And they shall take for the unclean of the ashes of the purification-offering that hath been burned, and shall put running water thereon in a vessel;
The remedy for defilement by death is strangely specific: not a fresh sacrifice, but ashes kept from a heifer already burned, stirred into fresh, running water. Commentators read the two ingredients as a picture of how God cleanses a believer soiled by the world and brings him back into communion.
The remedy avoids blood. Writers point out that the ashes are leftover evidence of a judgment God has already carried out and will never carry out again.
What did the ashes show but that the thing was all consumed when Christ died, and that there is no repetition of His death, or re-sprinkling with blood?
Another writer takes up the person who reasons that the blood has settled everything, so present sin need not trouble him.
It was useless for such a person to say, I am sprinkled with the blood — I am clean: why should I trouble more about the sin? Such thoughts do not come from the Holy Spirit. Being sprinkled with Christ's blood is not a reason to take comfort while sin is present. It is the strongest motive for shame and humiliation… The blood is not the appointed way for meeting sin afterwards. The flesh uses that to make light of sin. It is not the blood that was here used to purify, but the ashes of the heifer. What did they represent? The full proof of judgment. There might have been the blood without the intense suffering that reducing the heifer to ashes produced.
The second ingredient has its own meaning too. Where the ESV says "fresh" water, other translations read "running" or "living" water.
The reminder of the sacrifice had to be joined with something that speaks of the Word of God made powerful by the Spirit of God. Water alone symbolizes the Word of God (Eph. 5:26), but when running ("living" as it can be translated), this involves the activity of the Spirit (John 7:38-39). Restoring cannot be apart from the Word of God, and the work of the Spirit must be in this too.
Neither ingredient works alone. Together they show how something done long ago reaches a conscience today.
The ashes of the heifer express the effect of the consuming judgment of God on the Lord Jesus because of sin. It is not simply blood showing that I am guilty, and that God gives a sacrifice to put it away. The ashes are the witness that God dealt in judgment. He consumed, as it were, that blessed offering, which came under all His holy sentence because of our sins. The water (that is, the Spirit working by the word) makes us realise that Christ suffered for the very thing we are apt to feel so little about, or even to treat lightly.
Not every stain comes from a choice. One writer shows how a person picks up uncleanness, and what the older wording "a water of separation" calls for.
It shows, too, that a believer does not always pick up defilement by his own act. He may touch defilement without even knowing it. Still he is defiled, and he needs the "water of purification." Someone may have to judge a sin in the assembly. Listening to the sordid story defiles the mind, and a purification is needed. It says the ashes mixed with running water make "a water of separation." How necessary it is to be separate from evil, and to be kept in the happy enjoyment of communion with God!
The remedy aims at confession and renewed fellowship. Its whole cost falls on the cross, not on the sinner.
That produces pain of heart for having tampered with the things of this present evil world — the very world He gave Himself to deliver us from. It brings us to confession before God. He is faithful and just to forgive us, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). So we come back into communion. God does not need a fresh sacrifice to meet the fresh sin. He has found all that He required in the One Sacrifice for ever.
Another writer warns against the shortcuts people take with a stain. He also marks the difference between belonging to Christ and enjoying communion with Him.
We may try to forget, to gloss over, to patch the wound up quickly. We may make little of the matter, and let time wipe it from memory. It will never do… The uncleanness must be removed, or else communion is impossible. The Christian can never be cut off from Christ. But a single sinful thought can interrupt his communion, and that thought must be judged and confessed, and its stain removed, before communion can be restored.
- Ashes: the leftovers prove the judgment is over. There is no repeat of that death, and no fresh sprinkling of blood.
- Water: living, running water pictures the Word made powerful by the Spirit. Restoration needs both.
- Mixture: the Spirit brings home what our sin cost Christ, so we feel it instead of excusing it.
- Reach: you can pick up defilement without knowing, even while judging someone else's sin, so the remedy is for every day.
