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.

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Christ in the Old Testament

This is a topic I love talking about. I could easily get carried away, but for the sake of brevity, I will only choose a few verses to reference. Jesus may have come down from heaven to dwell among us in the flesh 2000 years ago in Palestine, but he was revealed in many different ways throughout the Old Testament as well. Here are a few examples.

1. The Christ was revealed to Abraham - Jesus tells the disillusioned Pharisees, "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). Paul expands on this in his letter to the Galatians, saying, "And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blessed'" (Galatians 3:8).
2. The Christ was revealed to Moses - Again, Jesus tells the disbelieving Jews, "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:45-47).
3. The Christ was revealed to King David - In his sermon at Pentecost, Peter tells the Jews gathered in the house, "Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he [David] foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption" (Acts 2:30-31).
4. The Christ was revealed to Isaiah - Referencing the wonderful vision Isaiah recorded in Isaiah 6, John says in his gospel account, "Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him [Jesus]" (John 12:41).
5. The Christ was revealed to the rest of the Old Testament prophets - Peter writes about the manner in which the prophets wrote during their day to the downward-spiraling people of Israel about the great hope to come, "Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories" (1 Peter 1:10-11).
6. And finally, Jesus himself explained that the entire Old Testament was about him - During their walk down the road to Emmaus, two disciples listen to Jesus reveal himself to them, "And he said to them, 'O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:25-27).

This is just a rudimentary look at how much the Son is spoken of in the Old Testament. This is what is called a Christocentric approach to the Scripture, where Jesus is seen as the focal point of every book, every event, ever period in history. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

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The Ark, the Mercy Seat, and Christ

Exodus 25:20-22 says, "The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel."

This is quite a description Moses has recorded for us. God has designated a place in time and space where he will come in his holy presence and speak with Moses. It is hard to conceive the magnitude of the situation described here, "...from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you..." And yet, a few verses later, Moses would record the Lord's words depicting what was actually happening. The Lord says to Moses, "And see that you make them after the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain" (Exodus 25:40). A pattern is simply an example set up to represent an actual person, place, or event - it is not the real thing. What then, does this represent?

It is sometimes described in the Old Testament that God sits upon the cherubim molded to the ark of the testimony, envisioning God in his majesty in heaven, where the ark of the testimony, together with the mercy seat, would become the Lord's throne. But this scene has been described before, when Ezekiel sees the Lord enthroned in the heavens in a vision. Ezekiel describes the cherubim, whose wings were touching one another (Ezekiel 1:9, 23), as on the ark. There was a throne above the expanse over their heads, and seated upon the throne was the glory of the Lord (v. 26, 28). From in the midst of the expanse, he spoke to Ezekiel (v. 25, 28).

Isaiah saw something very similar to this scene in Isaiah 6, which I have described in more detail here. John would later record in his gospel account that the one sitting upon the throne was Christ himself (John 12:41), in his preincarnate glory.

The point here is that the altar, the mercy seat, and the cherubim made of gold were simply patterns made after the actual heavenly scene Moses looked up from the mountain. The author of Hebrews confirms this when he says, "They serve as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things" (Hebrews 8:5). And then goes on to say that Christ has obtained a ministry more excellent than the one Moses mediated, because it is enacted on better promises - namely, that instead of priests entering the Most Holy Place each year for the atonement of Israel's sins, Christ has entered once for all into the holy places not made with hands by means of his own blood, securing our eternal redemption and purifying our consciences from dead works to serve the living God (see all of Hebrews 8-9).

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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.

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The One upon whom Isaiah gazed

I mention this because it is sometimes difficult for people to see the continuity in which the Triune God communicates with man throughout the Scriptures. The plans and purposes of God originate within the mind of the Father. The speech and image of the Father are expressed in the Son, who is the Word. The power with which the Word is spoken and the means by which that Word is brought to bear on the human heart is the Spirit. The Scriptures continuously speak in this manner.

The example I bring to the reader's attention is that of the prophet in Isaiah 6:1-6. Isaiah sees a vision of the Lord of hosts sitting upon his throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the heavenly temple. Above him stood the seraphim, resounding with, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of hosts..." Isaiah is stunned by the vision of such glory, at a complete loss as a sinner standing before the holy God. Isaiah proclaims the One who sits upon the throne to be the King, the LORD of hosts.

Here is the issue with continuity - can mere man look upon the invisible Father who dwells in unapproachable light (see Colossians 1:15, 1 Timothy 6:16)? This would seem incongruent with Scripture. John clarifies in his gospel account by quoting Isaiah from this same scene in ch. 6. John then explains why Isaiah said these things - "Isaiah said these things because he saw his [Jesus'] glory and spoke of him" (Jn 12:41). The exalted Lord that Isaiah looked upon in his vision in the year that King Uzziah died was the Son in his preincarnate glory, the image and radiance of the Father. Before the Son became flesh and dwelt among men, he was sitting upon the throne in heaven.

What does this tell us? It tells us that the Father has seen in fitting to express himself in the image of his Son to man (Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:15). The voice of the Father is enunciated by the Word, who is also the Son (John 1:1-2). The Son therefore grants access to the image and mind of the Father.

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