so why would we allow that to be in our lives, we who bear the name of Christ?
Be ye holy, for your God is holy.