- Result: sorrow leads to confession, confession to cleansing, and cleansing back to communion. The link with Christ was never broken; only the enjoyment of it.
and a clean man shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, and upon all the utensils, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that hath touched the bone, or the one slain, or the dead person, or the grave;
In the wilderness, touching death made an Israelite unclean and shut him out of the camp's worship. Verse 18 gives the cure: a clean man dips hyssop in water mixed with the ashes of a burnt heifer, then sprinkles the tent, everything in it, and everyone the defilement has touched.
The verse names a bone, a body, a grave. One commentator explains why these defiled, then asks what God used to cleanse them:
If an Israelite touched anything connected with death, he became defiled, because death is the wages of sin. Dead bodies, dead men's bones, and graves exist because of sin… When an Israelite became defiled, was the blood sprinkled on him again? No. What was sprinkled on him? Not blood, but ashes and water. What do they mean? The ashes were simply the memorial of the blood that was shed and the body that was burned outside the camp. They were the remembrance of Christ's sufferings and death. Running water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
The ashes did not make an Israelite one of God's people; he already was. Their purpose was narrower and more practical.
A clean man gathered the ashes of the heifer and laid them up in a clean place, to be kept for the people of Israel as a water of separation, a purification for sin. In what sense? Only with a view to communion — that is, restoring it when broken. It is not a question of establishing a relationship; that was already done. But since the relationship already exists, the Israelite must allow nothing along the way that would stain the holiness that suits the sanctuary of the Lord.
God named the smallest plant, not the grandest. That choice tells you the attitude He expects:
The hyssop, the lowliest of herbs, sets forth repentance. To come to the Scriptures with pride, dressed as it were in scarlet, will never do. There must be humility.
The defiled man could not sprinkle himself. Someone else had to hold the hyssop — and commentators apply that figure in two ways. Some see a fellow believer:
Galatians 6:1 speaks of the clean person too. It says, "Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness." But the spiritual man was to take the hyssop and sprinkle the water of separation, for a gentle spirit was commanded. Two things are needed in anyone who seeks to restore others: purity and a gentle spirit. Without them his work is likely to be unfruitful.
Another writer sees the hyssop held by the Advocate, not by the defiled man himself:
Here too we find the bunch of hyssop in the hand of this clean person — not in our own… But here everything changes. The hyssop is in the hands of another. It is not man now taking Christ for himself. It is the Advocate, about to bring the soul of the defiled one to its true and real state of humbling and self-judgment for its sin.
The list in the verse is wide: tent, furnishings, people. One writer takes that width as a picture of our own need:
Water was used with the ashes and was sprinkled on the defiled persons, on the tent and all the vessels. This was how they were purified… We need constant cleansing. We pass through the wilderness, the world, and death is stamped on everything. The death of Christ has made provision for our cleansing, as it has provided for the removal of our guilt. The living water is the type of the Holy Spirit. Defilement with the world interrupts communion with God.
Some think that because Christ's blood has covered their sin, they need not trouble about it further. One writer answers that thought:
There was no haste in a soul's restoration from impurity… If a man tampered with sin, God at least would not make light of it. He would give the soul the benefit of being troubled about it. It was useless for such a person to say, "I am sprinkled with the blood, I am clean. Why should I trouble myself further about the sin?" Such thoughts do not come from the Holy Spirit. Our being sprinkled with Christ's blood is no reason to take comfort while sin is present. It is the strongest motive for shame and humbling… The man had to stay under the effect of the water for seven days, going through in his spirit the sorrow of not standing in his full privileges among the people of God.
- Ashes, not blood. The defiled Israelite got no second sprinkling of blood. The ashes recalled a sacrifice already accepted.
- Living water, not plain water. The ashes went into running water. It pictures the Spirit, who brings Christ's sufferings back to mind.
- Hyssop, not scarlet. God chose the lowliest herb. Cleansing comes through repentance, not pride.
- Another's hand, not your own. A clean person does the sprinkling — restoration comes through one who is both pure and gentle.
