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The great hope of Christianity is resurrection, and the great claim of Christianity is that the sins of sinners can be removed and expunged by faith as a result of the death of Jesus. Sometimes this is expressed as being ‘washed in the blood of Jesus’. This phrase is not easy to understand today. It seems somehow uncivilized and even barbarous. Is it really helpful in understanding faith in Jesus and Christianity?

Resurrection and baptism for the dead

In 1 Corinthians 15:29 Paul includes another strange statement.

^{1CO 15:20} But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. ²¹ For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming, ²⁴ then comes the end, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. ²⁵ For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. ²⁶ The last enemy that will be abolished is death. ²⁷ For HE HAS PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET. But when He says, "All things are put in subjection," it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. ²⁸ And when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all.

^{1CO 15:29} Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?

Paul employs this strange statement in the middle of an argument about the evidences for our future resurrection. He argues that the certainty of our resurrection can be drawn from the fact of the resurrection of Jesus and then declares that if there is to be no resurrection for us, those who are ‘baptized for the dead have wasted their time’. Is there any logical connection between these two arguments?

There is certainly much preaching (as Paul argues) that because Christ is raised, so shall we be. But to a certain extent the argument is a non sequiter, the conclusion does not inevitably follow. Christ's resurrection (on its own) proves only that death could not hold Christ. Leaving aside the claim of Jesus in John 11:25 that He is the resurrection, and that those who believe in Him shall rise again, it does not follow, in logic that just because Christ was righteous and raised 'in the power of an endless life' those who follow Him will also be. That we are to be resurrected is a theological statement solidly supported by the New Testament, (and by such Old Testament references as Daniel 12:13) but there is no conclusive argument in the New Testament that the one must follow the other. It is into this framework that Paul injects the reference to the baptism for the dead, as though this is somehow the missing piece of the jigsaw.

Yet, since this is the only reference to any baptism for the dead in the New Testament, it is not easy to see how the reference to the ritual lends any credibility to Paul’s confident assertion that our resurrection is assured because Jesus has been raised from the dead.

The Old Testament foundation

If we go back to the Old Testament books of the Torah however we discern something interesting about death and a baptism. The context is set in Numbers 5:1 –

^{NU 5:1} Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ² "Command the sons of Israel that they send away from the camp every leper and everyone having a discharge and everyone who is unclean because of a dead person. ³ "You shall send away both male and female; you shall send them outside the camp so that they will not defile their camp where I dwell in their midst." ⁴ And the sons of Israel did so and sent them outside the camp; just as the LORD had spoken to Moses, thus the sons of Israel did.

Further evidence of the defilement that contact with the dead brings is given a few chapters later –

^{NU 9:1} Thus the LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, ² "Now, let the sons of Israel observe the Passover at its appointed time. ³ "On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall observe it at its appointed time; you shall observe it according to all its statutes and according to all its ordinances." ⁴ So Moses told the sons of Israel to observe the Passover. ⁵ And they observed the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the LORD had commanded Moses, so the sons of Israel did. ⁶ But there were some men who were unclean because of the dead person, so that they could not observe Passover on that day; so they came before Moses and Aaron on that day. ⁷ And those men said to him, "Though we are unclean because of the dead person, why are we restrained from presenting the offering of the LORD at its appointed time among the sons of Israel?" ⁸ Moses therefore said to them, "Wait, and I will listen to what the LORD will command concerning you."

^{NU 9:9} Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁰ "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, `If any one of you or of your generations becomes unclean because of a dead person, or is on a distant journey, he may, however, observe the Passover to the LORD. <sup>11</sup> `In the second month on the fourteenth day at twilight, they shall observe it; they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

These extracts from the book of Numbers show that there was injected into the law of Israel the principal that contact with the dead brings a form of defilement. Numbers 5 requires that contact with the dead brings a loss of fellowship with man while chapter 9 shows that the root of the matter has to do with ritual defilement. It brought ritual uncleanness which cut off the ancient worshipper from the communion with God that was available in the temple and ritual traditions. The defilement therefore was total. Unless something was done to remove the defilement, it remained as absolute a break from fellowship with God, as Adam's original loss of his evening discourse with God in Eden following his transgression in the garden, and from the ordinary everyday fellowship with kin and friends. And yet the inclusion in chapter 9 of the opportunity for the men involved to celebrate the Passover a month later implied that there must be a way of getting rid of the defilement so absolutely set out in chapter 5.

This procedure is set out in Numbers 19.

