The Blood of the Cross in Numbers
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
It may seem strange to us that the Book of Numbers, which is given, for the great part, to the numbering of the Israelites and the details of their journey, should be productive of a real message upon the Cross, and yet it is so. We will give a few words on Numbers 9:1-23, and bring out two or three other visions of the Cross in later Chapter s.
1. God spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai. It was from Mount Sinai that the Law came, and the Children of Israel in their journeys were under the Law. However, in the midst of the Law, with its thunderings, and lightnings, and ensuing judgments, Christ crucified is to be found. We are admonished in the Book of Jude to keep ourselves in the love of God. He who would bask under the judgments of the Law will find great sorrow everywhere, but he who would enter into Grace will find comfort and rest.
2. God commanded Israel to keep the Passover at His appointed season. This expression carries with it the thought of time exactness. The Passover was to be kept as a God appointed Feast on the fourteenth day of the first month (Exodus 12:18). It was to be slain, not only upon that particular day, but it was to be slain on the evening of that day. Perhaps, the Children of Israel might have thought that any time would suffice to keep the Passover, but God said, "No."
In Numbers 9:2-3 God twice emphasizes that the Passover must be kept at its appointed season. We know the reason for this lay in the fact that Jesus Christ, God's Son, was destined to die in the city of Jerusalem at the very hour of the Passover Feast. It was when the time was fully come that God sent forth His Son made of a woman. It was when the month, the day, and the hour of the typical Passover Feast had come that Jesus was crucified.
The Scriptures definitely state that on one occasion when they sought to slay Him they could not touch Him "because His hour had not yet come."
3. God commanded the Children of Israel in Numbers 9:3 that they should keep the Passover according to all the ceremonies thereof. Not only then was the Passover Feast to be kept on a certain day, but everything in connection with the commanded ceremonies was also to be kept. No part was to be omitted. Nothing was to be changed. In the Book of Exodus we read seven times that "according to all that the Lord commanded [Moses], so did he."
These words were spoken in relation to the building of the Tabernacle. Why was it so vital to build the Tabernacle exactly as commanded? It was because everything in connection with the Tabernacle was figurative, and typical of the Lord Jesus Christ, either in His life, His death, His resurrection, or, in His Second Coming.
Why was it necessary to keep every phase of the Passover as commanded? Because every phase of it was vitally connected with the Lord Jesus Christ.
I. THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE PASSOVER FEAST (Numbers 9:2; Numbers 9:10; Numbers 9:14)
There are three different groups presented here.
1. The Children of Israel as a whole were commanded to keep the Feast. This is because they were God's covenant people, and their covenants were built upon pledges of God based upon the virtue of the Cross, the resurrection, and reign of Christ. They had a right to the Passover because they were under the blood.
Who among us, today, has a right to partake of baptism, and of the Lord's Supper? Every covenant child of God. Concerning the supper the Bible says that they who are of the body, have a right to the loaf.
2. There were those who were unclean by reason of a dead body, or a journey afar off. At first Moses hesitated to allow these ceremonially unclean ones to partake of the Passover. The Lord said, "Yet he shall keep the Passover unto the Lord." While leaven was to be excluded from the bread because it represented sin and uncleanness, yet the Israelite who was unclean, himself, could partake.
There are two suggestions here. First of all, we ourselves have no part in the PLAN of redemption, therefore if we eat of the bread, or drink of the cup, our personal uncleanness does not mar the type. Secondly, the blood and the body of the passover lamb, being typical of the blood and body of our Lord, is that work of God which was purposefully done for the unclean. They are the ones who need the Blood. Have we not read that "the Blood of Jesus Christ His Sou cleanseth us from all sin"?
3. A stranger who was not an Israelite was privileged to keep the Passover. It is not a matter of racial distinction, nor of geographical boundaries which safeguard the Cross of Christ. To be sure, of old the stranger had to come into the Israelitish fold, but now even that wall of separation is broken down. The Cross of Christ is open to Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, high or low, native or alien. "Whosoever will may come."
