NUMBERS 15
In this chapter we see how God delights to support faith in the wilderness by giving light as to precious things which will be realised in “the land of your dwellings”. The word “dwellings” (verse 2) is really “seat”; it speaks of restfulness before God in a divinely given portion, when His end for His people should be reached. What belongs to “the land of your dwellings” is here made known for the comfort of faith in the wilderness, while we are still being disciplined under the mighty hand of God, and surrounded outwardly by conditions of unbelief and murmuring. God has pleasure in directing our thoughts in an anticipative way to the spiritual occupations which are proper to “the land”.
[p. 186] It is before Him that we should thus minister to His pleasure, and He would have it to be before us.
This is the first mention in this book in a direct way of what would transpire when the people got into the land. It is the first light of what pertains to the heavenly position, and it is of deep interest to see that that position is marked by an enlarging apprehension of Christ. For He is set forth in all the offerings spoken of in verses 3 - 16, and He is “the bread of the land” (verse 19). As in “the land” God’s people would find holy occupation in bringing Christ as a sweet odour to Him. For whether it be the lamb, or the ram, or the bullock, it is Christ who is offered. And it will be noticed that in the first sixteen verses all are offerings of “sweet odour”, not sin-offerings. They speak of Christ as taking up the questions raised by the coming in of sin and death in such a way that all His personal perfection and sweet odour has come out to the supreme satisfaction of God, and in such a way as to glorify Him infinitely, and at the same time become the ground of our acceptance. He has also become through death the ground and substance of our communion, for the peace-offering has a place here (verse 8).
The pleasure of God has been completely secured in Christ as the One who came down from heaven to do His will. Even sin and death have served to bring out what He was in His full devotion to God. As in “the land” all this is apprehended in increasing measure. Leviticus 1 begins with the largest apprehension, and comes down to the smallest, because it is there the line of grace in which God descends step by, step in making provision even for the smallest and feeblest. But here it is an ascending scale, contemplating spiritual increase on the part of the people, from the lamb to the ram, and then to the bullock. It speaks of increasing ability to bring Christ to God for His delight. Such [p. 187] would be the precious character of things in “the land of your dwellings”.
Then each burnt-offering or peace-offering is to be accompanied by a proportionate oblation and drink-offering. What we apprehend of Christ, and bring to God as an offering, whether for acceptance or for communion, is always to have along with it the deep appreciation of Christ in the preciousness of His moral perfection as it came out in His spirit and pathway here. As we increase in the apprehension of what He was as offered in death we necessarily increase in the apprehension of the personal and moral perfection of what was offered.
But it will be noticed that the type does not suggest that any individual offerer can compass the whole of Christ’s perfection in manhood. “A tenth part of fine flour” goes along with one lamb; “two tenth parts” with a ram; “three tenth parts” with a bullock. The largest offerer does not go beyond “three tenth parts”. It seems to suggest what is plainly stated in the New Testament, that “we know in part”. This is true in a general way, for while we are still learning we have all to say, even as Paul did, “now I know partially” (1 Corinthians 13:9,12). And this is certainly true in regard to the blessed perfections of Jesus; none of us know more than “in part”. And we can only take up His preciousness and moral perfections in approach to God according to our spiritual measure. I suppose that the assembly, being His fulness as a completed company, will be an adequate vessel to set it all forth. But as individual offerers we can only bring to God what we have apprehended spiritually of Christ, and this is according to our measure. But it is encouraging and stimulating to see that the measure contemplated here is an increasing one. It rises from one tenth part to two and then to three. This is how things go normally in “the land”. We become increasingly possessed of the perfections of Christ Godward, and have thus spiritual material for offerings. All those perfections attach to One whom God values in the very highest degree — His beloved Son in whom He has found His delight. And as in “the land” the saints, through grace, value those perfections so as to be able to bring them to God in a profound sense of how pleasurable they are to Him. All here is “a sweet odour”.