^{NU 19:1} Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ² "This is the statute of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying, `Speak to the sons of Israel that they bring you an unblemished red heifer in which is no defect, and on which a yoke has never been placed. <sup>3</sup> `And you shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be brought outside the camp and be slaughtered in his presence. ⁴ `Next Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. <sup>5</sup> `Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight; its hide and its flesh and its blood, with its refuse, shall be burned. ⁶ `And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet material, and cast it into the midst of the burning heifer. <sup>7</sup> `The priest shall then wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward come into the camp, but the priest shall be unclean until evening. ⁸ `The one who burns it shall also wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water, and shall be unclean until evening. <sup>9</sup> `Now a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as water to remove impurity; it is purification from sin. ¹⁰ `And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening; and it shall be a perpetual statute to the sons of Israel and to the alien who sojourns among them.

^{NU 19:11} `The one who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days. <sup>12</sup> `That one shall purify himself from uncleanness with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and then he shall be clean; but if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he shall not be clean. ¹³ `Anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a man who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him.

^{NU 19:14} `This is the law when a man dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean for seven days. <sup>15</sup> `And every open vessel, which has no covering tied down on it, shall be unclean. ¹⁶ `Also, anyone who in the open field touches one who has been slain with a sword or who has died naturally, or a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days. <sup>17</sup> `Then for the unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt purification from sin and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel. ¹⁸ `And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there, and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave. <sup>19</sup> `Then the clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening.

^{NU 19:20} `But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself from uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD; the water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him, he is unclean. <sup>21</sup> `So it shall be a perpetual statute for them. And he who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening. ²² `Furthermore, anything that the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and the person who touches it shall be unclean until evening.'"

The red heifer ritual was a strange one. But before we consider it and its use we would do well to consider what was the defilement caused by death. The point has nothing to do with matters of hygiene or the isolation of infectious diseases. Contact with a dead person may be risky even today. If someone has died of a very dangerous and contagious disease, all those coming into contact with the body should take sensible precautions not to contract the disease themselves. However the risk of infection has nothing to do with the ritual washings in Numbers 19. As a means of preventing the spread of infectious disease waiting three days before washing would make the ritual almost useless.

The contagion caused by touching a dead body had nothing to do with the disease the person died from. It was death itself that defiled2. Death was the annulment of man. Death was therefore a triumph against God's creation. Death is not just the end of man's life; it is the end of man as Man. A disembodied spirit cannot be man. Angels can be angels as spirit, whether serving God or fallen, they are still angels. But man is only man as long as he is alive, dead he is no longer man. Consider that this point is underlined by God as early as Genesis 6:3, 'My spirit shall not abide in man forever, because he also is flesh.'

Separated from his body, Man is not Man. Death is therefore the destroyer of man.

The ritual washing in Numbers 19 was a cleansing from ritual defilement. By the washing the ritual defilement of death was removed - from the living. But what does the removal of the defilement signify? Is it just the living performing an ostrich like act and pretend that the defilement of death is not going to touch them? Or is the ritual a promise that the actual defilement of death can itself be cleansed? Is the message of the cleansing that the real defilement brought by death can itself be removed?

If death has destroyed man from being man, the only way that the defilement of death can be removed is by restoring man, and conquering death. But how can death be defeated, conquered? It is so simple to say that its importance can easily be missed; death is not conquered by reincarnation, or the survival of the spirit - animism. The only thing that can defeat death, can undo death, is resurrection.

Christians talk sometimes about the importance of our 'never dying soul'. The phrase is an old one and we all know what we mean by it, yet we should be careful that we do not reduce the message of the gospel to some form of animism. We also talk about our 'resurrection bodies'. Again this concept is totally scriptural. Yet we must be careful that we do not so use the concept to reduce the Bible's message to a hope of a heightened form of reincarnation. Neither animism nor reincarnation is resurrection and the Bible insists, not only that Christ was resurrected, but that resurrection is the only way in which death can be defeated.

Is this the promise behind the ritual of Numbers 19? Is the red heifer ritual with its cleansing from the defilement of contact with death, nothing less than the promise of resurrection? As we ponder this question let us observe some features of the sacrifice of the red heifer. First of all it is not a sin offering, or a sacrificial offering at all in the normal sense-of the term. There is no direct idea of substitution, or indeed of offering at all, in the ritual. It is too late for the normal concepts of sacrifice and substitution. The corpse is dead, death has apparently triumphed. The question is whether man as man is defiled, or destroyed, forever.

