Purified

I’m really glad that I don’t live in the Old Testament days. All those rituals would probably have driven me crazy.

But God used those rituals as pictures to teach the people about who he is, who we are, and who we are called to be.

And in this case, he used the ritual of purification to teach us some important things about sin and our relationship with God.

First, sin is not something that we can just ignore.

When the people became unclean, they were required to be ritually washed. They couldn’t just ignore it.

If they willfully refused to be washed, they were cut off from the community.

Why? Because if they failed to be washed, they would defile the Lord’s sanctuary (Numbers 19:13, 20).

In the same way, to keep sin in our lives would be to defile the temple of God, which is our body.

The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us when we become Christians. We are his sanctuary.

And so if there’s sin in our hearts, we need to deal with it immediately. We cannot just ignore it.

It’s also the reason why not everyone can go into heaven.

To allow people whose sins have not been cleansed into heaven would defile the heavenly sanctuary.

God cannot allow that, and so people will be cut off from his presence.

Second, only a clean person could cleanse the unclean person (verses 18–19).

In the same way, only Jesus Christ, who was the only perfect person who ever lived on this earth, can sprinkle us clean from our sin.

The interesting thing about the burning of the heifer that made the ashes for the water of purification was that everyone involved in the making of the ashes became impure for a time.

In the same way, Jesus became impure—not by his own sins, but by the sins of the world that were placed on him when he died for our sins.

In 2 Corinthians 5:21, it says,

God made [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Third, there was no excuse for not being cleansed.

It was so easy. The water was readily available to anyone who needed it.

So if they failed to be cleansed and were cut off from the community, they had no one to blame but themselves.

The same is true with anyone who rejects the salvation that God offers.

It’s not difficult to be saved. Jesus Christ is readily available to anyone who calls out to him.

In Romans 10:13, it says,

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

But because it’s so easy, there is no excuse for anyone who rejects Jesus Christ. There is only God’s wrath and separation from him forever that remains for that person.

Have you been purified of your sins? Have your sins been forgiven?