As we learn Christ we increase in the apprehension of what is spiritual. This is conveyed to us typically in the bringing of the “fourth part of a hin of oil” with a lamb; “a third part” with a ram; “half a hin” with a bullock. This suggests that as in the land we approach God with an ever increasing measure of apprehension of what is spiritual as seen in Christ. All His ways as the blessed Man of God’s pleasure here were spiritual ways; His words were spiritual words; His thoughts, feelings and affections all spiritual. Surely we could not get an enlarged apprehension of this without it having its effect in promoting spirituality in us! Indeed, all that should mark us has been set forth in perfection in Him. So we read, “For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has before prepared that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). Where were those works prepared? They were all delineated in Christ, and stand connected with the fine flour and the oil. The measure in which we appreciate what has been seen in Christ is the measure of our spirituality, and of our capacity for offering to God.
Then the wine of the drink-offering is in each case commensurate with the oil. The drink-offering is a pouring out in joy in the sanctuary, Paul refers to it expressly when he says, “But if also I am poured out as a libation on the sacrifice and ministration of your [p. 189] faith, I rejoice, and rejoice in common with you all. In like manner do ye also rejoice, and rejoice with me” (Philippians 2:17,18). If they took on the character of the oblation, he would rejoice to be poured out in furtherance of it. If such was the joy of the servant it gives a wonderful impression of the joy of Christ in being poured out in the service of God, and in love to the saints. What joy He found in being here for God, and in the expression of an unreserved devotion that kept nothing back! “To do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight”. He was poured out in the sanctuary, in love to the Father, and in doing the Father’s commandment. It is in that connection that He says, “I have spoken these things to you that my joy may be in you, and your joy be full” (John 15:11). Suffering is not incompatible with profound joy. The pouring out indicates that all is yielded up, as when Paul says, “For I am already being poured out” (2 Timothy 4:6), but he is nevertheless finishing his course with joy. The Lord’s joy being fulfilled in His own, as He desired (John 17:13), puts them on the line of the drink-offering. The devotion which marked Him, and was His joy, was to be continued in them. It becomes strength, for “the joy of the Lord is your strength”.
Verses 14 - 16 contain divine provision in grace for “a stranger”. This scripture should have been sufficient in itself to give Israel an intimation of God’s thought to bring in the Gentile. The “stranger” is put here on perfect equality with Israel; “as ye do, so shall he do ... there shall be one statute for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you ... as ye are, so shall the stranger be, before Jehovah” (verses 14 - 16). It is one of those blessed rays of light in the Old Testament which shine to show that Christ is too great to be limited to Israel. He was to be, as Simeon said, “a light for revelation of the Gentiles” as well as “the glory of thy people Israel” (Luke 2:32). When Israel really comes into the land, and is identified with the sweet odour of Christ, there will be room in his heart for the stranger. The house of God and the heart of God are so large that Israel is not great enough to fill them, so the Gentile must come in. Every “stranger” who wants to identify himself with the preciousness of Christ is welcome to do so. We see this in the highest and fullest way in Ephesians 3:6. “That they who are of the nations should be joint heirs, and a joint body, and joint partakers of his promise in Christ Jesus by the glad tidings”. Such is the greatness of God in grace that He would have all to come in to participate in Christ; and such is the greatness of Christ that there is enough in Him to enrich all Godward, so that all may come to God bringing the preciousness of Christ to Him. God will have as many as possible to know Him, to rejoice in Him, and to be identified with Him. What there is in Christ is for all men to see; God is well pleased that all should know how acceptable Christ is to Him. The Gentiles can come in to offer to God; indeed at the present time God is getting most from the Gentile.
All this is given as divine light for the illumination of faith in the wilderness. It is the light of Christ as He is known and appreciated in the land. How Joshua and Caleb must have delighted in this chapter! Its very setting tends to enhance its preciousness, for it comes in between chapters 14 and 16. In chapter 14 we see a generation of unbelief despising the land, and doomed to fall in the wilderness. In chapter 16 we read of the rebellion of Korah, Nathan and Abiram. But this beautiful chapter comes between for the divine support and encouragement of faith in a terribly dark day. Our position today is very similar to that of Caleb. We are surrounded by an unbelieving generation [p. 191] who despise God and His purpose, and there is also high-handed rebellion. But in the midst of it all We have the light of this chapter. And surely it means much more to us than it did to them, for we can interpret it in a light that did not shine for them.