Yet the Bible insists that cleansing is possible. In the ritual the method of cleansing was for some of the ashes of the burnt-up red heifer to be mixed with water and sprinkled over the man who has thus been in contact with death. We might notice that there is also something very unusual about this ceremony. First of all it was performed twice, on the third day and on the seventh. But even more oddly, we should take very careful note that the ashes used were part of the ashes of the entire red heifer. This was unlike any other offering. The entire animal went into the ashes. Thus what was used in the baptizing (for the ritual washing could be termed a kind of baptism) of the unclean man or woman was representative of the entire heifer, including its blood. In no other sacrifice ritual is the blood of the animal applied in such a total way.

In the whole of the rest of the sacrificial system the point is repeated again and again that the blood belongs to God, and to God alone. Yet here the blood is applied to the man. This makes this ritual unique. The other sacrifices tell us about the means of salvation, and the atoning merits of the blood and the sacrifices. (It is argued by Christians that these sacrifices can be seen as pictures and prototypes of the sacrificial death of Jesus, illustrating the value of His death at Calvary. This ritual however is not about the means of salvation, or the merits of the blood (the death) of the heifer, but about the effect of the blood (the death) of the heifer. The question here is about the effectiveness of salvation in the face of the defilement, the dissolution of man in death.

There is something curious also about the timing of the ritual washing. The unclean person had to wash on the third day and the seventh day. Why two washings, and what is the significance of the timings? We might argue numerical significance until we drop from fatigue, and succeed only in confusing ourselves thoroughly. So let us look at the first washing from a different point of view.

Coincidence or fulfilment

The observance of ritual cleanliness appears throughout much of the Bible to be more honoured in the breach than in the strict observance. However following the return from exile in Babylon, and the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah, attention was returned to the need to keep the law. By the time we come to the New Testament era the ritual observance of the law is at its zenith. This was demonstrated with terrible irony in John's report of the trial of Jesus. In chapter 18 John tells us how the chief priests would not even enter into the judgement hall for fear of contaminating themselves.

^{JN 18:28} They led Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium in order that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.

This careful introduction of the issue of ritual cleanliness by John is not accidental, or without purpose. John wants us to observe the contrast with the behaviour of two other members of the Jewish Council, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. When Jesus had died they did not hesitate to make themselves ritually unclean.

^{JN 19:28} After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I am thirsty." ²⁹ A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop, and brought it up to His mouth. ³⁰ When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit. …

^{JN 19:38} And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission. He came therefore, and took away His body. ³⁹ And Nicodemus came also, who had first come to Him by night; bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. ⁴⁰ And so they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. ⁴¹ Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid. ⁴² Therefore on account of the Jewish day of preparation, because the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

For most of the members of the Sanhedrein (the Jewish Council comprising the chief priests and the leading Sadducees and Pharisees), the importance of keeping ceremonially clean meant that nothing should be allowed to cause them any ritual uncleanness. But although Nicodemus and Joseph were members of the Sanhedrein they had not consented to the actions of the rest. And now when Jesus was dead, in fact as soon as Jesus was dead, Joseph went and pleaded for the body of Jesus.

And Joseph and Nicodemus, though apparently devout and sincere Pharisees, cut themselves off from the remainder of the feast of the Passover, and of unleavened bread, because they knowingly and willingly made themselves ritually unclean. They went and took down the dead body of Jesus from the Cross. They knew the ritual defilement they would incur in what they were doing. They were deliberately handling the body, not of a close relative who had died naturally, but of someone who had been put to death as a common criminal.

John had introduced Nicodemus to the readers of the gospel much earlier, and now he brings in Joseph, described as a secret disciple. This was therefore a significant challenge to them, and they rose to the challenge being prepared to cut themselves off from the celebration of the greatest Jewish festival of the year, the Passover, for the sake of performing this small service for someone who had come to mean very much to them. The cost was not just the scandal of now being identified as secret disciples of Jesus. They also had to forego their enjoyment, in fellowship with all their family and friends, of the celebration of God's delivery of the nation from slavery in Egypt.

Clearly, yet with an economy of words John has given us a sense of a great drama being played out. Nicodemus and Joseph had a choice, identify with this outcast, and accept ritual defilement, or enjoy Israel's greatest annual feast. They chose to pay the cost of ritual defilement. They would have known that there was a procedure for removing the defilement that would allow them to keep the Passover a month late, but it might be expected that they would receive no sympathy from their fellow Council members over the cause of their defilement being handling the dead body of Jesus.

We can expect then that for Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus the third day following the burial of Jesus would have been approached with expectation and probably some trepidation. The third day was the day set for the first washing or baptism with the water containing the ashes of the red heifer. But presumably the water was in the control of the temple authorities, so obtaining it would mean confronting those who had hounded Jesus to death.

