Christ in Numbers: Lessons from the Wilderness
The Book of Numbers continues the story of the Israelites’ journey to the Promised Land. The Israelites had just come out of Egypt, walked through the Red Sea, and were led into the wilderness. Their journey should have taken eleven days, but instead, it took forty years because of their unbelief and disobedience. Numbers takes place in the wilderness, where God tested the Israelites, and they failed. None of the disobedient generation made it to the Promised Land except for two faithful Israelites. The Israelites’ plight shows us that when people repeatedly choose unbelief, they will not receive God’s promises (Hebrews 3:19). When people choose to disobey God, they are left to wander around aimlessly without purpose in the wilderness called life and will not enter the blessings of God’s promises. Within the pages of Numbers, we find hints of the coming Messiah. Not only can we find types of Jesus in persons like Moses, we see types in events such as the Exodus and articles such as Aaron’s rod. Here, we will explore Jesus in the Book of Numbers and discover how, through these hints, truths about our Messiah are revealed. We will see Jesus in the Israelite’s wanderings in the wilderness, Aaron’s Rod, the Red Heifer, the Brazen Serpent, and in Balaam. Wilderness Wanderings We see Christ in the Israelites’ journey to the promised land. Like the Israelites, Jesus came out of Egypt (Matt. 2:15), through the waters of baptism (Matt. 3:16), and was led into the wilderness (Matt. 4:1), where Satan tested Him for forty days. But where the Israelites failed in their testing in the wilderness, and a generation was denied access to the promised land, Jesus succeeded and opened the promised land to all who would follow Him. Aaron’s Staff (Rod) (Numbers 17) During the Israelites’ time in the wilderness, Korah, a Levite, and his followers thought Moses and Aaron had too much power and conspired against Moses. Because of their rebellion, God caused the earth to open and swallow them. However, God’s warning did not put an end to the rebellion. Other tribal leaders joined in. In response, God sent a plague that killed 14,700 of the Israelites. But this didn’t stop the rebellion either. Finally, God ended the unrest by using Aaron’s staff to confirm Israel’s leader. Moses took a staff from each of the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel. Each leader’s name was written on a staff, Aaron’s on the staff of the tribe of Levi. The staffs were placed in the Tabernacle in front of the ark of the covenant and left there overnight. God instructed Moses that “the staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Israelites” (Numbers 17:5). The next day, upon examination of Aaron’s staff, Moses saw that “it had not only sprouted but had budded, blossomed and produced almonds” (Numbers 17:8). The grumblings against Moses and Aaron stopped. Ways Aaron’s Staff Revealed Truths About Christ Like Aaron’s staff, Jesus Christ was also a living branch that sprouted from a root that appeared dead (Isaiah 11:1 and Isaiah 53:2). After the Babylonians took the Israelites captive, the Davidic branch appeared dead. But Isaiah prophesied that “a shoot will come up from the branch of Jesse; from his roots, a Branch will bear fruit” (Isaiah 11:1). This Branch was Jesus Christ. In the same way Aaron’s staff was cut off from a living tree, God’s Son, Jesus, was also cut off. He was killed. But like Aaron’s rod that sprouted life, Jesus defied all laws of nature and was resurrected. The resurrection of Aaron’s rod declared who God had chosen. Likewise, the resurrection of Jesus settled any dispute of whether Jesus was God’s chosen one. Lastly, after the staff budded, it was placed in the presence of the Lord. Similarly, after Jesus was resurrected, He returned to His Father’s presence. Red Heifer (Numbers 19 ) A red heifer was part of a purification ritual to make clean those who had come into contact with the dead and allow them back in the presence of God. A Priest would take a red heifer without blemish who had never been under a yoke and slaughter it outside of camp and then burn it. The red heifer’s ashes would be used in the cleansing water. The red heifer and Christ have three main similarities. First, both were without blemish. Second, both were sacrificed outside of camp. Christ was crucified outside of Jerusalem (Hebrews 13:11-12). As the ashes of the red heifer cleansed people from the contamination of death, the blood of Christ saves us from the penalty and corruption of death and enables us to be in the presence of God. (Hebrews 9:13-14). Brazen Serpent (Numbers 21:4-9) As the Israelites traveled through the wilderness, they constantly grumbled and complained. Despite repeated warnings and punishment for complaining against God and Moses (Numbers 11:1, Numbers 14:2), God finally had enough. He sent venomous snakes among the Israelites, and many died (Numbers 21:6). God’s judgment and mercy are inseparable. When you see one, you will find the other. Although God sent the snakes as a judgment against Israel, He also gave them a way out. He told Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then, when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived (Numbers 21:8-9). Because God is holy, He must deal with our sin (judgment). Because He is love, he chooses to offer us mercy. Ways the Brazen Serpent Revealed Truths About Christ “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” John 3:14-15 First, both the serpent and Jesus were lifted up. The Israelites looked to a snake on a pole for healing from poisonous venom, just like we look to the Savior on a cross to heal us from the poison of sin. Secondly, the Israelites were given a way to escape from immediate physical death, just like we
More Types of Jesus in Exodus
Exodus provides us a glimpse into the very nature of our Messiah, Jesus Christ. In “Finding Jesus in Exodus,” we see Jesus in a burning bush, as the Great I Am, and as a promise-keeping God. But these aren’t the only images we discover in the ancient pages of the second book of the Bible; we also see Jesus in the “Exodus” of the Israelites from Egypt and in the “manna” that God provided during their wanderings.
