Christ in the Book of Numbers

Paul gives us some insight into the exegetical thinking of his day in chapter 10 of his first letter to the Corinthian church. The apostolic belief when reading through an Old Testament book like Numbers was that Christ was ever-present with his people, nourishing, safeguarding, upholding, and as necessary, judging them throughout their sojourning.

And the glory of the LORD appeared to them, and the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle." - Numbers 20:6b-8

Paul later says that as Israel wandered through the wilderness, they "all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:3-4).

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. - Numbers 21:4-9

Paul again tells us that in their sin against the LORD, the people of Israel were actually testing Christ - "We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer" (1 Corinthians 10:9-10, see also John 3:14, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.")

While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. And the LORD said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the LORD, that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.” And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.” And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand. - Numbers 25:1-9

In relation to this particular instance in Israel's history, Paul says, "We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day" (1 Corinthians 10:8). Paul interpreted the idolatry recorded in Numbers 25 not simply as a transgression of God's commands, but more significantly, as an act of marital infidelity with the covenant Lord - namely, Christ the bridegroom. These events are tied back into the Lord's Supper and our dining with Christ at his table in the future wedding feast as the blessed Church.

Paul says all that was recorded in the book of Numbers, concerning the interactions between Israel and Christ, were "written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come" (1 Corinthians 10:11). Let us not desire evil as they did, but flee from idolatry, that we might partake of this meal spread before us at the Lord's table.

SDG

Baptism - Salvation through Judgment

Several posts ago, I mentioned that I would discuss the topic of baptism in terms of salvation through judgment (see The Chaotic Waters Submit to the Word of Christ). And now I am finally getting around to it.

Water seems to play a significant role in the Bible. It seems to be the barrier between where we are and where we need to be - like the Red Sea blocking the way between Egypt and Israel's pathway to the wilderness to worship the God of their fathers. We know this scene as leading up to the exodus. Or how about when Joshua leads the people from the wilderness to the bank of the Jordan River to cross over into the promised land? The Jordan offered up a daunting obstacle the people of Israel had to confront before entering Canaan. Water also seems to be the means by which our righteous God executes judgment on mankind. One particular event that comes to mind is the flood judgment, where God decided to deluge the entire world with water in the days of Noah. Another is the exodus event mentioned above, where God would judge the armies of Pharoah as they pursued the people of God through the Red Sea. 

But another crucial aspect of what water does is that, while most of the examples mentioned above were real acts of judgment, it also offered a means by which God saved his people. This is the crux of our understanding of redemption - that is, namely, salvation through judgment. See what God says to Moses in Exodus 6:6, "I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment." God redeems with great acts of judgment. And Paul discusses this topic in his first letter to the Corinthian church. He says that, "our fathers were all under the cloud [of Christ's presence], and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:1-4). The people of Israel underwent a baptism as they passed through the Red Sea, but the same waters that were restrained on their behalf would be unleashed on the Egyptians in hot pursuit. They would all die as the waters came crashing down. Paul would later say that the cloud was actually Christ himself, in his preincarnate state. He led Israel through the waters. It was Christ that nourished them with bread (the manna pointed to the true spiritual food, the bread from heaven - John 6:48-51) and water from the Rock (1 Corinthians 10:4, John 6:55, the water pointed to the true spiritual drink, his own blood). And it was Christ they put to the test in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:9). Jude would go so far as to say that it was "Jesus who saved a people out of the land of Egypt" (Jude 5, ESV). These verses touch both on Israel's identification with Christ as they were baptized in the Red Sea and their participation with Christ as they fed on the food and drink in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:16). Did you catch all that? This is tough to understand. Let's look at another example.

Peter also clarifies how this redemption through judgment works itself out - in 2 Peter 3:5-7, he says, "For they [false teachers] deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished." He says that God judged the world by means of a flood. But then in an earlier letter, he tells us about the redemption that came with that flood - in 1 Peter 3:20-21, "God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Incredible. Praise God for his mercy. So God judges the world with flood waters, but delivers eight people in an act that corresponds to baptism by means of an ark that was meant to symbolize the future resurrection of Jesus Christ. So Noah, as we see also with the people of Israel above, identifies himself mysteriously with Christ as he passed through the judgment waters. It is in this identification that we find our deliverance from the wrath of God. And Peter says that this water is not about cleansing (i.e. removing of dirt from the body), but is more accurately meant to provide the means by which we make an appeal to God for a good conscience. (On an important note, how does baptism offer us a good conscience? Because Christ died and has been raised, never to die again. As those who have sinned against God, we make our appeal to him on the grounds of this miraculous act of grace - on the grounds of Jesus' blood, we plead our case. And it is on these grounds of appeal that our consciences are made right with our Father.)

Our baptism is intricately intertwined with these Old Testament events. First, Christ himself mentions his future suffering on our behalf as a baptism. In the gospel account of Luke, he says, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!" (Luke 12:50). The suffering was not his being rejected by men at the cross, but the judgment of God that occurred on the cross. His baptism was experiencing the wrath of a holy God against the sins of the world. In Romans 6, Paul addresses our identification with this baptism into death. He says, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:3-4). Again, Paul says that in order for us to be raised up out of those judgment waters of death, we must identify ourselves with Christ. Just as Noah identified with the future resurrection of Christ as he passed through the waters safely, how much more shall we pass through the baptismal waters and be raised as we identify ourselves with him who has already been raised by the glory of the Father! 

The impetus of my argument here is twofold - first, the day of the Lord is coming, and his judgment is close behind. But second, if we identify ourselves with Christ by confessing that he is Lord and believing that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9), we too will pass through the waters safely. We too will be saved through God's judgment.

SDG