THROUGH THE BIBLE - Numbers..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Chapter 35 of the Book of Numbers. Let us ask in our hearts the Spirit to help us as we progress through those words, and that Jesus Christ might be exalted as we meditate upon it.

This is Numbers 35. The Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab, Jordan, at Jericho, saying, Command the people of Israel to give to the Levites some of the inheritance of their possession as cities, for them to dwell in. And you shall give to the Levites pasture lands around the cities. The cities shall be theirs to dwell in, and their pasture land shall be for their cattle and for their livestock and for all their beasts. The pasturelands of the cities which you shall give to the Levi shall reach from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all around.

And you shall measure outside the city on the east side 2,000 cubits, and on the south side 2,000 cubits, and on the west side 2,000 cubits, and on the north side 2,000 cubits, the city being in the middle. These shall belong to them as pastureland for their cities. The cities that you give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge, where you shall permit the manslayer to flee, and in addition to them you shall give 42 cities. All the cities that you give to the Levites shall be 48 wither pasturelands. And as for the cities that you shall give from the possession of the people of Israel, from the larger tribes you shall take many, and from the smaller tribes you shall take few.

Each in proportion to the inheritance that it inherits shall give of its cities to the Levites. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there. The cities shall be for you a refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer may not die until he stands before the congregation for judgment. And the cities that you give shall be your six cities of refuge. You shall give three cities beyond the Jordan and three cities in the land of Canaan to be cities of refuge.

These six cities shall be for refuge for the people of Israel and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them, that anyone who kills any person without intent might flee there. But if he struck him down with an iron object so that he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. And if he struck him down with a stone tool that could cause death, and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death.

Or if he struck him down with a wooden tool that could cause death, and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. The avenger of blood shall himself put the murderer to death. When he meets him, he shall put him to death. And if he push him out of hatred or hurl something at him, lying in wait so that he died, or in enmity struck him down with his hand so that he died, then who struck the blow shall be put to death.

He is a murderer. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death when he meets him. But if he push him suddenly without enmity, or hurled anything on him without lying in wait, or used a stone that could cause death, and without seeing him dropped it on him, so that he died, though he was not his enemy and did not seek his harm, then the congregation shall judge between the manslayer and the adventurer of blood in accordance with these rules. And the congregation shall rescue the manslayer from the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of refuge to which he had fled, and he shall live in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil. But if the manslayer shall at any time go beyond the boundaries of his city of refuge to which he fled, and the avenger of blood finds him outside the boundaries of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the manslayer, he shall not be guilty of blood.

For he must remain in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. But after the death of the high priest, the manslayer might return to the land of his possession. And these things shall be for a statue and rule for you throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses, but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death.

And you shall accept no ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge, but he may return to dwelt in the land before the death of the high priest. You shall not pollute the land in which you live, For blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell. For I, the Lord, dwell in the midst of the people of Israel. Amen.

This is the word of the Lord. Brothers and sisters, we continue with our studies through this book and now In the narrative of this story, we know that the people of Israel are very closely approaching to the moment that they're gonna cross the Jordan River and they're going to make it into the promised land. We are just very close to that very moment. And as we are approaching that very important moment in the redemptive history of our souls, and particularly of the story of the history of the people of Israel, We have arrived to some important things that took place before the crossing of the river. You may remember that, for instance, 2.

5 of the 12 tribes requested to remain on the other side of the Jordan and not to inherit any possession with the other tribes on the other side of the Jordan. You remember that it took place a couple of chapters before this. And in the previous chapter, we have the explanation and the description of the boundaries of that land that is on the other side of the Jordan that is going to be inherited or that is going to be received by the 9.5 tribes that indeed will make it and will cross through the river and will receive those lands or that land. that is an inheritance for them.

We have now arrived to this chapter 36 in which the Levites are going to be given an allocation of land for them to leave. And the whole chapter is speaking to us about the cities and about the portion of land that will be given to the Levites. We are told that they are going to receive a total of 48 cities, and six of those 48 cities are going to be called cities of refuge. Perhaps in your Bible, you will have divided into those two titles the distribution of the cities for the Levites in the beginning of the chapter. And then in the second half of the chapter, those will be the cities of refuge.

