The invincibility of sin is wonderful. No greater proof than Israel, and no greater instance in the wilderness than immediately after the judgment upon Korah, Dathan and Abiram. They had seen Nadab and Abihu perish by fire from Jehovah; but here are two hundred and fifty princes, men of renown who are consumed in a moment. If those of the priest's family were consumed when bringing false fire to Jehovah, how much more those who were not of this family, nor even of the tribe of Levi! But that judgment was no new thing; the earth opening and swallowing them up was both new and unexpected. For though Moses warned them, saying, “if Jehovah maketh a new thing,” those who stood round about Dathan and his company (who are said to appertain unto Korah, proving him to be the leader of the ecclesiastical party and the instigator of the secular) did not appear to believe it possible any more than those who actually perished. Hence the terror of the surrounding multitude. They fled at the cry of them that went down alive into the pit, saying, Lest the earth swallow us up also. But it wrought no change in them. How solemn the fact that all God does, for man, short of the new birth, provokes sin, and becomes a cause of increasing judgment! The ribband was given that they might be holy: but Korah's rebellion follows. The judgment upon Korah and his followers brings out in its turn from stiff-necked people the charge against Moses and Aaron. “Ye have killed the people of the Lord.” Be it goodness, be it severity, sin abounds and remains unsubdued. No other termination is possible than judgment. Mercy may spare the guilty, righteousness may condemn, there is no change till the guilty soul is born again or anew. Therefore because of the inveterateness of sin the Lord Jesus said, “Ye must be born again.” What a proof that man is not merely sinful, but sin! he is that very thing. To be cleansed from sin is to be cleansed from himself, born of water and the Spirit.
If the ribband was a call to holiness, the broad plates made of the censers of the presuming princes are for a sign, or warning, that no strangers not of the seed of Aaron come near to offer incense to Jehovah. Neither the call nor the warning do they heed; for on the morrow all the congregation murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying, that they had killed the people of Jehovah. The people would still, as in defiance of God, maintain the right of the princes to offer incense, and that Moses had slain righteous men. They were willfully ignorant that Jehovah had by direct and immediate judgment destroyed them. Thus the congregation ignored the sin and in reality charged God with unrighteousness. It is a solemn thing to doubt God's mercy; but to say that God is unrighteous in His judgment is the climax of wickedness, and it brings upon them further judgment. Jehovah suddenly appears. While the people gather against Moses and Aaron, the cloud is seen to cover the tabernacle; God indicates His judgment upon the guilty that had perished; and the plague destroys fourteen thousand and seven hundred more of the people. What a gap in their numbers these judgments made!
But oh, what a God is ours! Truly we say, His ways of mercy rise superior to His righteous judgment. For while His goodness and His wrath (as we see here) have brought out still greater sin, God makes the greater sin an occasion for showing still greater mercy. And He, while providing for the then need of Israel, by it reveals to His church now a truth of the highest and most blessed import. For now appears most prominently the intercessory character and high function of priesthood, and a further display of the resources of grace. Long afterward it was written, “but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound “; surely if not at that time written in God's Book, it is proved in His ways.
Moses had said that Jehovah would show who were holy and who were appointed to draw near; and so it had been by terrible judgment. Now the same is to be declared by His mercy and compassion. What more effectual way than when Aaron ran in among the plague-stricken people? His office had been confirmed to him by the direct acts of God: the sudden death of men who dared to dispute his sole title to it; and now by stepping in and preserving the people from death. The difference is that the former is outside the sphere of priesthood, it is God maintaining His own order in face of rebellious man. The priest stands still, and God takes vengeance. But on the occasion of the plague the priest is allowed, nay commanded, to intervene in mercy so as to stay the ravages of judicial death.
Here are three special judgments in two days, and the last because the people, who had witnessed the two preceding, repented not but in heart were committing the same sin that brought the judgment upon Korah and his company. Jehovah speaks to Moses, “Get you up from among the congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment.” Moses knew there was wrath gone out from Jehovah, and his instructed heart knew the right way to avert it. He bids Aaron take the censer and fire from the altar and put incense thereon and go quickly unto the congregation and make an atonement. And Aaron stands between the dead and the living; and the plague is stayed.
