A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, August 30, 1863, By Pastor C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

This is the ordinance of the law, which the Lord has commanded, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring to you a red heifer without spot, in which is no blemish, and upon which never came a yoke: and you shall give her to Eleazar the priest, so that he may bring her outside the camp, and one shall kill her before him.” (Nu 19:2, 3)

1. The true heading of all the books of Moses is to be found in the words of Jesus, “Moses wrote about me.” Take the Lord Jesus Christ with you as a key, and how ever difficult the riddles of Leviticus or Numbers may at first sight appear, there is not one enigma in the whole collection which will not speedily open and yield instruction. To the Israelites themselves, these rites and ceremonies must have been rather an exercise of faith, than a means of instruction. “I cannot perfectly understand why this heifer is killed, or why that lamb is offered,” said the pious Israelite, “but although I cannot understand, I believe there is virtue in it all, and I reverently do, even to the smallest detail, what God, through his servant Moses, has commanded me to do.” To us, the types are not a dark mystery to perplex our faith, but an open vision to delight our eyes. Having believed in Christ Jesus, having received him as the Father’s sent One, and being reconciled to God by his death, we look back to the ceremonies of the old law as the patterns of heavenly things, to endeavour to discover some new light in which the Saviour’s beauties may be set, and to see him from some different point of view, so that we may love him all the better, and may trust him all the more.

2. Now, the particular point to which the red heifer referred, concerning Christ and his work, is just this — the provision which is made in Christ Jesus for the daily sins and failings of believers.

3. In order to bring out the our point clearly, we shall remark, first, that even true Israelites are in daily danger of defilement; secondly, that there is a provision made in the covenant of grace for the removal of daily defilement of sin; and thirdly, that the red heifer most beautifully portrays Christ as being the constant purification for his people, so that they, having their consciences purged from dead works, may have power to worship acceptably the living and true God.

The Subject of Daily Defilement

4. I. It is undoubtedly true, that even THE TRUE ISRAELITE, THE TRUE BELIEVER IN CHRIST, IS THE SUBJECT OF DAILY DEFILEMENT.

5. My brethren, we who have believed in Christ are free from sin before the divine judgment seat. The moment that we believe in Christ, our sin is no longer ours; it was laid upon Christ, and cannot be in two places at one time; and therefore we are perfectly clean from sin before the eyes of a holy God. This is justification, full, complete, everlasting. But we are all aware, that in the matter of sanctification, we are not, as yet, delivered from evil. Sin dwells, although it does not reign in our mortal bodies; and since there is sin within, there is the capability of the defilement of sin without. Who has lived for a single day in this base world, without discovering that in all his actions he commits sin, in everything to which he puts his hand, he receives, as well as imparts, some degree of defilement? How is it, my brethren, that this is the case? The answer is easy, and it is to be found in the chapter before us.

6. Some of our defilement arises from the fact, that we do actually come into contact with sin, here portrayed in the corruption of death. Read the eleventh verse — “He who touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.” We actually touch that dead thing, sin, by overt acts of transgression. The best man living still pollutes himself with evil. We have met with a few vain and ignorant people who have boasted that they were perfect, but we never believed in their perfection, except so far as to concede that they were perfect in self-conceit, in boastful arrogance, and infamous impudence. “If any man says he has no sin, he deceives himself, and the truth is not in him.” The best of men are men at the best, and while they are only men, they will still sin. We find the apostle Paul crying out because of corruption, and even using such strong language as this — “Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” We are in close connection with sin, because sin is in ourselves. It has dyed us through and through, staining the very warp and woof of our nature, and until we lay aside these bodies, and are admitted to the Church of the firstborn above, we shall never cease from very close and intimate connection with sin. Hence, my brethren, we need to be constantly cleansed, because we are always defiling ourselves; in fact, are always defiled, because we are always touching the body of this death.