“When ye come into the land whither I bring you, then it shall be, when ye eat of the bread of the land, that ye shall offer a heave offering to Jehovah; the first of your dough shall ye offer, a cake for a heave offering” (verses 18 - 20). I believe this ordinance is not found elsewhere; it is Christ in a new aspect which gives us something additional to the offerings spoken of in the first part of the chapter, though it is, we might say, the result of them. “The bread of the land”, as I understand it, is Christ risen as the One in whom the thoughts of God in regard to His people have taken form. This is founded on what He was as the Antitype of the various offerings spoken of in the first section of the chapter. But it conveys to us the thought of things having come to fruition. The harvest has been gathered in, the corn threshed and ground in the mill, and it is now just prepared to be baked into bread.
But at this point God says, I must come first in your thoughts: you must think of what Christ is to Me. We cannot really enjoy the nourishing power of Christ as “the bread of the land” if we do not think first of what He is to God. It is said of this offering, “as the heave offering of the threshing-floor, so shall ye offer this” (verse 20). God would have us to understand how precious it is to Him to have Christ before Him as risen. The wave-sheaf of Leviticus 23 represents Christ as having sprung up out of death in His own inherent power. He has come up out of death because it was not possible that He should be held by its power. Just in proportion as we have entered into what it was to God to give Him up to death we shall understand [p. 192] the delight of God in receiving Him out of death as risen. Think of what it was to Abraham to receive Isaac, as it were, from among the dead, though in his ease it was but “in a figure”! There was everything in Christ which was beautiful and perfect in God’s sight, and in love He gave it up to go into death, but He has received it all back in a new way in the risen One. The joy which God had in receiving Him out of death was commensurate with the grief which it was to forsake Him when made sin upon the cross. The Father loved Him because He laid down His life that He might take it again, and become as risen the Firstfruits of a wondrous harvest according to the complete divine triumph over death.
“The bread of the land” is Christ as come up out of death so that He might become food for us, to nourish us upon what is in God’s mind for us, relative to His complete victory over death, as now set forth in Him. As in “the land” we live on what is for ever beyond death, but the point in the scripture before us is that before we eat we are to offer. “Dough” is bread in a preparatory condition; certain processes have been gone through. The corn has been reaped and threshed and ground and kneaded; it is just at the last stage before baking will make it into bread. “Bread” indicates that things have to take definite form so that they can be appropriated as food. There is no food value in what is indefinite. All the processes through which “bread corn” has to pass represent exercises as a result of which what is true in Christ takes definite form with us. Until it does that it is not available as “bread”. This has an important bearing on ministry, which is the supply of food for the Lord’s household. If it is to be “bread” it must be definite, and not too large in bulk!
But the teaching here is that of “the First of your dough shall ye offer, a cake for a heave offering” (verse [p. 193] 20). What we have acquired of Christ in the aspect referred to is to take definite form first as an offering to God. God is to have His “cake” first. His satisfaction in it is to come first in our thoughts, so that He gets from us the first portion of what we have acquired. True spiritual food for the saints, viewed as in the land, only becomes available thus. The practice of offering first is to be observed perpetually; it is to be “throughout your generations”. What spiritual elevation this would impart to the food supply! It is taken up as that in which God Himself has pleasure, and of which He has had His portion first. It is evident from this that no ministry will edify the saints that has not first yielded something for God. The one who sets bread before the household has first been an offerer; he has ministered Godward before he ministers man-ward. If God will have the first “cake” what a wonderful thought it gives of the character and value of “the bread of the land”! And how it would secure the unadulterated purity of what was eaten! Paul could say, “we are a sweet odour of Christ to God ... . For we do not, as the many, make a trade of (or adulterate) the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, before God, we speak in Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:15,17). The ministry was maintained at the high level of what was acceptable as an offering to God. So he could speak of carrying on his gospel work as “a sacrificial service” (Romans 15:16). He is thinking of God’s part first. It is most elevating.