“Make an atonement;” but not with fresh blood. This would have been to deny the all-sufficiency in atoning power of the precious blood already typified as accepted by God. In the Mosaic economy where nothing was perfect, there was blood offered every day, not as fresh blood superseding the blood first sprinkled upon the door post, as if laying again the foundation of redemption; but while in various ways showing special applications of the blood, these sacrifices of blood in a way referred back to the blood sprinkled upon the door post in Egypt as that whose efficacy was not forgotten. All other sacrifices had more or less the remembrance attached to them that redemption from Egypt was accomplished. The blood that was shed for individual failure could not set aside the blood outside the shut door for the eye of God alone; not to satisfy or remove the fears of an Israelite, but to meet the righteous requirements of a just and holy God. It is the passover which so strikingly gives the true thought of atonement, which to a certain point is expressed clearly when God said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over." Afterward the offerer saw the blood when he brought his sacrifice, that he might consciously realize in his soul the value of the blood (typically) once shed. I speak not of Israel's intelligence but—as I judge—of God's intention in the blood-sacrifices appointed to Israel, the figures of the communion with the blood which the apostle declares we now have when we take the cup. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:1616The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:16).)
Fire is taken from the altar—this tells of divine judgment, for where there is sin, there must also be judgment. Never one sin committed but judgment followed, measured by the majesty and holiness of God. For the believer, it is, or rather was, borne by Christ. And the incense is the sweet savor of Himself which ascended up to God; it is the preciousness of Him who bore the judgment that God might righteously stay the power of death. Aaron putting incense on the fire is the intercessory act of the priest pleading the merits of the one sacrifice, as if he would put God in remembrance of it.
Aaron, standing between the dead and the living, staying the plague that it pass not over to the living, is a beautiful prophetic picture of the latter day, when Christ will intervene for the ancient people of God. When He as High Priest will arrest the arm of the Avenger, and the living remnant become a great nation, restored to favor and blessing through a greater than Aaron.
Precious teaching for us, conscious of many failures. For our failures deserve and would surely meet righteous judgment; but we are by faith sprinkled with blood, and the sweet incense of Christ is constant before God. Our High Priest ever burns the incense lit by His death, a sweet smelling savor to God. He is gone within the veil, into the holy place by His own blood; there He makes intercession for us, and does and must prevail. We are on the living side of the Priest, and the angel of death cannot pass. “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of My hand.” (John 10)
There is no ground here for the error that a failing believer must begin again as though his pardon could be canceled. “Make atonement” gives no sanction for a doctrine so contrary to the direct teaching of the word. True undoubtedly “without shedding of blood there is no remission.” But Aaron here shed no blood: there was no atonement in that sense; there was the pleading before God of the value of the offering once made. It is so that “atonement” is made for believers now when they fail. It is the Advocate above, Jesus Christ the righteous, who by His presence there avails for us.
Intercession is the teaching here, and both the incense and Aaron are together a type of Christ; the former of His worth, the latter of His office. Aaron might run among the people: what would it have availed? There was no worth in him; the power that stayed the plague was (typically) in the incense. It needs both the incense and the priest to be a fitting type of Him who is both Offering and Priest.
But impressive as the scene is, beautiful as showing Christ the Conqueror of Death, it does not give the full victory. There is even in this the power that stays the ravages of death; but is there power to recover the captive already held in death's chains? Yea, the next picture of Christ shows Him as One who has life in Himself. He is the living Rod, once dead. If as Aaron standing between the dead and the living He appears as the High Priest, as the living Rod we see more the worth, the glory, of His person, who if He did once lie in the grave, it was that He might forever roll away the stone. It is here that we see the fullest victory of Christ over death and the grave. He like Samson suffered Himself to be bound that He might break the cords, went into the prison-house of death, and then bursting through every barrier carried away the gates. Is not this to tell of His own personal might and glory, not of His official greatness and position as Priest? Oh! who so fitted and worthy to be Priest, to stand between dead and living as He who has life in Himself to give to whomsoever He will; who only went into the grave to prove He had power to come out; who laid down His life that He might take it again, thus breaking the power of death in the only effectual and triumphant way. Truly He went into the strong man's house and bound him, spoiling his goods; now He has the keys of Death and Hades. For the believer all bondage through fear of death is taken away. Before Christ came, it was a thing inevitable for saints to fear death and be in bondage through it. Is it right now that He has been in the grave and come out again? Surely if the sting of death is gone, so also must the victory of the grave. Rising from among the dead is the divine proof of His fitness to be oar High Priest, “that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death......that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God.” (See Heb. 7:25-2825Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. 26For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; 27Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. 28For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore. (Hebrews 7:25‑28).)
Historically, the living rod is still more to confirm Aaron in the office of Priest; but is there one type or shadow which reaches no farther than the then circumstances? Nay, we know that all centers in Christ. The Bible would have been in vain to meet our need if Christ had not come. It would have found us, and left us, without hope, and in despair. But now we have not only the Book of God, but the Christ of God dead and risen. This is salvation.