7. Moreover, we get defilement, not only from our own actual sins, but from companionship with sinners. You will read farther on in this chapter, “When a man dies in a tent: all who come into the tent, and all who are in the tent, shall be unclean.” The mere being with sinners defiles us. Christ could walk with tax collectors and sinners and yet incur no danger; the great physician could walk through the leper house of this world untainted by contagion, but this is not possible with us. Even if the most honest and laudable motives shall lead us into the company of the ungodly, although our only aim may be to bring them to Jesus, yet their unhallowed conversation will not only vex but defile. It is not possible to look upon another man’s sin, even to look upon it with abhorrence, without receiving some degree of contamination, because the thought of evil is sin. Our hatred of evil always lacks in intensity — we do not detest it as we ought, and a failure here is a sin of omission which pollutes. You may say, you can go into evil company and not be defiled — my brother, I doubt it. It may be absolutely necessary for you in your calling, and more especially in your desire to bless others, to mingle with the ungodly, but you might as well attempt to carry fire in your bosom and not be burned, or handle pitch and not be blackened with it, as to dwell in the tents of Kedar without receiving uncleanness. This dusty world must leave some mark upon our white garments, let us travel as carefully as we may. “I am black because the sun has looked upon me,” must always be the confession of the bride of Christ. This world is full of the spiritually dead, and since we live we must be often rendered unclean among the sinful, and hence we need a daily cleansing to prepare us for daily fellowship with a holy God.

8. Reflect, dear brethren, again, that one reason why we are so constantly defiled, is our lack of watchfulness. You will observe that everything in the tent of a dead man was defiled, except vessels that were covered over. Any vessel which was left open was at once unclean. You and I ought to cover up our hearts from the contamination of sin. It would be well for us if we kept our heart with all diligence, since out of it are the issues of life. Good Mr. Dyer says, “The Christian should lock up his heart in the morning, and give God the key, lest any evil should come in; and then when he unlocks it at night, a sweet perfume of prayer will rise at eventide.” But alas! we forget to lock up our hearts; we do not keep our graces covered up. I believe that a man might go into the most sinful places under heaven without receiving defilement, if he exercised a sufficient degree of watchfulness; but it is because we do not watch that the poisoned arrow wounds us. I noticed the other day an allegory of a candle in a lantern, with the motto, “One weak point is too much.” An enemy outside the lantern tried to blow out the candle. He blew all around, but it was well secured, until, at last, he found a single crack, and then he sent the destroying breath through it, and soon the flame of the candle was extinguished. This is what the devil does with us. We may be guarded in nine points out of ten, but note that our strength is to be measured by the strength of the weakest point, and the devil will find out, sooner or later, some crack through which he will attack us to our soul’s evil. Watch, my brethren, watch carefully. It is because you and I fail here that we acquire this daily defilement, and need to be purified daily.

9. A yet more striking thought is suggested by this chapter: sin is so desperately evil, that the very slightest sin defiles us. He who touched a bone was unclean. It was not necessary to put your hand upon the clay cold corpse to be defiled; the accidentally touching with the foot a bone carelessly thrown up by the grave digger; even the touching of it by the ploughman as he turned up his furrow, even this was sufficient to make him unclean. Sin is such an immeasurably vile and pestilent a thing, that the slightest iniquity makes the Christian foul — a thought, an imagination, the glancing of an eye. We may have shut out all the world from our closet, and yet find we have not shut out sin. We may make a covenant with our eyes, and with our hands, and with our feet, and with our lips, but still our wanton hearts will go after evil. We have heard of some perfumes of which it is said, that the thousandth part of a grain would leave a scent for ages in the place where it had been. And certainly it is so with sin; about its merest bone there is an eternal pest; one sin of thought would be enough to destroy all communion with God for ever. Therefore, brethren, we are defiled, and need to be cleansed daily.

10. I must not fail to remind you, also, that sin, even when it is not seen, defiles, for you will observe in the chapter that a man was defiled who touched a grave. The bones might be buried deep down so that he could not see them, and over those bones the grass might have grown in green clumps, decked with a few sweet flowers, and yet, if the Israelite only touched that grave with his foot, or with his hand, he was defiled. Oh, how many graves there are of sin — things that are fair to look upon, externally admirable, and internally abominable! Such a custom is tolerated, indeed, it has become firmly fixed in society, and who shall find fault with it? Yet, many of our customs are only the graves of sin, and many of our actions, which we think are so admirable, have loathsome rottenness within. Too much, even of our sanctuary service, is comparable to a whitewashed sepulchre. Those sweet hymns, the unanimous and hearty shout of praise, the earnest prayer, the reverent deportment — all those, I say, may be only the whitewashed sepulchre; for our thoughts may be going astray after all sorts of mischief, and so our very sanctuary services may be but the green sods which conceal the loathsomeness of sin. Oh dear friends, this is enough to startle us. We sin enough to our own knowledge, but we are unaware of so much sin that we commit, that it is beyond our wildest imagination. Sins unknown! I have often reminded you of the expression in the Greek liturgy, “your unknown sufferings.” It is such a blessing that there are unknown sufferings for these unknown sins. We are ignorant of the heights and depths of Jesus’ love. Thank God that there is a vast atonement whose vast efficacy we must leave in ignorance, just as there are sins of ignorance utterly undiscoverable by us.

