THE RED HEIFER

John N Darby

Numbers 19

A great principle which recurs all the time in the Old Testament is to know the effect of the presence of God in the midst of His people. This principle assumes grace. The Lord can only abide in the midst of His people by grace, for it is by grace that He has acquired them to belong to Him and to assemble them, Exod 19: 43-46. It is the same with the church; God would bless it by His presence in the midst of it, not in heaven, but manifested down here, taking knowledge of all that His people do, and being the source of every blessing for them. Israel were only happy and blessed in surrounding the tabernacle.

The thought presented to us in Exodus 29 is that the power and grace of God have been at work to bring the people from Egypt, to have them for Himself and dwell in their midst, according to the holiness which He has manifested and according to which He always acts in the midst of His people. He is their God, but their God is holy. When He acts in grace, it is not the law which becomes the rule of our conduct, but it is His presence in the midst of us; and He acts according to what His presence demands. A natural man can be gay and joyful, because he completely ignores God, and the levity of his heart in some sense appeases his conscience. But the presence of God can only really rejoice the soul when God reveals Himself in grace. Israel had been delivered from Egypt and the sorrows of sin which obliged them to make bricks without straw. God had led them in the wilderness to the abode of His holiness, and from then on, He acted in the midst of His people according to the holiness of His presence. It is the same for us. God leads us in the wilderness, with Him alone, and puts out there what is for us. In His goodness, He often makes us feel the holiness of His presence by sufferings and anxieties, and nevertheless He always acts in grace; He thinks of His people and has delivered them to have them for Himself alone, and He dwells with them to teach and instruct them.

It is of all importance that we understand the difference between our eternal relationship with God and the effect of His presence in our midst. Christians find themselves in “the great day of atonement”, which only had value for one year in Israel, and is eternal for us; and we are placed in the presence of God for ever. These things are not apparent and tangible in our midst as with Israel, but they are all much more real for, by the death of Christ, the holiness of God has been manifested to us in a much deeper way. We are placed in the presence of God with a flesh of sin and among things which act on our covetousness. An unconverted soul cannot bear this presence; it wants to be happy without holiness. But if we have tasted that the Lord is good, we will have the love of holiness. Psalm 139: 1-12 expresses the feeling of the heart which is not under grace and meets the presence of God. When it has felt that God would save it, that He has saved it, it wants God to weigh him again, as one can see at the end of this same Psalm. The soul has understood that God would lead us to the glory and desires that He would weigh and purify it, so that nothing might hinder the blessing. Under grace, it is a joy for us that God takes knowledge of everything. He would not leave in us things which hinder us from enjoying His eternal communion. What a joy for the heart! Do your hearts understand that?

Defilement is something for those who surround the tabernacle of Jehovah, although it is nothing for the world. In the world, provided that society is not scandalised, sin is honourable and tolerated. But defilement hindered an Israelite from approaching the tabernacle of Jehovah. Defilement spread. The tent of Jehovah was there and Jehovah would support nothing that could defile it. If Jehovah had not been there, these defilements would not even have been mentioned. He had loved His people with an eternal love and had redeemed them for Himself. But God wants us to realise fully the effect of His presence in our consciences. He has put us in such a relation with Himself that He wants our consciences to feel sin as He feels it, so that they do not find ease in sin.

The red heifer was an offering for sin. It represented Christ made sin for us. It is a pure offering, but supposedly defiled because it bore our sins. The Holy Spirit having led us to God by the blood of Christ, we are in His presence according to the efficacy of this blood. They burned the heifer, and kept the ashes, and the defiled man was sprinkled with living water which was poured over him. It was not the sprinkling of blood done once for all, for it is once and for always that we are justified in the presence of God. To enjoy communion with God, the power of the Holy Spirit must apply the death of Christ to the conscience and the heart. When this communion exists, it is as if sin did not exist; nothing remains between us and God, and He fills our hearts so that we do not have any conscience of sins. Such is the normal state of the Christian. But if he is in contact with sin, he loses the communion for a moment. God cannot be indifferent to our indifference to Him. All that which, in the presence of God, is not communion with Him is a sin and interrupts this communion. We are always His children, but to approach the tabernacle, one must be pure and feel the effect of the presence of God on his conscience. It is not possible that Satan could prevail against us, but He makes us feel, by the Holy Spirit, that sin separates us from the presence of God. Nothing can make us understand better what distance there is between sin and God than the fact that He has given His Son. Yes, when I see all that Jesus has suffered under the curse, and His love in going through everything, when I see that He has been rejected by God as a defiled thing, I understand what sin is and I can judge myself according to the holiness of God’s presence before whom I am introduced. I see with horror where the old man has led me. These are the ashes of the heifer. When communion is lost, a little time is needed to recover it, and for the soul to be fully restored. The heart must be weighed and empty of evil, then, like the sun, the presence of God can shine as before.

God allows nothing evil in us, for He wants to make us fully enjoy Himself and His goodness. Only those who have their souls restored by this grace can know all the love of Christ. May we not seek to avoid God weighing us; let us let Him do it. God is always love. This ends with a soul humbled and broken, but a heart which joys in God. If the application of the ashes of the victim is painful to us and makes us understand sin, it is that there is something in us to remove and restore.

Translated from Le Messager Évangelique