“Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water. And afterward, he may come into the camp. But the priest shall be unclean until evening. ”
– Numbers 19:7
Basically, the picture here, in describing how the priest offers sacrifices to atone for the people’s sins, is … In order to do that, in order to carry out this offering to make the people clean, the priest actually becomes unclean in the process.
And in this, we see a pretty powerful picture of the Gospel of what Jesus has done on the cross for us. He has become unclean, not in the sense that He has sinned, but He has exposed Himself, fully, to the stain of my sin, your sin, our sin. He has taken our uncleanness upon Himself.
This Verse Describes the Cross
This is how Second Corinthians, five, describes what happened at the cross. God made Him, who had no sin, to be sin for us. God made Him, who had no uncleanness, to be unclean for us, in order that we might become the righteousness of God, in order that we might become clean before God.
Jesus has exposed Himself fully to the stain of our sin. He became unclean so that you and I could be made clean.
I think about all my sin, specifically the stain, and shame, and guilt, and uncleanness, and that sin’s in my life, and to think that Jesus has taken it all upon Himself. And not just my life, but your life and the lives of multitudes of men and women, ultimately from every nation.
Numbers 19:7 Praises Jesus for His Sacrifice
He’s taken all of our uncleanness. All those who trust in Him, Jesus has become unclean, so that you might be clean. So, we praise Jesus. Right now, Lord Jesus, we praise You. We praise You as the one who became unclean, that we might be clean.
The one who took all our sin upon Yourself, so that we might be saved, so that we might be called the righteousness of God. So, right now, before the Father, I might be clean. We might pray right now, I might be clean.
And not just me, but others who are praying right now, who trusted in You, Lord Jesus, thank you, thank you, thank you, for taking the stain, and shame, and guilt of our sin, that we might be innocent, and honored, and clean before God.
And we pray, God we pray, for more, and more, and more people to experience this in their lives. We pray for people we know, and God, we pray for people far from us. I pray for the Magar in Nepal, for this people group, almost two million strong, that have little-to-no believers.
Numbers 19:7 Encourages Us to Testify of God’s Goodness
Tibetan descent with a mixture of religions in their history, but most of them never having heard that they can be clean before the one true God, by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for them. God, may that news be made known among the Magar in Nepal, and among thousands of other people groups that haven’t even heard it, and multitudes of people right around us today, that we will have an opportunity to interact with God.
Please, please, please use us to draw other people to Jesus. Use our lives, our testimony to this truth, today, to bring many people, today. And just think about all the people, maybe, listening to this right now, and the opportunities we have, please bring many people to be clean before You, for the first time, and for all of eternity.
Today, we pray, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