There will be six of those 48 cities given to the Levites. Beloved of Christ, what I want us to do with this chapter 36 is just simply meditate upon the justice of God as the allocation to the Levites is given or from the allocation of the cities 48 cities to the Levites. What I want us to do is just meditate upon the justice of God, because indeed, specifically with the six cities of refuge, we can see lots of the structure and the anatomy and the constitution of the justice of the Lord, not only for the people of Israel, but his justice for the world and specifically also for the church. Let me just point your attention to a couple of things that will help us and serve us to meditate together upon that, the justice of God from this chapter 36. The first thing that I want you to note is and that we need to have very clear is that the allocation of cities that was given to the Levites was not an inheritance.

You may remember that when I had the opportunity to address you from this pulpit through the Book of Numbers, I said that one of the characteristics of God's promise to his people, it was that it was given as an inheritance. Yet this allocation of land to the Levites is not an inheritance, but it's simply I dwell in place. All of the other tribes, they will receive an inheritance of the land, but the Levites will receive from their brethren a portion of land for them just to dwell in. What is the difference? The difference is that the other tribes will receive something from the Lord and they will pass that land through generations.

The Levites receive from the Lord the Lord himself, which is their portion. And what the Levites will inherit is the service to the Lord that will be passed through generations. But still, they need a place to live and a place to exist. And hence, the Lord allocates to them not inheritance, but dwelling places, as you will have it there in Chapter 36. So the Lord calls all the other tribes to take out of their inheritance and to give these dwelling places to the Levites with pasture land so that they will be able to live and to exist there and then just to provide for everything that they needed.

Second thing that I want you to note is the number of the cities that the Levites receive. It's 48 in total. This speaks that all across the land, the Levites will be distributed and spread. Why? Because the presence of God, as it was manifested to the people of Israel, was particularly seen in the service and in the ministry of the Levites.

You remember, right? So these 48 cities will be spread all throughout the 12 tribes. And even we are told that the bigger tribe will have to give more cities to the Levites on the smaller tribe will have to give less cities to the Levites. But they will be spread through the whole land because the presence of the Lord was manifested in the ministry and in the life of the Levites. So the Levites in their dwelling places were going to represent the presence of the Lord.

But now, another very important thing here is that six of those 48 cities are going to serve as cities of refuge for the men slayer and to deal with the sin of death. And it is in those six cities of refuge that I want us to meditate upon the justice of God as it's revealed to the people of Israel and also to us as the church. Even in those cities, which were three on the other side of the Jordan and three cities on this side of the Jordan, we can see that the Lord was interested that the Levites will belong and will be present on both sides. even though 2.5 tribes have decided to stay in this side of the Jordan.

That was the intention of the Lord. Now, what are those cities of refuge? Those cities of refuge will help us understand how the people of Israel were supposed to deal with the sin of killing or taking someone's life. And you might remember from our studies in the book of Leviticus that we divided scenes into two categories. We divide us into the category of intentional sin.

Remember, I hope they remember intentional sin. And when the other category of sin was unintentional sin. And we said that the Levitical system or the ceremonial law will deal primarily with the unintentional sin that was committed for the people of Israel. Because intentional sin, the one that is high-handed sin, that one will have no atonement, generally speaking, and death will be applied for the person that commits an intentional sin. Now, killing someone was an intentional sin.

Right? Because generally speaking, you don't kill a person by accident, even though it is here contained in this chapter. So killing a person was an intentional sin. And because it was an intentional sin, there was no atonement for it. You remember that word, right?

Atonement to satisfy the justice of the one who killed another person. It was impossible. There was no sacrifice that the high priest could offer on behalf of the person who had killed another to atone for the sin of killing someone else. The only way to atone for that, it was to take the life of the murderer. So then there will not be pollution among the people of Israel.

That was very important for the Lord, that every single scene will be dealt with completely. But death or killing someone intentionally did not have a way of atonement. The high priest, it did not matter how holy and how important and how well he knew the scriptures. There was nothing that he could do to atone for the sin of a person who killed another. But here in chapter 36, we have the case of a person who may kill someone else unintentionally by accident.

And the Lord being a God that is just is going to provide a way so that this person who claims that the person that he or she killed was unintentionally killed will receive two things. First, just judgment. And second, that they will receive protection if they were found, indeed, innocent in the intentionality of their murder. So the Lord gave to the Levites six cities of refuge. And every time that a person will kill another unintentionally, following the specifications of what we have read, then that person had the opportunity or the right to flee into the city of refuge so that the manslaver, or better, the avenger of blood, who was a close relative to the person that he or she killed, the avenger of blood will not come and take a vengeance, if that is the word, or revenge on the person that had killed his or her relative.

