The Gospel in Ash and Water Text: Numbers 19:17-19
Introduction: The Contagion of Death
We live in a world that is terrified of death, and yet simultaneously pretends it does not exist. We hide it away in sterile hospitals and quiet funeral homes. We use euphemisms. We tell ourselves that death is a natural part of life. But the Scriptures tell us a very different story. Death is not natural. Death is an enemy. Death is the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23). It is the final, grim punctuation mark on a life lived in rebellion against the Life-Giver.
In the Mosaic economy, God used the ceremonial law as a vast, intricate audio-visual aid to teach His people the grammar of holiness. The central lesson was this: sin brings death, and death is contagious. It defiles. To touch a dead body in ancient Israel was to become ceremonially unclean. It wasn't that you had sinned by touching the corpse of a loved one, but that you had come into contact with the consequence of sin. You were ritually contaminated by the stench of the fall. This uncleanness barred you from the tabernacle, from the presence of the living God. To be defiled by death was to be cut off from life.
Our modern world thinks this is all very primitive. We have hand sanitizer and hazmat suits. We think we can manage death. But we are blind. We are all born spiritually unclean, having been touched by the death that entered the world through Adam. We are, by nature, cut off from the presence of God. The problem is not a ritual one; it is an existential one. So what is the remedy for this mortal contagion? Israel's surrounding pagan neighbors had their own rituals, their own incantations, their own attempts to appease their bloodthirsty gods. But God, in His wisdom, provided a remedy for His people that was as profound as it was peculiar. It was a remedy of ash and water, a picture of a cleansing so complete that it could only point to the work of Christ.
The ritual of the red heifer, described earlier in this chapter, is one of the most striking types of Christ in the entire Old Testament. A perfect, unblemished red heifer, which had never been yoked, was sacrificed outside the camp. It was burned completely, and its ashes were gathered and stored. These ashes were the essential ingredient in the "water of purification." What we have in our text is the application of this remedy. And in this application, we see the gospel in gritty, granular detail.
The Text
Then for the unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt purification from sin and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel. And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave. Then the clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening.
(Numbers 19:17-19 LSB)
The Peculiar Remedy (v. 17)
We begin with the prescription for cleansing.
"Then for the unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt purification from sin and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel." (Numbers 19:17)
The remedy begins with the ashes. This is not just any ash. These are the ashes of the "burnt purification from sin." This refers back to the red heifer. Think about what these ashes represent. They are the remainder of a perfect sacrifice. A life was offered, a substitute was judged, and the fire of God's judgment consumed it completely outside the camp. These ashes are the permanent, abiding evidence of a finished work. The sacrifice is over. The price has been paid. The ashes are the receipt.
This is a picture of the finished work of Jesus Christ. He was our perfect, unblemished substitute. He was led "outside the camp" of Jerusalem to be crucified (Heb. 13:12). He endured the full fire of God's wrath against our sin. And when He declared "It is finished," the work was done. The ashes of the heifer speak of the finality and sufficiency of Christ's atoning death. You don't have to keep sacrificing the heifer. The ashes are kept, ready for application. In the same way, Christ was sacrificed once for all (Heb. 9:28). His work is done, and its benefits are perpetually available to us.
But the ashes alone are not enough. "Flowing water shall be added to them." The Hebrew is literally "living water." This is not stagnant pond water. It is water from a running stream or a spring. Throughout Scripture, living water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told the woman at the well that He could give her "living water" that would become in her a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:10-14). He later identified this living water as the Holy Spirit (John 7:38-39). So, the cleansing is a Trinitarian work. The ashes of the Son's finished sacrifice are made effective in our lives by the living water of the Holy Spirit.
You cannot have one without the other. To have the ashes without the water is to have a dead orthodoxy, a historically correct doctrine of the atonement that has no life-giving power. To have the water without the ashes is to have a contentless, emotional mysticism that is untethered from the objective work of the cross. True Christian cleansing is the application of the finished work of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Application of Grace (v. 18)
Next, we see how this cleansing mixture is applied.
