Hebrews 9:13

Hebrews 9:13

Ceremonial cleanliness

As we have seen, there was more than one kind of blood offering that could be made to the Lord God under the Old Covenant. Burnt offerings and Fellowship offerings did not require the shedding of blood but Sin and Guilt offerings did. If a priest was seeking to make reparation for an unintentional sin he had committed, then he must offer a bull and its blood must be shed and sprinkled before the Lord. The same applied on the Day of Atonement when the sins of the whole congregation were cleansed by the shedding of blood. Leaders in the Camp were to offer male goats, and a common person could offer a female goat or a lamb. The poor could bring a dove or a pigeon to the priest to sacrifice, and if you were completely poverty-stricken, the Lord accepted a tenth of an ephah of finest flour. In the case of a guilt offering the worshiper must bring a ram to be sacrificed. All of these sacrificial offerings were made daily before the Lord at the Tabernacle, the finer details of what took place can be found in the first six chapters of Leviticus. 

So, what has the ashes of a heifer got to do with anything?  Number 19 describes this ceremony that covered ceremonial uncleanness. Very often, this arose from direct contact with a dead body, it was a procedure that played out for a whole week and was meant to demonstrate cleansing from corruption, the ashes of the heifer were mixed with water and used to purify the unclean person.

The sad point of all of these endeavours to obtain cleanliness before the Lord is that the various rituals and ceremonies could only clean a person outwardly, there was no ceremony that could cleanse a heart or an inner conscience. Any outward rites that are still practiced today cannot penetrate the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Only God can do that, by His Spirit, as we shall see!

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