So this person had the opportunity and the right to go and flee into these six cities of refuge. Now, we see the justice of the Lord here clearly seen, because when that person will arrive to the city of refuge, the first thing that was going to take place is that the congregation will come to judge the case of that person. But now the congregation and the inhabitants of that city of refuge were Levites. So they will come the congregation to judge, to see if what the person was saying was right or not. And now if this person who had killed another one unintentionally was indeed found to be unintentionally when he was killing that person, then what happens is that that person can remain there in the city of refuge, protecting himself from the desire of the avenger of blood to kill him because of what he had done.

Now this person will remain there in the city of refuge. And then the only way that this person will be able to leave and return to their land that they possess was when the high priest will die. That is that the only way that this person will be able to leave that city of refuge and return in complete freedom without fear that the avenger of blood was going to take vengeance upon him and take his life. The only way that this person can return in freedom, complete freedom was if the high priest. will die.

That is what we have there. In verse twenty six, it says in twenty five and says, And the congregation shall rescue the man slayer from the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge to which he had fled. And he shall live in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil. Beloved of Christ, let me just very briefly, because I really want to make this briefly. Let me just address three important things that I want you to see from the glorious justice of our God that we can see in this chapter.

Three things that we can see of the system of justice of God there from this allocation of dwelling places and cities of refuge that we have in Numbers chapter 36. First thing, I want you to see the powerful connection between God's justice and God's presence. in such a way that we cannot understand justice or righteousness apart from the presence and the being of God himself. Pay attention just to that last verse of our chapter, which is very powerful and very incredible. Verse 34, it says, you shall not defile the land in which you live.

Speaking of the future land, the people of Israel were going to receive. in the midst of which I dwell. For I, the Lord, dwell in the midst of the people of Israel. The Lord had dwelt in the camp of the people of Israel, and the manifested presence of God in that camp was clearly seen in the tabernacle and in the biblical system. But now, once the people of God make it into the promised land, the presence of the Lord is going to go through the outermost part of that little piece of land there.

But the presence of the Lord will be from down to the ship all the way. The presence of the Lord will be there with the people of Israel. And just because God was with them. The land needed to be treated according to the justice of God. That is that nothing that was unrighteous and nothing that was unjust was supposed to be left without dealing with it according to the stipulations of the Lord.

So the Lord says, if there is death. You are to deal with it. That is that if a person kills another one intentionally, then that person is supposed to be put to death. And I want you to see there the power of death. You are healing death with death because it's not death that which pollutes the land.

Ultimately, what pollutes the land is the blood that has been unrighteously shed because God uses death to administer his justice. The one who killed another person will be made, will pay for their sin that they have committed with the debt of their own or the taking of their own life. God's presence is powerfully connected and united to our concept and understanding of justice. But it goes beyond that, beloved of Christ, because he's the relationship of God with his people that shows us the justice of God in a deeper way. Because it was only the people of God, the ones that were called to apply the justice of the Lord.

It is only the people of God, the ones that judge according to the just standard of God. That is exactly what happened in the cities of refuge there in verse 25. It was the congregation, the one that had to judge the case of the person who had fled into the city of refuge. And it was the people, the one that will decide if the person will be able to return and stay in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest or not. Why?

Because there was no police system. or there was no judicial system in the way that we understand in the people of Israel. Each person was called to be individually committed to the law of God and to the ceremonial system in such a way that all the community of the people of Israel were going to be the executors of God's just system. So there was a private individual responsibility upon which every person of the people of Israel was responsible for carrying the justice of the Lord and apply it according to what the Lord said. This power was not given to an entity or to an institution and then for the rest of the people to submit to that, but rather there was an individual responsibility so that each person will know in certain way And of course, it will be instructed through the priestly system on how they were supposed to operate among the people of Israel.

Of course, there were many matters of the life of the people of Israel that will be judged by judges and by the priestly system, but the people of Israel were carriers of justice in themselves. And the other thing, beloved of Christ, I want you to notice the severity of the justice of God, the severity of the justice of God. Because if there is someone who unintentionally killed another person, then that person has the opportunity to flee into the city of refuge. Because this person has unintentionally killed another. But that doesn't solve the problem.

