A
red heifer is a red young female cow. According to Numbers 19:2, it must be
without blemish, must be without defect, and must never have worn a yoke. The
slaughtering of a red heifer was a ceremonial ritual under the Old Testament
sacrificial system, as part of the purification rites of the Mosaic Law. The
Red Heifer was taken outside the camp of Israel, and was there slaughtered and
burned to ashes and the blood taken by the priest and sprinkled seven times
towards the front of the Tabernacle. The ashes of the heifer were not brought into
the Holy place, but were left outside the Camp, gathered together in a heap,
and apparently accessible to any of the people who could make use of them.
Under the prescription of the Law, a portion of the ashes was to be mixed with
water in a vessel, and a bunch of hyssop dipped into this mixture was to be
used in sprinkling the person, clothing, tent, etc., of the unclean person, for
his purification.
Aren’t
we glad that we are living under the New Covenant and need not go through those
elaborate rituals like the Israelites? Imagine this: becoming unclean for seven
days as a result of coming into contact with a dead body and needing to go
through the rituals of purification? It will be very inconvenient! How are we
to go to work?
But,
thanks be to God, we have a perfect sacrifice which has been sacrificed once
and for all. The red heifer, as well as all the other sacrifices in the Old
Covenant, pointed to Jesus Christ, as the writer of Hebrews points out in
Hebrews 9:13, 14: “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of
an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the
flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God?”
Just as the heifer was sacrificed “outside the camp”
(Numbers 19:3), in the same way Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem: “Wherefore
Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered
without the gate” (Hebrews 13:12).
One
interesting thing about the ashes of the heifer is when it was mixed with
"running water" and sprinkled on an unclean person, he was henceforth
purified and became clean (Numbers 19:17-19). The ashes were sufficient for all
the people. When a person or a family needed purification, a fresh heifer was
not required to be sacrificed. All it needed was to take a small portion of the
ashes and mixed it with “running water” and sprinkled on the unclean person and
he would be clean.
So
the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient for everyone. It is everlastingly
efficacious. There is enough virtue in His sacrifice for the sins of the world
(1 John 2:2). The sacrifice of Christ is laid up for us as an inexhaustible
fountain of mercy to which we have daily access for the cleansing of our sins:
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one
with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”
(1 John 1:7).
The
word “cleanseth” is in the Greek present tense. It means the cleansing is
present and continuous. The one sacrifice made by Jesus Christ is good for all
eternity: “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are
sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).
The
blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins. Thanks be to God for this
perfect sacrifice. Christ is our only hope and salvation. Those who reject His
sacrifice has no remission of sins and eternal life (Hebrews 10:26-27). Let us
always remain under the covering of the blood of the Lamb that we may be saved.
Jimmy Lau
Psa
119:97 Oh how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.
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