Numbers 19:1-22 - Purge Me With Hyssop, And I Shall Be Clean

I. THE PURIFYING ELEMENT .

1 . It was water, pure spring water ( Numbers 19:17 ). A most natural symbol, much used in the Levitical lustrations, and which is still in use in the Christian Church. At the door of the sanctuary there is still a laver. In the sacrament of baptism Christ says to every candidate for admission into his house, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me."

2 . In the present instance the ashes of a sin offering were mingled with the water. A heifer was procured at the expense of the congregation,—red, unblemished, on which never yoke had come,—and it was slain as a sacrifice. The red heifer was a true sin offering. It is so named in Numbers 19:9 , Numbers 19:17 (Hebrew). But in several respects it differed remarkably from all the other sin offerings. Although the priest was to see it slain, and with his own finger sprinkled its blood toward the holy place, he was forbidden to slay it himself; it was slain not at the altar, but outside the camp, and the carcass was wholly consumed without being either flayed, or cleaned, or divided, or laid out in order. Besides, every one who took part in the sacrificial act was thereby rendered unclean; for which reason Eleazar, not Aaron, was to do the priest's part—the high priest might not defile himself for any cause. The ashes of this singular offering were carefully preserved to be used to communicate purifying virtue to the water required for lustration from time to time. None of these details is without meaning, if we could only get at it. The points of chief importance are these:—

II. THE PURIFYING RITE ( Numbers 19:17-19 ). Nothing could be more simple. A few particles of the ashes of the sin offering were put into a vessel of spring water; this was sprinkled with a bunch of hyssop on the unclean person on the third day and. again on the seventh, an act which any clean person could perform in any town; by this act the uncleanness was removed. A simple rite, but not, therefore, optional.

Willful neglect was a presumptuous sin.

General lessons:—

1 . There is something in sin which unfits for the society of God. One of the chief lessons of the ceremonial law. When the grace of God touches the heart, one of its first effects is to open the heart to feel this. "Lord, I am vile." As habits of personal cleanliness make a man loathe himself when he has been touched with filth, so the grace of God makes a man loathe himself for sin.

2 . There is provision in Christ for making men clean. His blood purges the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

3 . Of this provision we must not omit to avail ourselves. Willful neglect of the blood of sprinkling is presumptuous sin.—B.