https://esv.literalword.com/?q=Numbers+19
Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Saturday, 5 April 2025:
Numbers 19:5-7, 9 — And the heifer shall be burned in his sight. Its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned. And the priest shall take cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet yarn, and throw them into the fire burning the heifer. Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp. But the priest shall be unclean until evening… And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place. And they shall be kept for the water for impurity for the congregation of the people of Israel; it is a sin offering.
The acts of purification described in Numbers 19 symbolically point to ultimate atonement and purification through Jesus’s sacrifice on the Cross, and the ceder, hyssop, and scarlet represent the wood of the cross, the hyssop from which Jesus was offered a drink on the cross (Mat_27:48), and the scarlet blood Jesus shed that we would have salvation and new life. Scarlet was also used in the veil and curtains of the tabernacle (Exodus 26:31), in the garments of the high priest (Exodus 28:5-6), the covering for the table of showbread (Numbers 4:8), the sign of Rahab’s salvation (Joshua 2:21), and the color of the mocking “king’s robe” put on Jesus at His torture by the soldiers (Matthew 27:28).
The ash from the burning of the carcass, the cedar, the hyssop, and the scarlet fabric together was to be gathered and sprinkled in water bit by bit to make water fit for purification.
“Thus, ashes of the red heifer (which the ingredients all speak of the work of Jesus on our behalf), combined with water (which speaks of the work of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit) combine together to bring cleansing. It can cleanse even the uncleanness brought about by death. All this cleansing is a precious picture; but the reality is in Jesus: ‘For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb_9:13-14)
A wonderful parallel is found in John 13:5-11; if we are ‘bathed’ by Jesus, we need only to have our feet washed, as they become unclean in the normal practice of life. Yet, if we do not let Jesus ‘wash’ us, we have no part with Him. We must receive the beautiful once-for-all cleansing Jesus brings to us when we are born again; yet continually come to Him to be cleansed of the ‘day-to-day’ things.
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 5 April 2025: Today, celebrate and practice the cleanliness you have in Him while continuing to come to be Him to be cleansed of the attitudes which sill cause you to sin.
- 1John 1:9 — If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Defenders Bible Reading Plan 