Then in verses 22 - 26 we are called upon to contemplate the solemn possibility that there might be a sin of inadvertence committed by “the whole assembly of the children of Israel”. This shows clearly that even saints viewed as in the land, and as having eaten of its bread, are still in conditions where exercises may have to be taken up relative to sin. It is even possible that something may be “hid from the eyes of the assembly”, so that there is that done which has to be acknowledged and forgiven, though “committed by inadvertence”. It is evident that the epistles to the Colossians and the Ephesians, though they regard the saints as in “the land”, do not address them as being immune from the possibility of sinning. On the contrary, they contain grave warnings and admonitions, calculated to move us all to walk humbly with God, as conscious of what we may fall into if not kept by divine power. The possibility of a sin of inadvertence being committed by the whole assembly should lead us to recognise the possibility of such a thing, and this would preserve us from assuming to be more than what we are in spiritual reality.
God is pleased to make provision in grace for a sin of inadvertence on the part of “the whole assembly”, and to indicate the kind of exercise that will be acceptable to Him if such a thing takes place. It will be observed that there is a marked difference between the provision for the sin of inadvertence in Leviticus 4:13 - 21 and what we have here in Numbers 15:22 - 26. In the former scripture there is no burnt-offering or oblation or drink-offering, but here these precious offerings come first. Usually when a sin-offering and burnt-offering are found together the sin-offering comes first, but this scripture is a marked exception to the general rule. It seems to me that it is intended to bring out in a striking way the grace in which the assembly stands, viewed as in the land, and with which God will not allow anything to interfere. He has taken us into favour in the Beloved, and nothing can change that. The assembly cannot really be on other ground with God than the burnt-offering and the oblation, whatever may have borne in. The sin of inadvertence provides, as it were, a special occasion for taking it up afresh,
[p. 195] but it is the abiding ground of our place with God, however necessary it may be that a sin-offering should be brought also. The true way to assembly forgiveness is to take up afresh with God the ground on which we are with Him abidingly. This preserves a true sense of grace, and it also deepens the exercise in regard to that which has come in contrary to divine pleasure. Ten one buck of the goats has to be offered for a sin-offering; the sin is not glossed over, or excused; it is regarded as something which needed nothing less than the death of Christ to remove it according to divine holiness from before God. This has to be felt, and it is a solemn and humbling exercise.
In the case of “one soul” sinning through inadvertence (verses 27 - 29) there is no burnt-offering. The general ground of acceptance of the assembly is not called in question in such a case as it might seem to be by the sin of the assembly. The soul must judge itself in the light of Christ as the Sin-offering, and avail itself of what He is in this character for atonement and forgiveness. This suffices to meet all that is required.
There is no offering for the one who does wrong “with a high hand”. There is nothing for such a one but to be “cut off”, for he reproacheth Jehovah, despises His word, and breaks His commandment. It is possible to act in such insubjection to God that there is no remedy; this would be what the New Testament speaks of as a “sin unto death”. I do not think that this is some particular sin that is worse than other sins, but it is something in regard to which there is such a definite action of rebellious will that it has this character. I believe that a sin unto death is an abnormal and extreme case; it would not be commonly found amongst the people of God.
Then in verses 32 - 36 we have a bit of wilderness history introduced between these unfoldings of what [p. 196] would apply to the people as in the land of their dwellings. It comes in to illustrate how the lawlessness of man would outrage the most blessed provision of divine grace. There is perhaps no more wonderful picture of what God has provided for men in the glad tidings of His Son than the sabbath. In the six days of creation God was working; He did everything Himself; and the result was that everything was “very good”, so that He rested in the completion and perfectness of His own work. But sin came in, with all its terrible consequences, and therefore we hear no more of a sabbath until after God had a redeemed people to whom He had become their strength, their song, and their salvation (Exodus 15:2). Then it came to light that notwithstanding all that had come in God had in mind that there should be a holy sabbath of rest, not only for Himself as in Genesis 2, but which could be enjoyed by men through redemption. In that sabbath man’s part was to rest, not to work. No effort, or movement of any kind, was called for on man’s side.
