What is the significance of Aaron standing between the dead and the living (Numbers 16:48)?

Here is another opportunity for Moses. The whole congregation is again threatened with immediate destruction. All seems hopeless. The divine long-suffering seems at an end, and the sword of judgement is about to fall on the whole assembly. But now it appears that in that very priesthood which the rebels had despised lies the only hope for the people; and that the very men whom they had charged with killing the Lord's people, were God's instruments in saving their lives. "And Moses and Aaron fell upon their faces. And Moses said to Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly to the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the Lord; the plague is begun. And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague had begun among the people: and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people. And He stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed." Verses 46-48.

It is here made very apparent that nothing but priesthood — even that very priesthood which had been so despised — could avail for a rebellious and stiff-necked people. There is something unspeakably blessed in this closing paragraph. There stands Aaron, God's high priest, between the dead and the living, and from his censer a cloud of incense goes up before God — impressive type of One greater than Aaron, who having made a full and perfect atonement for the sins of His people, is ever before God in all the fragrance of His Person and work. Priesthood alone could bring the People through the wilderness. It was the rich and suited provision of divine grace. The people were indebted to intercession for their preservation from the just consequences of their rebellious murmurings. Had they been dealt with merely on the ground of justice, all that could be said was, "Let me alone that I may consume them in a moment."

To make this plain we would ask the reader to turn with us to Num. 16, 20, 27. In chap. 16 Aaron's intercession saved the congregation from wholesale destruction. He stood with his lighted censer between the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed. The lighted censer was typical of the sweet savour of the merits of Christ, brought out in all their perfection by His death, for it was kindled by fire from the brazen altar. And the whole scene was illustrative of the Lord's intercession, which is and must ever be effectual. For let it be observed that Aaron offered no fresh sacrifice, but stood with his lighted censer. That was enough. God understood the deep meaning of that according to His thoughts, and mercy was manifested at once.

Fire is taken from the altar — this tells of divine judgment, for where there is sin, there must also be judgment. Never one sin committed but judgment followed, measured by the majesty and holiness of God. For the believer, it is, or rather was, borne by Christ. And the incense is the sweet savour of Himself which ascended up to God; it is the preciousness of Him who bore the judgment that God might righteously stay the power of death. Aaron putting incense on the fire is the intercessory act of the priest pleading the merits of the one sacrifice, as if he would put God in remembrance of it.

Aaron, standing between the dead and the living, staying the plague that it pass not over to the living, is a beautiful prophetic picture of the latter day, when Christ will intervene for the ancient people of God. When He as High Priest will arrest the arm of the Avenger, and the living remnant become a great nation, restored to favour and blessing through a greater than Aaron.

Precious teaching for us, conscious of many failures. For our failures deserve and would surely meet righteous judgment; but we are by faith sprinkled with blood, and the sweet incense of Christ is constant before God. Our High Priest ever burns the incense lit by His death, a sweet smelling savour to God. He is gone within the veil, into the holy place by His own blood; there He makes intercession for us, and does and must prevail. We are on the living side of the Priest, and the angel of death cannot pass. "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of My hand." (John 10)

There is no ground here for the error that a failing believer must begin again as though his pardon could be cancelled. "Make atonement" gives no sanction for a doctrine so contrary to the direct teaching of the word. True undoubtedly "without shedding of blood there is no remission." But Aaron here shed no blood: there was no atonement in that sense; there was the pleading before God of the value of the offering once made. It is so that "atonement" is made for believers now when they fail. It is the Advocate above, Jesus Christ the righteous, who by His presence there avails for us.

Intercession is the teaching here, and both the incense and Aaron are together a type of Christ; the former of His worth, the latter of His office. Aaron might run among the people: what would it have availed? There was no worth in him; the power that stayed the plague was (typically) in the incense. It needs both the incense and the priest to be a fitting type of Him who is both Offering and Priest.