II. THE LORD COMMANDED THAT ANYONE WHO REFUSED TO KEEP THE PASSOVER SHOULD HAVE NO LOT OR PART WITH HIM (Numbers 9:13)
Here is the expression of our key-text. "The man * * that forbeareth to keep the Passover, even the same soul shall be cut off from among his people: because he brought not the offering of the Lord in his appointed season, that man shall bear his sin." There are some very vital things here.
1. There is a distinct affirmation that the one who keeps the Passover does not bear his own sin. The reason is that Christ upon the Cross was made sin for us. This expression helps us to understand the depth of the meaning of the Passover Feast.
2. The sin of refusing to keep the memorial. In Israel a man who refused was cut off from among the people. We wonder how it is today. Christ is our Passover. In lieu of the Passover Supper, we have the Lord's Supper. The Children of Israel were commanded to keep the Passover. Saints in this age of the Church are commanded to keep the Lord's Supper. However it is very common in all of our churches for Christian people to carelessly, thoughtlessly, and often purposefully absent themselves from the Lord's Supper altogether, or else to get up and leave the building immediately after the sermon or when the Lord's Supper is about to be administered. This is a grievous sin. Christ said, "This do in remembrance of Me." How ungrateful is that Christian who refuses to memorialize his Lord's shed Blood and broken body.
Here is the message before us now. If we will not allow Christ to bear our sins, we must bear them ourselves. Christ died for all, but the death of that Cross becomes effective only to those individuals who believe.
III. A THIRSTY CONGREGATION (Numbers 20:2)
1. There was no water. We pass to a later part of the Book of Numbers now, and we read that as the Children of Israel journeyed they came into the desert of Zin in the first month. Then comes our verse, "And there was no water for the congregation." Thus it was that the Children of Israel gathered themselves together against Moses. Beloved, Jesus Christ is the Water of Life. We may drink of earth's wells, and of the fountains that gush from the hills, but we will thirst again.
Christ said to the woman of Samaria, "Whosoever drinketh of [Me] shall never thirst." There is, however, within the soul of man that which earth's waters can never satisfy.
2. In the wilderness there was no water. Neither in all the world around us is there the Water of Life. We cannot find salvation in philosophy, riches, or honor. All the reform movements of the world are hopeless when it comes to satisfying the thirst of a sinner's soul. There is but one source from which the river flows, and that is from the uplifted Christ.
3. God's plan. The Lord spake unto Moses, and said, "Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together * *, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink." You see that God had the whole plan of redemption in mind. He purposed how the people should be given water.
The whole plan of redemption was also purposed of God. It was not Moses who thought out some scheme by which the people might drink; neither is it the minister, who proclaims the Cross, who thought it out, or purposed, or planned it. We are only preaching the preaching which He bids us. We tell what we are told. No human being on earth could have either purposed or perfected God's redemptive plan.
IV. WHEREIN MOSES BROKE THE TYPE (Numbers 20:10-11)
1. God told Moses to speak to the rock. In Exodus 17:1-16; Moses had been commanded to smite the rock. Now Moses is commanded to speak to it. There is a very deep reason for this. The rock had already been smitten once. It could not be smitten twice, for the simple reason that it is written, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many."
The blood of bulls and of goats was offered year by year, but that was because the type was commanded to be kept continually before the people. However, it was only once that Christ appeared to put away sin with the sacrifice of Himself.
When Moses struck the rock twice he said, in effect, that Christ must be twice smitten upon the Cross. Not only that, but the second time Moses struck the rock, he struck it two times. Thus Moses would have Christ crucified three times instead of once.
2. God's sentence against Moses. To Moses and to Aaron God said, "Because ye believed Me not, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the Children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them."
In the first place Moses struck the rock twice, and in the second place Moses spoke unto the people, saying, "Must WE fetch you water out of this rock," as though he, by his own power, would furnish water. When we leave God out in one thing, it is easy to leave Him out in another.
V. GOD'S JUDGMENTS AGAINST ISRAEL (Numbers 21:6)
We now come to that wonderful story of the uplifted serpent. The Children of Israel were discouraged by the way. Being discouraged they began to complain against God, and against Moses.
"Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth"; therefore, when the people continued their murmuring and their ungodly talk against the Lord, He sent fiery serpents among them, which bit the people until many of the Israelites died. Under the throes of God's judgment the Children of Israel soon repented, and cried for help.