11. Only one more thought here. I would have you notice, dear friends, that the Jew was not only in danger of defilement in his tent and when he walked the roads, but he was in danger in the open fields; for you will observe, it says, that if he touched a body that had been slain in the open fields, or a bone, he would be unclean. For all he knew, there might have been a battle there. Perhaps he thought, “Well? this is out of the way of men; I see no footprint, no track here,” and he walks carelessly across the green fields, but, though he does not know it, there lies in his way the corpse of old who had been killed by misadventure, or murdered by his fellow in strife; he stumbles upon the body, and lo, he is unclean. You may go where you wish, but you cannot escape from sin. If you take the wings of the morning, and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea, sin is there. If you make your bed in hell, it reigns there. If you seek the cover of midnight, is not midnight the very noon and carnival of evil? If you enter the Church of God, you shall find it there; high and low, rich and poor, polite and uncivilised — you shall search all ranks and positions of men, but sin is everywhere; and until we mount with eagles’ wings to dwell before the eternal throne, we shall have to complain that we are daily in danger of defilement.

A Purification

12. II. This brings us now to change the subject, by observing THAT A PURIFICATION HAS BEEN PROVIDED. A constant expiation is prepared. As Hart puts it: —

If guilt removed, return and remain,
Its power may be proved again and again.

The ransomed Church of God needs to be washed in the fountain daily, and the mercy is that the precious blood shall never lose its power, but its constant efficacy shall abide until they are, every one of them, “Saved to sin no more.” Beloved, there is a propitiation provided for daily defilement, for first of all, if it were not so, how melancholy would your case and mine be! Suppose that we are Israelites, to be true believers, and then to have sinned, as we certainly should do, then, beloved, we would at once be cut off from all privileges. The unclean person had no right to go up to the house of the Lord; he had no participation in its solemn worship; for him there was no glory of sacred praise, and no prevalence of earnest prayer. You and I would have no right to Christ, no adoption, no justification, no sanctification, for the unclean person has no right to any of these. And just as we should have no privileges, so we could have no communion with God. God cannot immediately commune except with perfectly holy beings. He now communes with the imperfect, but then it is through a perfect Saviour, and he cannot commune directly with you and me while sin resides in us. He has to look upon us as purified through Christ Jesus, and being therefore wholly clean, or else it would not be possible for him to walk with us, and to reveal himself to us. The ultimate result in the Israelites’ case would have been death. You observe that he who did not purify himself was cut off from Israel; first, cut off by excommunication, so as no longer to be a sharer in the citizenship of Israel, and then probably cut off, either by the executioner, or else by the sudden judgment of God through plague, or fiery serpent, or some other terrible means. And certainly if you and I, although believers, could live for a time without being purified, still carrying about with us the daily defilement of sin, before long it must end in spiritual death, and in utter destruction; but thanks be to God, he has provided against these terrible consequences.

13. But think again, beloved, the Lord must have provided a daily cleansing for our daily defilement, for if not, where would be his wisdom, where his love? He has provided for everything else. There is not a lack a saint can know, but God has furnished a supply. Out of the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus, our necessities are all supplied. But if this, this glaring, this soul destroying need had not been provided for, how could we call him our Father and trust in him? How could we know him to be the only wise God, our Saviour. A failure would have occurred in a most important point. Beloved, the love, the wisdom, the complete wisdom of God demands that there should be such a purification supplied.

