Bibledoorajar: Wait, Just One More Thing

     I cannot let us go into the Land without discussing one more great Levitical ceremony that was given by God. We discussed the Pascal Lamb that took away sin and we discussed the Scapegoat that got away while the other goat paid the price for sin. But God also instituted another great gift when He gave the Levites the responsibility of the slaying of the red heifer. The red heifer was the only female sacrifice in the Levitical system. It is thought that she was selected by God to represent the ability to give life. She had to be perfectly red, eyelashes, nose, hooves, all. If they thought they had bred one but found as little as two non-red hairs, she was not a candidate. This emphasis on red hair and body was so that the dehydrated blood at death could not be easily seen. Further, she could never have been yoked or worked.
     When the heifer was killed for the good of the people, the Levite priests had to take it outside the camp. There the blood was collected and the priest would take the hyssop and soak it in the blood. He would return to camp and sprinkle it before the Tent of Meeting seven times. This obsolved the nation as a whole from guilt. That priest would have to change clothes and clean his body. Another priest would burn the body of the heifer completely until only ashes remained. The ashes would be mixed with water (living) and individuals needing purification would be anointed. The priest would completely dispose of the ashen water outside the camp and would change clothes and clean his body. The priests, having cleaned themselves ,would remain unclean until dark. The death of the heifer, a giver of life, was needed to take away the guilt of sin that destroys individual conscience and that of nations. The historian Josepheus says that no one but Moses really understood the efficaciousness of the red heifer ceremony. It was a mystery. But Jesus makes the mystery known through His death. As He hung on the cross He was able to tell the thief that he would be with Him in Paradise because He hung there until dark and became clean for believers. The thief's guilt was gone. It was a miraculous dark that could not be explained by solar or lunar events. It was the work of God.
     And so, on Sundays when I share the Lord's Supper with my Fellowship, I am also atONEment with the Father who miraculously over time cleans me up and sanctifies me. Do I have regrets about some of my actions in my past? Yes, but I have no guilt because my Saviour saw to it that that would not  happen to His disciples. I can serve the Lord with gladness. My works will not be dead (useless). Hallelujah !!!

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?  Hebrews 9:13-14

"GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY, HIS WONDERS TO PERFORM" 
                                                              William Cowper, 1773