- Communion, not relationship. This sprinkling gives no one a new standing with God. It restores a fellowship that defilement broke, and it takes time.
and the clean shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day; and he shall purify him on the seventh day; and he shall wash his garments, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even.
Numbers 19 deals with a problem that followed Israel everywhere: contact with death. Verse 19 is the practical heart of that rule. Someone else does the sprinkling. It happens twice. The man is clean only after a full week and a washing.
What the clean man sprinkles is not blood but ashes stirred into fresh water. Older translations call it the water of separation.
The blood is not the appointed way for meeting sin afterwards. Our sinful nature uses it to make light of sin. It is not the blood that was used here to purify, but the ashes of the heifer. What did they represent? The full proof of judgment. There could have been blood without the intense suffering that burning the heifer to ashes produced. It is what Christ suffered that the Holy Spirit brings back to my mind. The ashes were mixed with living water. That water is the power of the Holy Spirit — His present action in using the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ.
The defiled man cannot treat himself. Someone else must act for him first.
He washed himself because he had been sprinkled, and sprinkled twice. He did not wash to make himself fit for the sprinkling. Another man — a clean man — had to act for him first. A humbling fact!
This pictures how one believer helps another back.
A clean person sprinkled the water of separation. This teaches us that only those in communion with God are fit for this work. When someone is defiled like this, he needs the service of another. Paul wrote, "Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness" (Galatians 6:1).
The clean man applies the water with a bunch of hyssop, and that plant carries its own message.
Scripture shows a bunch of hyssop on two occasions... Once an Israelite holds it, with blood (Exodus 12). The other time a clean person holds it, for an Israelite, with water (Numbers 19). In both cases it signifies humiliation. The Psalmist uses it this way in Psalm 51:7, where he cries, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." That was the moral cleansing of his soul through complete humiliation.
Nothing at all happens for the first two days.
The water of separation was never sprinkled on an Israelite at the beginning of the term. The man had to stay under the sense of his defilement until the third day. When he had honestly and fully felt his case before God, and there was full witness on the third day, then and not before was he sprinkled. It was repeated on the seventh day, and the whole process was complete according to the law. The seventh day's sprinkling would have been of no use without that of the third.
The two sprinklings do not do the same work twice.
The first application on the third day did not restore the Israelite. Neither does the believer's first grasp of the sacrifice of Christ, brought home by the Holy Spirit to his conscience, restore the soul to communion. That first grasp gives the sense that the sacrifice of Christ has put the sin away. The second application brings the full restoration of the soul to God, with the sense of His grace triumphing over the sin.
Commentators differ on what the numbered days stand for. Another writer ties them to resurrection:
Death is the stamp on the old creation, and that makes all this clear. The third day is the resurrection day, deliverance from death. The eighth — the first day of the new week — speaks of new creation. A man cleansed by the evening of the seventh day was in fact brought to the eighth. Only deliverance from the old creation could make him truly clean. Being brought into that resurrection — the resurrection of Christ — is necessary, and that is why the third day is insisted on.
The last acts of the verse belong to the man himself. They come after his restoration, not before.
After his full restoration to communion, he had one thing more to do. He had to wash his clothes and bathe himself in water. He was to cleanse himself by the washing of water by the word, from every defiling circumstance that surrounded him... to lay the edge of the word to them, so that they might not affect him again in his walk.
- Ashes, not blood. The sacrifice is never repeated. What comes back is the memory of what it cost, carried home by the Spirit through the living water.
- Another's hand. A clean person must sprinkle first. Restoration starts as a service someone else does for you — someone in communion with God, holding the hyssop of humility.
- No shortcut. There is no sprinkling on day one; the delay to the third day is God giving the conscience time to feel the matter fully.
- Twice over. The first sprinkling brings home that the sin is gone. The second brings back the full sense of grace triumphing. Without the first, the second is worthless.
- Then wash. Clean at last, the man still washes clothes and body. He lays the word to the habits and places that defiled him, so they cannot catch him again.