14. The work of our Lord Jesus Christ assures us of this. What is there opened for the house of David, for sin, and for uncleanness? A cistern? A cistern that might be emptied, a waterpot, such as that which stood at Cana’s marriage feast, and might be drained? No, there is a fountain open for sin and for uncleanness. We wash, the fountain flows; we wash again, the fountain still flows. From the great depths of the deity of Christ, the eternal merit of his passion comes everlastingly welling up. Wash! Wash! It is inexhaustible, for it is fountain fulness. Is it not said in Scripture, “If any man sins, we have an advocate?” Why is Christ an advocate today? Only because we need an advocate every day. Does he not constantly intercede there before the eternal throne? Why does he do that? Because we need daily intercession. And it is because we are constantly sinning that he is constantly an advocate — constantly an intercessor. He himself has beautifully shown this in the case of Peter: after supper the Lord took a towel and girded himself, and then, taking his basin and his pitcher, he went to Peter, and Peter said, “You shall never wash my feet.” But Jesus told him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” He had been washed once. Peter was free from sin in the high sense of justification, but he needs the washing of purification. When Peter said, “Lord, do not wash my feet only, but also my head and my hands,” then Jesus replied, “He who is washed” — that is he who is pardoned — “does not need to wash, except for his feet, for he is totally clean.” The feet need constant washing. The daily defilement of our daily walk through an ungodly world brings upon us the daily necessity of being cleansed from fresh sin, and the mighty Master supplies that for us. I think I see him at this very day still girded with that towel, still with that basin and flowing water, going around to all his saints, coming around to us, brothers and sisters, and saying, “I have washed your feet, I, your Master and your Lord, and now you are clean everywhere.” There is a provision then; the work of Jesus Christ just meets the need.

15. Moreover, beloved, the work of the Holy Spirit also meets the need, for what is his business except constantly to take the things of Christ, and reveal them to us; constantly to quicken, to enlighten, and to comfort? Why is all this? It is because we are constantly in need, perpetually being defiled, and therefore needing perpetually to have the purification applied?

16. Best of all, facts show that there is a purification for present, guilt. The saints of old fell into sin, but they did not remain there. David cries, “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Peter denies his Master, but he does not always remain a blaspheming, ungrateful coward. No, he comes back again to his Lord and Master, and makes the commitment, “You know all things; you know that I love you.” You and I, I hope, can give a better proof still that we have tried it ourselves. We remember that dear hour when we first came to Christ. Oh, it was no fiction, no dream. We were weighed down with a thousand sins, but one look at Jesus took them all away; and since that time we have often been cast down. There may be some of you who escape from doubts and fears, if you do, I greatly envy you, but I think that most of us get at times into such a position that we cry with David, “My soul lies cleaving to the dust.” You feel as if you dare not come into the Lord’s presence; you cannot hope that he will hear your prayer; you cannot grasp the promises, they seem too good for such as you; you cannot look up to Christ to call him brother; “Abba, Father,” falters on your tongue; but, have you not known what it is to look to your Redeemer again just as you did at first? And then your love and joy have come back to you again once more, as if it had been a new conversion, and you have gone on your way rejoicing; you who were only yesterday hanging your harp upon the willows and refusing to sing to the praise of your Lord.

17. My dear friends, if this were not a great truth, some of us would die in despair. I am sure if I might not still come to Jesus as a sinner and still rest in him, expecting to be cleansed from all defilement, I do not know that there would be anything in the Bible which could yield comfort to me. I must have a remedy as broad as the disease. I must have a supply as deep, as wide, as constant as my needs, and, thanks be to God, here is just such a supply, for Jesus does take away the foulest sin, and when our hearts have backslidden from God he does bring us back. Why, some of us have appeared in our own consciences to have gone into the very belly of hell, and yet the Lord has brought us up again to the gates of heaven. Ah, it does not take many minutes to work this change. Sometimes I have felt all God’s waves and billows rolling over me until I was ready to despair under a sense of my own unworthiness, and yet the next moment I have been able to read my title clear to mansions in the skies; and believing on Christ, I have had full fellowship with him. This is the power of purification; this is why the application of the precious blood of sprinkling always works, when faith, through the Holy Spirit, brings it to the conscience. May you and I know this by our daily constant experience of it, that there is a daily purification for daily defilement.