"And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave." (Numbers 19:18)
Notice who applies the water: a "clean person." This is a beautiful paradox. The one who prepares the ashes in the first place becomes unclean (Num. 19:7-10), yet a clean person must apply them. This points to our great High Priest, Jesus Christ. He was perfectly clean, "holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners" (Heb. 7:26). And yet, on the cross, He who knew no sin was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). He entered into our uncleanness to make us clean. Now, as our risen and ascended High Priest, He applies His own cleansing to us.
The instrument of application is hyssop. This was a common, bushy plant. This is not the first time we've seen it. Hyssop was used to apply the blood of the Passover lamb to the doorposts in Egypt (Ex. 12:22). It was an instrument of deliverance from death. David, in his great psalm of repentance, cries out, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean" (Ps. 51:7). Hyssop, then, is a symbol of faith. It is the humble instrument that takes hold of the provision of God and applies it personally. Faith is the hand that reaches out and receives the cleansing that Christ has accomplished. It is not our faith that saves us, but Christ who saves us through faith.
And the sprinkling is comprehensive. It covers the tent, the furnishings, and all the people. The defilement of death is pervasive, and so the cleansing must be as well. It touches everything. When Christ cleanses a sinner, He cleanses him entirely. He doesn't just clean up the living room for company. He cleans out the whole house, from the attic to the cellar. This is the foundation for our sanctification. The same grace that justifies us also cleanses us and all that pertains to us.
The Timing of New Life (v. 19)
Finally, the text specifies a timeline for this purification.
"Then the clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening." (Genesis 19:19)
The sprinkling happens on two specific days: the third day and the seventh day. This is not arbitrary. The third day should shout resurrection to any student of the Bible. Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. The first application of cleansing is tied to the reality of the resurrection. Our justification is not just based on Christ's death, but on His triumphant resurrection. As Paul says, He was "delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Rom. 4:25). The third day sprinkling declares that our cleansing is based on a living Savior who conquered death.
The second sprinkling is on the seventh day. Seven is the number of completion, of perfection, of Sabbath rest. This points to our full and final sanctification. The work that God begins in us, He will bring to completion (Phil. 1:6). The seventh day sprinkling is a promise that our cleansing is not a one-time event that wears off. It is a process that culminates in total purity. On that final day, we will be presented to Himself "in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:27).
After the final sprinkling, the person is to wash his clothes and bathe. This is his personal response. He has been declared clean by the sprinkling of the water of purification; now he lives it out. He washes. This is the pattern of the Christian life. We are justified by faith alone in the work of Christ alone. That is the sprinkling. And because we are justified, we pursue sanctification. We "cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God" (2 Cor. 7:1). We do not wash in order to be made clean; we wash because we have been made clean.
The Shadow and the Substance
This whole, strange ritual of the red heifer seems obscure to us. It seems messy and foreign. But the author of Hebrews picks it up and shines the full light of the gospel upon it. He says, "For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Heb. 9:13-14).
Do you see the argument? If the shadow, the type, the ashes of a cow, could cleanse a person ceremonially from contact with physical death, how much more can the substance, the reality, the precious blood of the Son of God, cleanse you from the very source of death? The old ritual cleansed the flesh. It allowed you back into the earthly tabernacle. But the blood of Christ does something infinitely greater. It cleanses the conscience. It purges you from the inside out.
The problem of the Old Covenant was that it dealt with the symptoms. It could provide ritual cleansing from the defilement of death, but it could not deal with death itself. It pointed to the problem and pointed to the need for a greater sacrifice. Christ is that greater sacrifice. His blood does not just make us ceremonially clean; it makes us truly, eternally alive. It removes the guilt of sin and breaks the power of sin. It cleanses us from "dead works," from all our futile, self-righteous attempts to earn God's favor, so that we might be free to "serve the living God."
You have been touched by death. You were born into it. But God has provided the remedy. Not in the ashes of an animal, but in the finished work of His Son. The Holy Spirit applies that work to you through the simple instrument of faith. He sprinkles you on the "third day" of Christ's resurrection, declaring you justified. And He promises to keep sprinkling you until the "seventh day" of your glorification, when you will be perfectly complete. Your part is simply to believe this good news, and in response, to get up and wash. Repent of your sins and walk in newness of life, clean at last, not just for an evening, but for all eternity.