The Lord Blesses Those Who Serve Him Faithfully Each Day - The Completeness Of Christ’s Work For Us - ‘For All Time A Single Sacrifice For Sins’ (Numbers 17-19)

Numbers 17:1-18:32

The call comes from God - to Aaron, to Christ (17:5; Hebrews 5:4-6). Christ is both the Offering for sin and the Great High Priest (Hebrews 5:7-10; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 7:25). We look at ourselves, and we say, ‘We perish, we are lost, we are dead’(17:12). We look to Christ, and everything changes (John 3:16; Luke 19:10; Ephesians 2:1). ‘Service’ and ‘reward’(18:31): The Lord blesses those who serve Him faithfully each day (1 Corinthians 15:58). Building on Christ, we seek to do work of lasting value - ‘gold, silver precious stones’. We dare not rest content with shallow superficiality - ‘wood, hay, straw’. There is ‘a reward’ for those whose ‘work’ is ‘built on the Foundation, which is Jesus Christ’(1 Corinthians 3:10-15).

Numbers 19:1-22

The sacrifice was to be ‘without defect’. There was to be ‘no blemish’(2). Here, we have a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ - ‘without sin’, He offered Himself ‘for the sins of the people’(Hebrews 4:15; 2:17). The gathering of ‘the ashes’(9-10) speaks of the completeness of Christ’s work for us - ‘for all time a single sacrifice for sins’(Hebrews 10:12). The danger of becoming unclean through touching a ‘dead body’(11) - there is a warning for us here. ‘Dead in trespasses and sins’, we have been ‘made alive’ in Christ (Ephesians 2:1). We dare not look back (Luke 17:32; Genesis 19:26; Luke 9:62; 2 Peter 2:20-22). We have been purified ‘from dead works to serve the living God’(Hebrews 9:14). Christ ‘saves to the uttermost’. How dare we ‘shrink back’ from Him? ‘Have faith. Be saved’(Hebrews 7:25; 10:39).