The instructions given by Moses for the slaying of the Red Heifer, as recorded in Numbers 19, are essentially a provision for the wilderness, and as such are typically full of instruction to Christians in this dispensation. The wilderness is where we contract defilement, and God makes gracious provision for this.
A red heifer, a female, without spot, with no blemish, and upon which never came yoke was to be chosen. This sets forth our adorable Lord in a remarkable way. When it is a sacrifice setting forth directly the death of Christ in an immediate sacrificial sense, we generally find the offering is a male. When it is a female it has more a subsidiary aspect, and not the bold, broad aspect such as is presented by the burnt offering and sin offering.
Its colour was to be red, as if to say, Do not forget that every blessing whether it be the great atonement itself or the consequences flowing therefrom, is the result of the death of Christ—His atoning death, with which we have to do.
Further it had to be without spot and without blemish—no outward or inward deficiency. How true this is of our Lord, “He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). No one could accuse Him of sin in deed or word. Many a man sins in word, where he may refrain from sinful deed, many a man refrains from outward acts of sin, whose mind and thoughts, held from being translated into action, are sinful and evil. “In Him is no sin” (1 John 3:5); “Who knew no sin;” (2 Cor. 5:21), proves that our Lord was as pure inwardly as He was irreproachable outwardly. If there had been any flaw in Him outwardly or inwardly He could not have been our Saviour, nor, in the way we are considering, furnish any provision and help for His people as they travel in their wilderness journey.
This red heifer had to be taken outside the camp and slain in the presence of Eleazar, the High Priest. The great sacrifices detailed to us in Leviticus 1-7 were all slain at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, but here it is slain outside the camp. This shows that what we are considering flows from and is in virtue of, the atoning death of Christ yet at the same time, the blood of the red heifer is sprinkled seven times before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, identifying it in measure with the great offerings of Leviticus 1-7. We can differentiate between offering and offering, but we cannot divorce one from the other, because in the Antitype we have the one grand sacrifice of our Lord on the cross, fulfilling all the great types of Exodus and Leviticus, which we have just touched on.
The heifer was burned sacrificially, her skin, her flesh, her blood, with her dung. In other words, the judgment on our Lord, all His deep unfathomable sufferings on the cross, fell upon Him not of His own account, for He “offered Himself without spot to God,” “through the eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14). Never did He stand higher in the favour of God, than when He took our place on the cross. The judgment passed upon Him was that which the sinner merited. That the sinner might have the offer of pardon and forgiveness, He endured the cross, He made full atonement for sin.
The skin stands for the outward adornment and beauty of the animal, and sets forth that the best of man in the flesh, that which men boast in, comes under the stern judgment of sin.
All had to come under judgment, for not only the skin, the outward beauty, but the flesh and blood, standing for the sinner in his sins, and the dung, typifying the worst of man as the skin typifies the best—all has to come under the judgment of God at the cross.
Cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet were flung into the burning—cedar wood, the noblest tree in creation, the hyssop, the meanest of weeds, setting forth that man at his best estate must come to an end in the cross of Christ, as well as man in his lowest estate. Solomon spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall” (1 Kings 4:33), thus ranging from the loftiest to the meanest. Scarlet, too was flung into the burning—scarlet, the kingly colour, speaking of worldly pomp and glory.
It reminds us of that great Christian lady, Countess de Crudener, who dared to deal faithfully with the soul of the Czar Alexander, saying; “Sire, if you come to God as the Czar of all the Russians, you will get nothing, but if you come as a guilty undeserving sinner, trusting the Saviour, who died for you, you will get all the blessings of the Gospel.”
Once the red heifer was thus burned, its ashes were kept in a clean place. The holiness of God is thus emphasised. The priest, who superintended the burning; the man, who did the actual burning; the man who gathered up, the ashes, had all to wash their clothes, and be unclean till the even. God would thus impress His holiness upon all who had to do with Himself through sacrifice.
Now the ashes were available for uncleanness. If any man touched a dead body, or a death occurred in a tent all in the tent became unclean, and even open vessels were unclean. Touching a dead body slain by the sword in the open fields, or a bone of a man, or a grave, would render a person unclean for seven days.
In order that there might be cleansing for such the ashes of the burnt heifer were to be put in a vessel with running water. Water typically is ever a symbol of the Word of God, running water, of the Word of God applied in living power to the soul. This in conjunction with the ashes typically sets forth the Spirit of God, applying the meaning of the death of Christ under the judgment of God in living power through the Word of God, thus effecting cleansing from wilderness defilement.
A clean person had to take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the person or thing that was to be cleansed. This had to be repeated on the third day, and again on the seventh day. Then on the seventh day the defiled person had to purify himself, wash his clothes, bathe himself in water, and in the even he would be ceremonially clean.
The hyssop, the meanest of herbs, sets forth repentance. To come to the Scriptures with pride, clad as it were in scarlet, will never do. There must be humility. Further, this type shows that defilement is not so easily removed, when the first sprinkling does not suffice, nor the second on the third day, but only the third on the seventh day, and that not without washing of clothes, and bathing in water and then not till the even was reached. Meditating on this chapter we get a striking lesson as to the holiness needed with those who have to do with God. We get also a deep sense of the value of the atoning death of our adorable Lord, whether in its primary effects when we first came to the Lord as guilty sinners seeking forgiveness of sins; or in this secondary way when as saints we seek to answer to God’s holiness in our practical everyday life in this defiling world.