Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 527
Numbers 19:2,3.
THE true heading of all the books of Moses is to be found in the words of Jesus, “Moses wrote of Me.” Take the Lord Jesus Christ with you as a key, and however difficult the riddles of Leviticus or Numbers may at first sight appear, there is not one enigma in the whole collection which will not speedily open and yield instruction. To the Israelites themselves, these rites and ceremonies must have been rather an exercise of faith, than a means of instruction. “I cannot perfectly understand why this heifer is slain, or why yonder lamb is offered,” said the pious Israelite, “but though I cannot understand, I believe there is virtue in it all and I reverently do, even to the smallest particular, that which God, through His servant Moses, has commanded me to do.”
To us, the types are not a dark mystery to perplex our faith, but an open vision to delight our eyes. Having believed in Christ Jesus, having received Him as the Father’s Sent One and being reconciled unto God by His death, we look back to the ceremonies of the old Law as the patterns of heavenly things. We endeavor to discover some new light in which the Savior’s beauties may be set and to behold Him from some different point of view, so that we may love Him the better and may trust Him more. Now, the particular point to which the red heifer referred, concerning Christ and His work, is just this—the provision which is made in Christ Jesus for the daily sins and failings of Believers.
In order to bring out our point clearly, we shall remark, first, that even true Israelites are in daily danger of defilement. Secondly, that there is a provision made in the Covenant of Grace for the removal of the daily defilement of sin. And thirdly, that the red heifer most beautifully sets forth Christ as being the constant purification of His people, that they, having their consciences purged from dead works, may have power to worship acceptably the living and true God.
I. It is undoubtedly true, that even THE TRUE ISRAELITE, THE TRUE BELIEVER IN CHRIST, IS THE SUBJECT OF DAILY DEFILEMENT. My Brothers and Sisters, we who have believed in Christ are free from sin before the Divine judgment seat. The moment that we believe in Christ, our sin is no longer ours. It was laid upon Christ and cannot be in two places at one time. And therefore are we perfectly clean from sin before the eyes of a holy God. This is justification, full, complete, everlasting. But we are all aware, that in the matter of sanctification, we are not, as yet, delivered from evil.
Sin dwells, though it reigns not in our mortal bodies. And since there is sin within, there is the capability of the defilement of sin without. Who has lived for a single day in this base world without discovering that in all his actions he commits sin? Who does not realize that in everything to which he puts his hand, he receives, as well as imparts, some degree of defilement? How is it, my Brothers and Sisters, that this is the case? The answer is easy, and it is to be found in the chapter before us.
Some of our defilement arises from the fact that we do actually come into contact with sin, here imaged in the corruption of death. Read the eleventh verse—“He that touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.” We actually touch that dead thing and sin, by overt acts of transgression. The best man living still pollutes himself with evil. We have met with a few vain and ignorant persons who have boasted that they were perfect, but we never believed in their perfection, except so far as to concede that they were perfect in self-conceit, in boastful arrogance, and infamous impudence.
“If any man says he has no sin, he deceives himself, and the truth is not in him.” The best of men are men at the best and while they are men, they will sin. We find the Apostle Paul crying out because of corruption and even using such strong language as this—“O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” We are in close connection with sin, because sin is in ourselves. It has dyed us through and through, staining the very warp and woof of our nature. Until we lay aside these bodies and are admitted to the Church of the First-Born above, we shall never cease very close and intimate connection with sin.
Therefore, my Brothers and Sisters, we need to be constantly cleansed, because we are always defiling ourselves. In fact, we are always defiled because we are always touching the body of this death. Moreover, we get defilement, not only from our own actual sins, but from companionship with other sinners. You will read farther on in this chapter, “When a man dies in a tent: all that come into the tent and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean.” The mere being with sinners defiles us. Christ could walk with publicans and sinners and yet incur no danger. The great Physician could walk the leper house of this world untainted by contagion, but this is not possible with us.