The Red Heifer

18. III. But now, beloved, I bring you to the chapter itself. THE RED HEIFER PORTRAYS, IN A MOST ADMIRABLE MANNER, THE DAILY PURIFICATION FOR DAILY SIN. It was a heiferred heifer. Some think because of its rarity, for it was very difficult to find one that was red without a single spot — an unusual thing for a sacrifice to be a female; and we scarcely know why it should be in this case, unless indeed, to make the substitution more evident. This red heifer stood for all the house of Israel — for the whole Church of God; and the Church is always looked upon and considered in Scripture as being the spouse — the bride — always feminine. Perhaps, to make the substitution obvious and complete, to show that this heifer stood in the stead and place of the whole seed of Israel, it was chosen rather than the customary young bull. It was a red heifer. Some think because of its rarity, for it was very difficult to find one that was red without a single spot — for if there was only one white or black hair it was always rejected: it must be wholly and entirely red — some think that this was to signify how unique and unrivalled is the person of Christ; how extraordinary, the only one of his Father, the only Redeemer of souls; of such matchless virtue, and of such glorious pedigree, that no angel can be equal to him, neither any of the sons of men for a moment be compared with him. Probably, however, the red was chosen only from its bringing to the mind of the Israelites the idea of blood, which was always associated with atonement, and putting away of sin. Surely, my brethren, when we think of Christ, we always associate him with the streaming gore, when we are under a sense of sin. At other times we think of him as white and ruddy, as perfection itself; but there is no point about Jesus which the trembling conscience loves to rest upon so much as that red crimson blood of his. We have heard complaints sometimes made of our theology, that there is too much blood in it. “The blood is its life.” If there was no blood in our preaching, there would be no life in it, no joy, no true power; but it is just because we love to extol that precious blood, that God is pleased to honour the Word, and make it comforting to saints, and make it the word of quickening to sinners. I am sure, dear brethren, sometimes when we have sung that verse —

His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er his body on the tree,

in the presence of that blood red mantle, we have felt the next lines to be no imagination, but sober fact —

Then am I dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.

My Master, covered with respect to his face, with bloody sweat; with ruby drops of blood around his head; my Lord with his back like a river of gore, where the accursed whips have beaten him, his hands streaming with founts of crimson, and his feet flowing with rills of scarlet, and his side giving forth a rich cataract of his heart’s blood — he never seems so lovely as when thus I see him arrayed in “a vesture dipped in blood.” “Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? who is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Why are you red in your apparel, and your garments like him who treads in the winepress?” This is the glorious Saviour, mighty to save, and never seen so mighty to save as when he is robed in crimson. Let it be the red heifer; it shall always bring to the mind of the pious believer the remembrance of him who trod the winepress alone.

19. It was a heifer without spot. This denotes the perfection of Christ’s character — “not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” Born without any human defilement; conceived immaculately through the Holy Spirit — “that holy one who is conceived in you,” said the angel to the Virgin. Without any natural defilement such as we receive, he did not feel the taint of original sin. Then the heifer must be without blemish. Our Christ, since he had no spot of original sin has no blemish of actual sin. “The prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me.” He became like us in all points, but always with this exception — “yet without sin.”

20. Observe that this red heifer was one upon which never came a yoke. Perhaps this portrays how willingly Christ came to die for us; not forced from heaven, but freely delivering himself for us all. “Lo, I come to do your will; in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do your will, oh God.” He was not dragged to his death. “I lay down my life by myself; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. No man takes it from me.” The free Son of God wears no yoke, except that yoke which was easy for him, and that burden which was light, the yoke of love which constrained him to lay down his life for his people.

21. An interesting circumstance about this red heifer is, that it was not provided by the priests; it was not provided out of the usual funds of the sanctuary, nor even by the princes, nor by any one person. The children of Israel provided it. What for? Why, that as they came out of their tents in the desert, or their houses in Jerusalem, and saw the priests leading the red heifer, every man, and every woman, and every child might say, “I have a share in that heifer, I have a share in that victim which is being lead out of the city to be consumed.” Brethren, I wish — oh! I truly wish and dare to hope, that every man and every woman here could say, “I have a share in Jesus Christ,” for that is the meaning of this national provision, to let us see how Christ shed his blood for all his people, and they all have a part and an interest in him. If you believe in him, although you are the weakest of all his children, you have as good a share as the strongest. He is as much your Christ as he is the Christ of an apostle, or of a martyr who went to heaven in a chariot of fire. I hope, brother, that you see this, and are assured that you have an interest in him.

22. As we noted what this victim was, there is yet to be observed what was done with it. Again, let me ask you to refer to your Bibles, to see what became of this red heifer.