The fiery serpents were symbolical of Satan; he is "the serpent." He entered a serpent in the Garden of Eden. In Revelation he is described as the dragon and the serpent.
The Lord, in all of this, was showing the Children of Israel that when they left Him and His watchful eye, and tender mercy, they threw themselves over into the hands of Satan, "that serpent," who is ready to sting and to destroy. Thus it was that the serpents slew many in Israel. The Lord then said unto Moses, "Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live."
Here is a descriptive symbolism. The serpent uplifted on the pole, we know, was the picture of Christ uplifted on the Cross. Why should the Lord have been typified by a serpent? Would He type His own Son by a brazen serpent which stood for the fiery serpents which destroyed the people? Let us look into this.
On the Cross of Calvary the Lord Jesus Christ was made sin for us. He went there in our place. He went there as the representative of a people who were under Satan's power and control. What is it that destroys the soul? It is sin. It is sin under the power of Satan. Jesus Christ therefore does more than merely take the sinner's place, He is reckoned as the sinner.
VI. THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION MADE PLAIN (Numbers 21:9)
Perhaps there is no Old Testament Scripture that makes the redemptive plan more simple, and yet more sublime, than this story of the uplifted serpent, and how the people lived.
1. The serpent was uplifted in behalf of serpent-bitten men. Jesus Christ was uplifted in behalf of sin-stricken men. He Himself was just the sinless One who carried us with Him to His Cross. In Him we died. The judgment of God against the Children of Israel concerning the fiery serpents was not removed, but it was transferred from the people to the uplifted serpent.
God seemed to say that the Children of Israel deserved death, however, "I love them, and they are calling upon Me for mercy. My Law says they must die, but I will transfer death to another."
It was on Calvary's Cross that Jesus Christ died, but remember, He died because we were condemned to death. He died, therefore, in our stead. To put it another way: instead of our dying actually, we die in Him.
2. The power of the uplifted serpent was dependent upon the look of the bitten people. It would have been very easy for the people to have argued that a serpent of brass lifted up on a pole could not save them from their death throes, and they, humanly speaking, would have been correct. However, what could not be done was done. Every one who looked lived. Every one who refused to look died: their sin remained.
Had you gone to those Israelites who looked, they would have said, "One thing I know, whereas I was dead, now I live." We may not understand all the marvels of the Cross, but we know that through faith in His Blood we have life.
VII. BALAAM'S SACRIFICE (Numbers 23:6)
Balak, king of the Moabites, called upon Balaam to curse Israel. Balaam then commanded the preparation of seven altars. The sacrifice upon each altar was to be a bullock and a ram. Afterward, Balaam stood by the burnt offering, and lifted up his eyes and beheld Israel; and he said, "From the top of the rocks I see him." Then he went on, and never more wonderful words fell from any man's lips concerning any people than fell from the lips of Balaam concerning Israel. Among many other things, Balaam said that God had not beheld iniquity in Israel.
The whole story of Balaam's blessing Israel clusters around the Cross. It was because Balaam stood at an altar, Divinely ordered, and with his hand upon a sacrifice Divinely commanded, that he could not curse Israel.
He who is under the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is not under the curse, for Christ is made a curse for him. God beheld no iniquity in Israel because Israel's iniquity had been transferred through the sacrifice of the Son of God unto Jesus Christ; and Christ's righteousness had been imputed unto Israel. "There is no one who can lay any charge to God's elect."
AN ILLUSTRATION
ATONEMENT BY CALVARY
Out in our western country, in the autumn, when there has not been rain for months, sometimes the prairie grass catches fire. Sometimes when the wind is strong the flames may be seen rolling along, twenty feet high, destroying man and beast in their onward rush. When the frontiersmen see what is coming, what do they do to escape? They know that they cannot run as fast as that fire can travel. Not the fleetest horse can escape it. They take a match and light the grass around them, and then take their stand in the burnt district, and are safe. They hear the flames roar as they come along; they see death bearing down upon them with resistless fury; but they do not fear. They do not even tremble as the ocean of flames surges around them, for over the place where they stand the fire has already passed, and there is no danger. There is nothing for the fire to burn. And there is one spot on earth that God has swept over Calvary. D. L. Moody.