What, then, it may be asked, is to be done? The scripture before us supplies the answer.—“And if any man die very suddenly by him, and he hath defiled the head of his consecration, then he shall shave his head in the day of his cleansing; on the seventh day shall he shave it. And on the eighth day he shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons, to the priest, to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation; and the priest shall offer the one for a sin-offering, and the other for a burnt-offering, and make an atonement for him, for that he sinned by the dead, and shall hallow his head that same day. And he shall consecrate unto the Lord the days of his separation, and shall bring a lamb of the first year for a trespass-offering; but the days that were before shall be lost, because his separation was defiled.” (Num. vi. 9-12.)
Here we find atonement, in its two grand aspects, as the only ground on which the Nazarite could be restored to communion. He had contracted defilement, and that defilement could only be removed by the blood of the sacrifice. We might deem it a very trifling matter to touch a dead body, and particularly under such circumstances. It might be said, How could he help touching it, when the man had suddenly dropped dead by his side? To all this the reply is at once simple and solemn. God’s Nazarites must maintain personal purity; and, moreover, the standard by which their purity is to be regulated is not human, but divine. The mere touch of death was sufficient to break the link of communion; and had the Nazarite presumed to go on as though nothing had happened, he would have been flying in the face of God’s commandments, and bringing down heavy judgment upon himself.
But, blessed be God, grace had made provision. There was the burnt-offering—the type of the death of Christ to Godward; there was the sin-offering—the type of that same death to usward; and there was the trespass-offering—the type of the death of Christ, not only in its application to the root or principle of sin in the nature, but also to the actual sin committed. In a word, it needed the full virtue of the death of Christ to remove the defilement caused by the simple touch of a dead body. This is peculiarly solemnizing. Sin is a dreadful thing in God’s sight—most dreadful. A single sinful thought, a sinful look, a sinful word, is enough to bring a dark, heavy cloud over the soul, which will hide from our view the light of God’s countenance, and plunge us into deep distress and misery.
Let us, then, beware how we trifle with sin. Let us remember that ere one stain of the guilt of sin—even the very smallest—could be removed, the blessed Lord Jesus Christ had to pass through all the unutterable horrors of Calvary. That intensely bitter cry, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” is the only thing that can give us any proper idea of what sin is; and into the profound depths of that cry no mortal or angel can ever enter. But though we can never fathom the mysterious depths of the sufferings of Christ, we should at least seek to meditate more habitually upon His cross and passion, and, in this way, reach a much deeper view of the awfulness of sin in the sight of God. If, indeed, sin was so dreadful, so abhorrent to a holy God, that He was constrained to turn away the light of His countenance from that blessed One who had dwelt in His bosom from all eternity; if He had to forsake Him because He was bearing sin in His own body on the tree, then what must sin be?
Oh, reader, let us seriously consider these things. May they ever have a place deep down in these hearts of ours, that are so easily betrayed into sin. How lightly, at times, do we think of that which cost the Lord Jesus every thing—not only life, but that which is better and dearer than life, even the light of God’s countenance! May we have a far deeper sense of the hatefulness of sin. May we most sedulously watch against the bare movement of the eye in a wrong direction; for we may rest assured that the heart will follow the eye, and the feet will follow the heart, and thus we get away from the Lord, lose the sense of His presence and His love, and become miserable, or, if not miserable, what is far worse, dead, cold, and callous—“hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”