Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Prayer Meeting Lesson Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/pm/pm20020116.htm

NUMBERS: ON SPIRITUAL CASUALTIES AND VICTORS
Part XVIII - Enjoying God's Blessing By Consistently Countering Errant Beliefs
(Numbers 19:1-22)
  1. Introduction
    1. Any Scripturally-sensitive believer knows he lives in a world deeply affected by errant beliefs.
    2. For this reason, God produced a ceremonial ritual for Israel designed to produce a sharp and strong BREAK with false Egyptian beliefs to which Israel had been so exposed while in national bondage.
    3. This institution is recorded in Numbers 19:1-22 as we can show by surveying Israel's historical setting:
  2. Enjoying God's Blessing By Consistently Countering Errant Beliefs, Numbers 19:1-22.
    1. The land of Egypt where Israel had sojourned for 430 years before leaving for the Promised Land was dominated by a pagan people deeply affected by an errant view of DEATH:
      1. Where Israel had sojourned in Egypt for 430 years, she would have been exposed to the chief god of the Egyptians, the god Osiris, lord of the nether world, or of the dead, Z.P.E.B., vol. Two, p. 252.
      2. Osiris was thought to offer hope regarding death in supplying his followers a fulfilling life in the afterlife modeled in part upon the life of the present enjoyed by life in Egypt, Ibid.
      3. Also, the Egyptians had a very special sacrifice to a false god, Typhon, that required the use of a red BULL in perfect health, cf. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary on the Whole Bible, p. 126.
    2. Hence, in CONTRAST to such a strong errant religious belief that accepted death as part of normal experience, God instituted the red heifer sacrifice to show death as the unnatural product of sin, 19:1-22:
      1. God called for a red HEIFER to be sacrificed, the only sacrifice explicitly calling for a non-male animal to be in contrast to the Egyptian sacrifice of the red BULL unto the false god, Typhon, 19:1!
      2. Also, instead of the HIGHEST, HOLIEST priest, AARON, his eldest SON, ELEAZAR who was LESS holy was to bring this heifer outside the camp to be slain. This emphasized the DEFILEMENT associated with this animal's sacrifice for death to show death was never to be an acceptable part of existence as in Egyptian theology; rather, death was an unnatural defilement due to SIN, 19:3; Ibid.
      3. The red heifer was slain and burned in its totality along with aromatic cedar wood and scarlet (cloth), and its ashes saved for mixing with water for purification FROM pollution by death, 19:4-6, 10-20.
      4. So unnatural and polluting was DEATH in God's eyes just opposite Egyptian belief that Eleazar and the man touching the heifer's ashes had to wash their clothes for ritual cleansing, Numbers 19:7-9.
      5. So unnatural and polluting was DEATH in God's eyes just opposite Egyptian belief that anyone who even unintentionally contacted a human corpse or remains was ceremonially unclean for seven days and in need of sprinkling with water mixed with this red heifer's ashes, Numbers 19:11-14.
      6. So unnatural and polluting was DEATH in God's eyes just opposite Egyptian belief that all entering or existing in the tent where a person died were unclean and needed purification with the red heifer's ashes and water, and all open vessels in the tent where one died were also in need of purifying, 19:15.
      7. So unnatural and polluting was DEATH in God's eyes just opposite Egyptian belief that whatever anyone came into contact with a party who was unclean by touching a human corpse, that third party was unclean until evening of the day of that contact, Numbers 19:22.
      8. So unnatural and polluting was DEATH in God's eyes just opposite Egyptian belief that this statute regarding cleansing with the red heifer sacrificial water was instituted as a perpetual one, Num. 19:21.
Lesson: In CONTRAST TO the EGYPTIAN BELIEF that DEATH was an ACCEPTABLE part of experience, by way of the RED HEIFER sacrifice in OPPOSITION to Egyptian BELIEF (and even RITUAL of the RED BULL), GOD taught DEATH was a FOREIGN POLLUTION caused by SIN!

Application: (1) Like Israel, we are to REJECT the ERRANT BELIEFS of the religious world around us! (2) Like Israel, we are NOT to view death as a NATURAL and ACCEPTABLE part of experience, but as a FOREIGN POLLUTION produced by SIN to be OVERCOME in the END in God's plan! (3) By application, we must NOT TODAY accept theistic evolution (that allows for the survival of the fittest in evolutionism) and thus presupposes corrupting death as part of God's order before the Fall.