Now that is the true and only way of all blessing. If man is sinful, lost, and dead in offences and sins, all that will secure blessing and rest for him must be done by God. Man’s works can have no part in it; they could only mar it. Through Christ, and through His death, God has secured rest for Himself in regard to all that came in by the serpent, but He has secured it with the intent that men should share it. He delights that men should share His rest in Christ.
But this becomes another test,. Will men be thankful to rest? Will they appreciate the grace that has done all, so that they might rest without having to do one single bit of work? We see in the man gathering sticks on the sabbath day another prophetic picture of what has come to pass in Christendom. Lawless man prefers to work just in the particular thing in which God says he is to [p. 197] do nothing. Everyone who is on the principle of works for blessing is a sabbath breaker. All such will come under the curse instead of blessing, even as this man did.
But there was more in this man’s act than working when God’s commandment was that he should rest. He was “gathering sticks”; he obviously intended to light a fire, which was expressly forbidden. “Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings upon the sabbath day” (Exodus 35:3). This commandment was given after the glory had shone in the face of the mediator, which typically set forth what we read in 2 Corinthians 3:18. “But we all, looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”. God is effulgent in grace, and in beholding it His people are transformed according to the same image; they become like Him; they reflect the glory of grace. But fire speaks of judgment, and in gathering sticks this man was figuratively making manifest that he was entirely out of accord with the spirit of the covenant.
The present period of grace is a prolonged sabbath into which God will not allow human works to be introduced. He has secured perfect rest for Himself in Christ, and in all that Christ has accomplished, and He is making this known so that men may rest in what has been divinely completed, and which requires no touch of man’s hand to add to its perfection. But men break the sabbath by bringing in their works and religious doings; they would rather work for blessing than rest in Christ as God’s Sabbath. But along with the non-appreciation of grace there is also the activity of a judicial spirit which is ever ready to condemn others, and even to judge the ways of God in grace. The Pharisees were exactly on this line, and it is a wide-spread evil. It is entirely out of [p. 198] harmony with the covenant, and with all the grace of which the sabbath was the sign. A man would pull his ox, or ass, or sheep out of a pit on the sabbath, but he judged the Lord of the sabbath for healing on that day. They “condemned the guiltless” (Matthew 12:7). “They watched him if he would heal him on the sabbath, that they might accuse him” (Mark 3:2). They “took counsel against him, how they might destroy him” (Mark 3:6). The ruler of the synagogue was “indignant because Jesus healed on the sabbath” (Luke 13:14). “The Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him because he had done these things on sabbath” (John 5:16). It is this kind of spirit which is set forth figuratively in the gathering of sticks for a fire. Nothing could be more contrary to the true character of God’s sabbath than the activity of a hard, censorious and judicial spirit,. The mind that is ready to pull up tares is in great danger of pulling up the wheat also. Hence the repeated injunctions of Scripture not to judge (see Matthew 7:1 - 5; Romans 14:10 - 13; 1 Corinthians 4:5). “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned. Remit and it shall be remitted to you” (Luke 6:37). This is the true spirit of the dispensation, and any violation of it will be visited retributively in the government of God. “For with the same measure with which ye mete it shall be measured to you again”. The man who was exacting with his fellow-bondman, after being forgiven much himself, was delivered to the tormentors. We are shocked to think of persons being burned at the stake, but we do not always remember that a hard and ungracious spirit that judges and condemns, and is unforgiving, is exactly the spirit that would burn a man at the stake, and think to serve God in doing it!