23. First, it was taken out of the camp. In this it was a picture of Christ. So that he might sanctify his people with his own blood, he suffered outside the camp. The place of uncleanness was outside the camp. The lepers lived there; every defiled person was put in quarantine there. Jesus Christ must be numbered with the transgressors, and must suffer upon Mount Calvary, outside the city gates, upon that general Tyburn¹ of criminals, “the place of a skull.” The people of God are to be a separate people from all the rest of the world; they are not to be numbered with the inhabitants in this world’s city; they are to be strangers, and pilgrims, and sojourners, as all their fathers were. Therefore, Christ himself, to set them an example of separation, suffers outside the camp.

24. When taken without the camp, the red cow was killed. It is a dying Saviour who takes away our sin. Brethren, we love Christ the risen one, we bless Christ the living, pleading intercessor, but after all, the purification to your conscience and to mine comes from the bleeding sacrifice. See him slain before our eyes. Let us sing with Watts —

My soul looks back to see
 The burdens you did bear
When hanging on the cursed tree,
 And hopes her guilt was there.

When the heifer was killed, Eleazar dipped his finger in the blood as it flowed out. He dipped his finger in the warm blood, and sprinkled it seven times before the door of the tabernacle. Seven is the number of perfection — to show that there was a perfect offering made by the sprinkling of the blood; even so, Jesus has perfectly presented his bloody sacrifice.

25. Now notice, all this does not purify. I am not yet come to that point. Atonement precedes purification: Christ must die and offer himself as a victim, or else he cannot be the purifier. All this is necessary, but the vital part of the purification comes presently. They then took the body of the slain heifer, which was an unclean thing and made everyone unclean who touched it, and laid it upon a pile prepared for its burning. They consumed it utterly; its skin, its flesh, its blood, even to its dung, not a single thing must be left. This portrays the pangs of the Saviour, his great and terrible agony upon the cross, his real death, his real forsaking by God. It portrays how God accounted him to be unclean, how he was compelled to say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The heifer does not burn on the altar, it never smoked within the holy place as did the young bull which was God’s offering. This was a foul and guilty thing; the man who killed it became foul; he who gathered the ashes was unclean, and even the priest himself had to wash his garments. This portrays how Christ was numbered with the transgressors, how the iniquity of his people was laid upon him, and how the Lord “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” You will say, “It is a strange thing that those who touched the sacrifice should be made unclean.” Yes, but types like other emblems do not run upon all fours. Therefore you must look at it in the light intended, except that I may ask here who was it who put Christ to death? Were they not unclean? Were not the Roman soldiers unclean; that ribald mob who shouted, “Crucify him, crucify him” — those eyes that gloated themselves with the agonies of his tortured body? And are not you and I, who helped to put him to death — are not we ourselves unclean? Indeed, I go farther. If I today gather the ashes and bring them before you — if I seek today to be as the man who sprinkled that purifying water, yet am I not unclean? Do I not feel that even when I am speaking the best for my Master, I am still sinning, for I cannot speak for him as I wish. And, my brethren, what makes you feel so unclean as contact with Christ? Is it not true that the very same Christ who takes your sins away, first makes you feel your sins? “They shall look on him whom they have pierced, and they shall weep and mourn for their sins.” The same Saviour who takes tears away when we look to him by faith, first brings those tears to our eyes when we look and see him die. It was right, therefore, that he should first make those unclean who touched him, and then afterwards should make them clean through another touch of his purifying power.

26. When the whole animal was fully burned, or while burning, we find the priest threw in cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet. What was this? According to Maimonides, the cedar wood was taken in logs and bound around with hyssop, and then afterwards all of it was wrapped in scarlet; so that what was seen by the people was the scarlet which was at once the emblem of sin and its punishment — “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Everything you see still continues in the red colour, to portray atonement for sin. Inside this scarlet there is the hyssop of faith, which gives efficacy to the offering in each individual, and still within this is the cedar wood that sent forth a sweet and fragrant smell, a perfect righteousness, giving acceptance to the whole. One delights to think of this, in connection with Christ, that, as there is a daily witness of our defilement, so there is a daily imputation of his perfect righteousness to us, so that we stand every day accepted in the Beloved by a daily imputation, by which not only is daily sin covered, but daily righteousness is given to us. We are, therefore, every day as much accepted as we shall be in that last great day when he shall receive us to his everlasting glory.