The deeper truth lay concealed in the type, nor could it be revealed before the Antitype brought it forth when He rose from the dead. Not authority alone, as in Moses, could suffice, nor even intercession as in the priest, in the sense of preventing death. One was needed who could bring again from the dead, and who in His own person is the pledge of it. Such is the Christ of God, and so presented in the living rod. Then it was not possible to apprehend the fullness of teaching contained therein. The revelation of the Son was necessary, who not only shed His true light upon all around Him, but also cast a backward ray upon the old things and brought out from them a new beauty and truth which else had lain hidden in the shadow of their own types.
But if all the brightness was unseen by Israel in the wilderness, did they pay heed to what they did see? It was to them a confirmation of Aaron in His office; it was also, as bearing blossoms and almonds, the assurance of mercy; it was connected with the promise that God would quite take away their murmurings that they die not. This was the mercy side of the rod, and Israel soon gave proof that they did not apprehend it. But the rod had another aspect, for it was laid tip for a token against the rebels (Nam. 17:10). If it declares God's goodness, it also brings to mind their sin. This scripture is remarkably characteristic of the mingled dispensation of law and grace; the rod is a token against the rebels, yet God says He will take away their murmurings that they die not. The people saw the token, but not the grace of God. They knew not the full import of its being laid up in the ark. It was a standing proof that none but Aaron and his sons should come nigh; but it was also the pledge that God would quite take away their murmurings. There in the ark it had a place with the golden pot of manna and the two tables of the law, a wondrous combination of law, grace, and priesthood. And being there, though a token against the rebels, in connection with the manna it became a memorial to God of their deep need of mercy; and the necessity of priesthood, if judgment was to be in any way restrained. Moreover the lid of the ark which enclosed these three symbols of God's dealings with that people was sprinkled with blood: the blood covered all and was the assurance that grace would triumph over all; and no sin of theirs ever removed that memorial from His sight. Unbelief and hardness of heart deprived them of its full blessings; but the ark with its contents and blood-sprinkled lid was, and ever will be; in the remembrance of God.
“Laid up in the ark,” it is Christ abiding for them. Hidden from their view now because they rejected Him, and while the Jew is under judgment for their wickedness, Christ is a token against them. Until the present work of gathering out His church from among the Gentiles be completed, so long is Christ in heaven on the Father's throne a token against the Jew. When the church is taken, then Christ will appear for them and the “token against” be gone forever. He will come forth as the living fruitful Rod, and then they shall bear fruit to God. Then will their murmurings be quite taken away.
Meantime there is conscience of sins which opened their eyes to see the “token.” The rod was there for a testimony, and Israel could not come near without remembering their sin and its judgment. They cry out, “Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever cometh anything near unto the tabernacle of Jehovah shall die: shall we be consumed with dying?” Shall we be consumed by fire or by the earth opening and swallowing us up after the manner we have seen? Blind unbelief! They were not forbidden access to God through the medium of the priest, but only to assume the function of priesthood which was peculiar to Aaron and his sons. They anticipated death if they came near. Their unbelieving misapprehension of God's judgment brings upon them loss of privilege. They connected death with their access to God, not with their sin.
The world says that a man is the hewer of his own fortunes; and there is a sense in which this is true. The Christian knows from a higher source that what a man sows, this shall he also reap. They said that any one drawing near to the tabernacle would die, and the consequence is that their drawing near is forbidden. “Neither must the children of Israel henceforth come nigh the tabernacle of the congregation, lest they bear sin and die” (ch. 18:22). Their unbelief and mistrust of God is more serious for their standing before God than their previous presumption. They are brought down to the level of the stranger. “The stranger, that cometh nigh shall be put to death.” Henceforth Israel cannot come nearer than the stranger; that privilege is lost. It is the first step downward to that condition when, every other external privilege lost, the apostle says, “There is no difference.” Before God there never was a real difference as to nature between man and man; between Israel and the nations, there was a dispensational difference, and a privilege conferred upon Israel. But sin annulled all that and deprived them of all outward advantage. They are now altogether as Gentiles; nothing but faith in Christ for the Jew as well as the Gentile. “But we believe that, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved even as they” (Acts 15:1111But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. (Acts 15:11)).
The Rod, first dry, then bearing fruit, is the type of Christ in resurrection power, and reminds us of the grain of wheat that, having fallen into the ground and died, afterward bears much fruit. Though not directly pointing to believers now, but to the risen Christ, it surely is not straining scripture to say that in it we have an image of death while unconnected in the dry rod, and no less when bearing buds, blossoms and almonds, the quickening power of God when we having life from God bring forth fruit unto Him. We are ordained to bring forth fruit, and abiding fruit (John 15:1616Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. (John 15:16)). May it be our care to bring forth much fruit, that we may glorify the Father, and be true disciples of the Lord Jesus.