If God has made Himself known as a Rest-giver, and as the God of all grace, we may be sure that He regards [p. 199] seriously any spirit or conduct that is contrary to this in His people. In the case before us, those who found the man looked at the matter very gravely, for they “brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to the whole assembly” (verse 33). It was needful for all to take account of it. “And they put him in custody, for it was not declared what should be done to him” (verse 34). The matter was felt to be of sufficient importance to call for the attention of “the whole assembly”, and they, in their turn, felt that the case must be referred to Jehovah for His decision. All serves to show that there was something specially instructive and significant in the incident; it was in no wise a minor or ordinary offence. And the consequences visited upon the offender emphasise this, for the mind of Jehovah was made known that “the whole assembly shall stone him with stones outside the camp” (verse 35). All had to repudiate in the most solemn manner what had come to light. I believe this man represents in a figurative way the legal spirit such as became active in the Galatian assemblies under influence which the apostle Paul pronounced accursed. This spirit leads to persecution (Galatians 4:29), and biting and devouring one another (Galatians 5:15), and provoking and envying one another (Galatians 5:26). There is no sabbath on this line, but much kindling of fires!
The legal and judicial spirit being judged by “the whole assembly” as something entirely out of harmony with the grace of the covenant, makes way for the institution of what next follows. The children of Israel were bidden to make them tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to attach to the tassel of the corners “a lace of blue”. (See verses 37 - 41). We see in this that what is according to the mind of God in His people will always be marked by the heavenly colour. The outward covering of the ark [p. 200] of testimony as it was carried through the wilderness was “a cloth wholly of blue” (Numbers 4:6); If we want to understand the “blue” our hearts must give themselves to the contemplation of Christ. He was “out of heaven”; He said to the Jews, “I am from above”; He was even while here, “the Son of man who is in heaven” (John 3:13). The “lace of blue” suggests the heavenly as it has been seen in Christ. We are to make provision in a spiritual way for that to be always before us, “that ye may look upon it” (verse 39). We cannot go back now to be Old Testament saints, for the heavenly One has come in, and what is true in Him is now to characterise us. God would have us never to forget that “such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones” (1 Corinthians 15:48). One would like to encourage even the youngest believer on the Lord Jesus to cherish the thought of being heavenly because Christ is heavenly.
The “lace of blue” was not for others to see. The Pharisees took it up in this way, and enlarged the borders of their garments for a religious show before others. But the divine intent was that the wearer of the garments should look upon the “lace of blue”. It was “that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of Jehovah, and do them”. To us now Christ has become the great divine commandment; the whole character of our walk is to be determined by how He walked as the heavenly One. Attaching “the lace of blue” to the corners of our garments means that we accept that as the standard which divine grace would ever keep before us. This is something very different from “the lusts of your own heart and your own eyes”. It would signify that new affections have begun to work, and the eyes have a new kind of vision. As Christ thus comes into the view of the heart it settles a thousand questions and difficulties at once.
The blessedness of the heavenly had dawned upon [p. 201] the soul of John the Baptist when he said, “He who comes from above is above all. He who has his origin in the earth is of the earth, and speaks as of the earth. He who comes out of heaven is above all” (John 3:31). John was himself one of the best samples of what was of the earth, but he came into view of another order of Man in Christ — One from above and out of heaven — and he said, “He must increase, but I must decrease”.
We suffer, and God’s testimony suffers, because we give so much place to the man who has his origin in the earth. Very often, alas! the red rag of self-importance gets a place instead of the lace of blue. It is a great moment when we really give the heavenly a place, and it becomes a fixed principle in the soul that the heavenly is to increase, and the earthly to decrease. And this is to be before us at every corner of our garments — at the personal corner, and the domestic corner, and the business corner, and the assembly corner! The “lace of blue” is to be there, bringing to remembrance. It supposes the possibility of forgetting, and how great is the danger of this! It has to be a definite personal exercise that the heavenly shall be kept in our view perpetually; and this not merely in an abstract way, but as something which is to affect us personally, and in all our associations. Thus shall we be holy unto our God (verses 40,41).