27. The pith of the matter lies in the last act, with the remains of the red cow. The cinders of the wood, the ashes of the bones, and dung, and flesh of the heifer, were all gathered together, and carried away, and laid up in a clean place. According to the Jews there was not another heifer killed for this purpose for a thousand years. They say, but then we have no reason to believe them, that there have only been nine red heifers offered in total; one in the days of Moses, the next in Ezra’s time, and the other seven afterwards, and that when Messiah comes he is to offer the tenth, by which they let out the secret that they do look upon the Messiah as coming in his own time to complete the type. Our own belief is that a red heifer was always found when ashes were lacking, and since there were hundreds and thousands of people defiling themselves, the place where the ashes were kept was much frequented, and much of the purifying matter required. The ashes were to be put in a vessel with running water, and the water was sprinkled over the unclean person who touched a body or a bone. By this process the ashes would require to be renewed much more often than once in a thousand years, in order that every one might have his portion. Does not this storing up suggest that there is a supply of merit in Christ Jesus? There was not only enough to make us free from sin by justification, but there is a supply of merit laid up so that daily defilement may be removed as often as it comes.

Here’s pardon for transgressions past,
It matters not how black their cast;
And, oh my soul, with wonder view,
For sins to come here’s pardon too.

From all the sins I ever shall commit there is a purification stored up to cleanse me. The seven times sprinkled blood has put these sins away before the judgment seat of God, and the ashes which are stored up shall put my sin away from my conscience, purging it from dead works.

28. The ashes were to be put with running water. Running water is always the sweet picture of the Holy Spirit — “He leads me beside still waters.” The Holy Spirit must take the things of Christ and reveal them to us. Purification is made in heaven by the finger of Christ — seven times he sprinkled his own blood, but on earth in our conscience it is made by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit must make Christ precious and efficacious to us. What is Christ on the cross? What is Christ in the grave? He is nothing to any man until the Holy Spirit makes him Christ in the heart. You will hear many complain that there is no beauty in Christ that they should desire him; it is to them dull work to hear about Jesus. Ah! beloved, and well it may be; but when the running water comes, when the Spirit of God gives quickening and cleansing to the heart and makes us love divine things, then there is nothing so precious, so inexpressibly desirable, as the ashes of a slaughtered Saviour.

29. Observe that it was applied by hyssop. The hyssop was dipped in water, and then the unclean person was sprinkled. Hyssop is always a type of faith. “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.” Our faith, like a little sprig of hyssop, is dipped into the blood, or dipped into this cleansing water which flowed from the side of Jesus, and so the remedy is applied. Brother, believe in Jesus more fully than you have done, and you will feel the power of his propitiation. He is God; he became man; he suffered: those sufferings are able to take away sin. You need have no guilt on your conscience, but be clean, rejoicing in him and accepted in the Beloved. May the Lord give us to know more fully the mysteries of this red heifer and the joy of pardoned sin.

30. I will close by remarking, that if there is any believer here who has fallen into sin, if there is one who has lost the presence of the Lord, if you have grown cold and dead, if you are conscious of having backslidden, if you have begun to doubt whether you are a child of God at all, here is in Christ just what you need. Ah! but you say, you have fallen so often and sinned so constantly. Indeed, but here are ashes for every day, cleansing for every hour, for every moment. Look upon your Lord and Saviour. God is intending to forgive you not only once, but to cleanse you every day. He has taught you to forgive your brother not seven times, but seventy times seven, and do you think he will not do what he tells you to do? Ah! he will forgive you a countless number of times, yes, every day. If you will seek daily cleansing in Christ, you shall have communion with him, you shall stand in his presence, and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. This is no privilege reserved for the few, for all of us have — every child of God has — an interest in this. Let us come therefore, boldly, and pray to the Master now to apply again this purification of Christ, so that we may again live near to God and delight ourselves in his presence.

31. And as for you who have never believed in Jesus, let me remind you that this is not for you. You need to be washed for the first time in the blood. Oh soul! what a loathsome being you are outside of Christ! Why, you are black all over from head to foot, and black inside as well as outside. What you need first is washing in the blood, you shall have the washing of water, of which we speak, another day. The blood of Jesus can cleanse you from all sin. Trust in him and he shall save you. Trust him now.

32. Come now. May the Spirit help you to come that you may be saved, both now and for ever. Amen.