Because there's someone, the avenger of blood, or the relative, or the family of the person who died, who is going to say, what about us? Our brother was killed. Our sister was killed. Our father was killed. Yes, it could have been unintentionally, but he or she died.

What is going to happen with that dead? The Lord was so just and perfect that it was not only that the person was going to flee into the city of refuge and that was going to deal with the death that had been caused, but someone had to die. In Israel, someone had to die to atone for the death of the person that was unintentionally killed. And in the case of the man slayer who was in refuge in the city of refuge, it was the high priest, the high priest. Once he died, once his life was over, the life of the high priest would atoned for the lives of all of those who were killed unintentionally.

And that atonement was sufficient so that the person who was captive to the city of refuge would be liberated from it and will be able to return to the land that they possessed and their lives will return to normality. But the high priest who was alive had no power nor wisdom, nothing he could do to offer anything on behalf of these men who had intentionally killed another person so that these men could return to his freedom and to his normal life apart from his death. The only thing that could take place is the high priest dying, and then all of these people will be relieved. And then the avenger of the blood will have no claim, no right on the life of the one who had taken refuge in that city. Everything goes back to normal.

That is the severity of the justice of God. Nothing under the table. Nothing under the carpet. Nothing that is unrighteous, nothing that is unjust, knowing justice that has been committed will be covered from the eyes of the one who judges justly. Nothing will be hidden from the heart and from the mind of the one who created the heavens and the earth.

That is the severity of the justice of the Lord. And of course, we can see the glory of that thought, because that is the heart beloved of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the heart of it. that there is no one righteous, that there is no one good, that all of us have seen and fallen short of the glory of God, and that there is going to come a time and a point in our lives in which everything that we have done is going to be clearly exposed and clearly manifested. And this God, who is a just judge, will not pass any of those things and will always deal with them.

There's going to be many people, thousands and millions will be cast out from the presence of the Lord into eternal hell so that their limited value of their lives. will be eternally pain in hell because the righteousness of God is infinite and the holiness of God is infinite and eternal. So that person cannot even receive that in its fullness because of the holiness and righteousness of God. And hence that person will eternally spend a time of repayment and successful in eternity in hell. glorious thought when you see it from the other side, because apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, all of us will end up in that particular place.

Apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, we all of us will end up in the place of which we will have to pay the punishment for our sins. And this text that we have in front of us, beloved of Christ, speaks of the glory of Christ in many different ways. And through church history, people have claimed and spoken and opened their mouth to speak of the Lord Jesus Christ as the city of refuge for the sinner. Many people have written books and spoken about the Lord Jesus Christ as the city of refuge to which we are to flee and to hide ourselves and to remain there so that the avenger of blood will not come and take us. And even though there are so many truths in that analogy and that illustration of whatever it is, beloved of Christ, the one who fled into the city of refuge was a person who had committed an unintentional sin.

We are all sinners in the way that we are high handed sinners against the Lord. We have all committed sin from our will and our own desire. And that city of refuge provided for that person only a temporal, a temporal freedom in which they will even have to submit to the boundaries of the land, not able to go outside of the city of refuge. But the one who comes to the person of Jesus Christ is free. Indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ pays for everything and the avenger of blood.

even though can try to do anything to us is completely destroyed by the Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps it's better to see the Lord Jesus Christ in the death of the high priest, because there is only the death of the high priest, the one that will be able to return the fullness of the freedom to the one who was in the city of refuge. It will be only the death of the high priest, the one that indeed will deal with the sin that was caused against this other person whose relative died. It will be the death of the high priest, the only one that will atone and will allow the person that is in the city of refuge to return to freedom and never ever again to have the burden of the persecution of death upon their shoulders. But rather, as just we said, have the confidence in their heart that Jesus paid it all.

Beloved of Christ, he is our city of refuge. He is indeed that place in which we find safety. But more than that, he is the one who is the righteousness and justice of God given to us in fullness so that no one will have any, any way to take the life that he has given us from us. the one who had been in the city of refuge. If for some reason he left the city of refuge, then the person, the avenger of blood, still had the right to come and kill that person.

And if he killed him, there was no guilt of blood. those who come to Christ even as a city of refuge. But as the savior of our soul, there will be nothing that is able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Because the righteousness of God, our high priest has been fully and eternally given to us because he died. Now we are free.

Amen.