Finding Jesus in the Old Testament: From Genesis to Moses
Reading Exodus 1 & 2 About 2,500 years passed from the time of Adam to the time of Moses. Adam’s one act of disobedience plunged the whole creation abruptly into an ice-cold curse. However, in the same moment that it seemed as if all hope was lost, God promised us a way out, a Savior (Genesis 3:15). The Book of Genesis gives us a foretaste of God’s divine plan of salvation; how He would fulfill his promise of redemption through one family, the family of Abraham. What God hinted at after the fall of man, He unveiled further in the three promises He made to Abraham, which together we call the Abrahamic Covenant: the promise to make Abraham into a great nation through which all nations would be blessed (Genesis 12:2-3), the promise to give Abraham’s offspring land (Genesis 12:7), and the promise to give Abraham descendants far too great to count (Genesis 13:15-16). God repeated these promises to Isaac, the son of Abraham, and to Jacob, the son of Isaac. Genesis takes us through the lives of these three patriarchs showing us how they acted in faith and held tightly onto the promises of God. Jacob, whose name became Israel, fathered 12 sons, who would later become the 12 tribes of Israel. Genesis ends with Abraham’s descendants, although living in Egypt, far away from the promised land, still holding on tight to God’s promises of a nation, land, and descendants (Genesis 50:24-25). READING: EXODUS 1&2 Exodus picks up around 280 years after the death of Joseph, the last recorded event in Genesis. Joseph, the son of Jacob, and second in command in the pagan nation of Egypt, rescued his family from famine by offering them refuge with him. In response, Jacob (Israel) left Canaan and brought his entire family to Egypt to live, where they stayed for over 400 years (Exodus 12:40). While in Egypt, Abraham’s offspring began to see God fulfill His promise of many descendants to Abraham. The Israelites flourished and grew in numbers from 70 people (Exodus 1:5) to around 2 million (Numbers 1:46). They became “so numerous that the land was filled with them” (Exodus 2:7). Israel was becoming a great nation, not in the promised land, but instead, in Egypt. As Israel’s numbers increased, the Egyptian’s tolerance of them decreased. The Israelites sheer numbers threatened Egypt, and eventually, because of this fear, Egypt enslaved and oppressed them. The promises of God could not be stopped, not even by enslavement or oppression, because “the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread” (Exodus 1:12). Satan, who constantly schemed to destroy the line of the promised Messiah, began to work in the heart of the Egyptian king. He ordered every Hebrew baby boy to be thrown into the Nile (Exodus 1:22). Nevertheless, Satan’s plot failed, as we will see in the story of Moses. Moses was born in Egypt to Hebrew parents during this time of Egyptian subjugation. Moses’ mother devised a plan to save her son from being thrown into the Nile River to die. She hid Moses for three months, but when she could hide him no longer, she put him in a basket and placed him in the Nile near the royal bathing place. The Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses, and “felt sorry for him” (Exodus 2:6). Moses’ sister, who had been watching this scene unfold, approached Pharaoh’s daughter and asked if she wanted her to find a Hebrew nurse to feed the baby. Pharaoh’s daughter agreed, and Moses’ mom became his nurse. When Moses was old enough to be weaned, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him (Exodus 2:1-10). Pharaoh’s daughter raised Moses with all the privileges of the Egyptian court, but instead of accepting this privilege, Moses “refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter” (Hebrews 11:24). After seeing an Egyptian beat a fellow Hebrew, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. The next day, Moses returned to his people and witnessed two Hebrews in a fight. Moses tried to make peace between the two men, but they rejected his help and mocked him. Pharaoh heard what happened and tried to kill Moses. Moses fled Egypt to Midian, not a short journey. Once he arrived in Midian, he sat down by a well. (Exodus 2:11-15). At the well, he saw shepherds harassing the 7 daughters of Jethro, a priest of Midian. Moses rescued the girls and watered their flocks. Moses remained in Midian for 40 years. He married Zipporah, one of the daughters of Jethro, and became a shepherd. During these 40 years, the Israelites in Egypt “groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them (Exodus 2:23-25). God heard the cries of his people. God had not forgotten them, and he had not forgotten about Moses. God had been making preparations behind the scenes. He had answered the people’s prayers before the Israelite even uttered them. God saved a Hebrew baby from certain death, positioned him in a position of power in Egypt, and then exiled him to Midian, all in preparation for what was to come: the liberation of His chosen people, the Israelites from Egypt. God had promised the Israelites he would make them into a great nation, give them land, and make them numerous. Amid oppression and slavery, these promises must have seemed distant and unobtainable to the Israelites. But God was working. God is always working. Through this story, even in the middle of trying times, even when God’s promises seem distant and unobtainable, we can rest assured that He is working and that what He promises will come to pass.