But there were circumstances into which Israel had brought themselves at another moment of their history, when action of a different character had to take place for God to stay His arm, then lifted up in wrath. After the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram had been dealt with, the congregation murmured against Moses and against Aaron, and accused them of killing the people of the Lord. In a moment, without any warning, the plague began. And nothing could stem the tide of judgment, and shield the survivors from the death which threatened them, but the intervention of the high priest with a censer full of burning incense, lighted from the fire of the altar. At the suggestion of Moses Aaron ran, for the matter was urgent, and thus atonement was made for the congregation. (Numbers 16:46-47.) The arrest of the plague at Shittim took place when a man was found to take God's side against that of his own people. The plague was stayed in the wilderness, when Aaron with his lighted censer stood between the dead and the living. Those who had died were beyond recovery, for them no atonement was possible. For the living only could Phineas or Aaron interpose; for governmental dealing was all that these two were concerned with. Zeal for God was seen in the one, and the merits of Christ set before God were displayed in type by the other. Thus the congregation were preserved from reaping the fruits of their ways.

But God is a God of grace as well as of judgment, and so the next day when for the murmuring of the people the plague was made to fall upon them, Aaron, the true priest, is told to "Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar [of burnt-offering] and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them" (ver. 46). Aaron does this, standing with his censer "between the living and the dead." Faith recognizes here the Great High Priest, infinitely above us, who with the sweet savor of His person and the memorial of His sacrifice, interposes in behalf of His people in the fragrance that sets Him forth.

Moses and Aaron were first humbled in prayer (v.45), but Moses realized that God was already sending a plague of death to rapidly spread among the congregation, and he ordered Aaron to take a censer with fire from the altar, and incense, and carry it quickly to the congregation, to make an atonement for them (v.46). Korah's company had used censers with resulting death, but the censer in the prophet hands of Aaron was able to stop the scourge of death. How good to see the compassion of Moses and Aaron in the face of Israel's callous treatment of them!

As Aaron ran into the midst of the crowd with his censer, he stood between the living and the dead, and the plague was stopped (v.48). This is another illustration of the intercessory grace of the Lord Jesus, our great high Priest, who preserves His people even from the deserved results of their own folly. This would remind us too that "the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much " (James 5:16).

We see the solemn and inevitable result of approaching God in any other way than through the divinely-appointed priest and sacrifice, in the destruction of Korah and his company (Num. 16), who despised the priest of God, Aaron, on the plea that all the congregation were holy. God manifested there could be no possible standing or acceptance before Him, save on the ground of sacrifice, through the divinely-appointed priest. Korah and his company were commanded to bring each a brazen censer with Aaron also, and God would declare whom He owned as priest. Fire from God having devoured the blasphemers, Aaron alone remained to represent the people before God. As mediator between God and the rebellious people in that solemn scene, he stood between the living and the dead (Num. 16:46-50), thus setting forth Christ as Mediator and Intercessor, linked with His sacrifice, as the only way to God.

But if we are seeking things rather than words, the Old Testament is even from the beginning plain enough. "Put on incense and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them," says Moses to Aaron, "for there is wrath gone out from the Lord; the plague is begun. … And he put on incense, and made atonement for the people; and he stood between the dead and the living: and the plague was stayed" (Num. 16.) How vain to say that here there was no appeasal of the wrath, no propitiation of God!

Instead, Moses asks Aaron to make atonement for the people (see the verse quoted above). Due to this priestly intervention, the plague (which had indeed begun) was stopped. The people were spared once again, although 14,700 of them died. Again, the answer to the riddle is the same. In this case of utter urgency what prompted Moses to call for intercession on behalf of God's people was a concern for God's glory and the well-being of His people.

(2) Next, we have the priesthood of Aaron confirmed practically in another outbreak of murmuring on the part of the congregation, who gather against Moses and against Aaron, with the charge that they had killed the people of Jehovah. The glory of the Lord appears, and pestilence breaks out among the people, which is stayed by Aaron's putting on incense and making atonement in this way for them. He stands between the dead and the living, and the plague is stayed. At first sight, the action is a strange one atonement, according to Leviticus, is by blood: here there is none, — no sacrifice of any kind, and yet atonement is made. Nor can the omission here be put along with such an offering as that of the fine flour, allowed for a sin-offering in the case of extreme poverty on the part of the offerer: here you would expect rather a bullock, — certainly not incense.