John does not tell us anything about Joesph or Nicodemus after the event of the burial, yet somehow I don't think that either Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus did cleanse themselves that third day, and not for any reason of fear of the temple authorities. It was rather that something else had happened which changed their understanding of the whole meaning of cleansing from the defilement of death.

On the third day Jesus rose from the dead. Could the significance of the washing on the third day be made any clearer? The ritual of the washing with the ashes of the red heifer promised that death would not be the defeat of GOD'S plans and purposes in salvation. On the third day the defilement of Joseph and Nicodemus was removed, not because they washed with the water containing the ashes of the heifer, but because the cause of the defilement, the death of the Lord Jesus, was removed. The body that they had touched, giving them the defilement was a dead body no longer, so how can there be any defilement? On this third day Jesus cleansed Joseph and Nicodemus by rolling back the defilement of death; and rising from the dead. Thus the first part of the ritual washing of Numbers 19 (the baptism of the third day) finds its fulfillment in the Resurrection of Christ on the third day.

Jesus raised on the third day ‘according to the scriptures’

Whether Nicodemus and Joseph came to the appreciation of the significance of the resurrection of Jesus before they applied the water of the ritual, or whether they heard of it in time, is not relevant. It is logically clear that a body that is not dead cannot bring the defilement of the dead. We would suggest therefore that the settling of the time (the third day) for the first washing in Numbers 19 is God's delivery of the imperative governing when Jesus must rise from the dead.

In the opening of his argument in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul included the strange assertion that the resurrection of Jesus was on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, meaning what we refer to as the Old Testament (see also Luke 24:25-26).

^{1CO 15:1} Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, ² by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. ³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, …

Yet there is no direct reference or prophecy requiring Jesus to rise on the third day. However the gospels tell us that He did. Paul confirms that such was required by the Old Testament. And in the law of Numbers 19 we have a requirement about removing the defilement of death by a two-part washing the first of which is on the third day, the very day on which in fact Jesus cleansed the real defilement of death by resurrection. This is surely no coincidence. The significance of the washing on the third day is that the first answer to death will be given by Jesus when He rises from the dead, on the third day. Thus the imperative that Paul alludes to is not some accidental picture or unsupported prophecy but the building into the fabric of the Jewish law of a requirement that can be understood with hindsight to have been a marker predicting and requiring the resurrection of Jesus.

Our certainty of resurrection

If this is Paul’s line of thought in 1 Corinthians 15 we can more easily see why Paul is so adamant that the resurrection of Jesus on the third day makes our eventual resurrection inevitable.

The red heifer ritual had two washings, the third day washing and a second baptism on the seventh day. In a weekly cycle the seventh day is the last day. Thus in a sense the second washing is on the ‘last day’. Put this way there is an echo of another passage from John’s gospel.

^{JN 6:35} Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. ³⁶ "But I said to you, that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. ³⁷ "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. ³⁸ "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. ³⁹ "And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. ⁴⁰ "For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day."

^{JN 6:41} The Jews therefore were grumbling about Him, because He said, "I am the bread that came down out of heaven." ⁴² And they were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, `I have come down out of heaven'?" <sup>43</sup> Jesus answered and said to them, "Do not grumble among yourselves. <sup>44</sup> "No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. <sup>45</sup> "It is written in the prophets, `AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. ⁴⁶ "Not that any man has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ "I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰ "This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹ "I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread also which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh."

^{JN 6:52} The Jews therefore began to argue with one another, saying, "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" ⁵³ Jesus therefore said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. ⁵⁴ "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁵⁵ "For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. ⁵⁷ "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me. ⁵⁸ "This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate, and died, he who eats this bread shall live forever." ⁵⁹ These things He said in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum.

There are two strange features in this passage. Firstly we should note that on four occasions in it Jesus makes a firm promise of resurrection, a pledge that He will ‘raise him up on the last day’ (vv 39, 40, 44 and 54).

Then secondly we might observe that he strange statement that Jesus made about eating His flesh and drinking His blood caused great offence, and in the verses subsequent to those quoted many would-be disciples turned away because they were so offended as such an affront to Jewish law on the sanctity of blood.

It should be noted that this exchange has nothing to do with the ceremony introduced into what we call the ‘last supper’ when Jesus distributed bread and wine as symbolical representation of His body and blood (see Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25 and Luke 22:19-20). The celebration of what is called in churches as ‘Holy Communion’ or ‘the Lord’s Supper’ is not the ‘eating of the flesh of Jesus or the drinking of His blood’ that Jesus is talking about in John 6. It is of singular interest that when it comes to reporting the events of the last night before the crucifixion John devotes more words than the rest of the gospels put together, yet he carefully does not mention the words of institution of the remembrance celebration. Far from it being the case that he does not need to mention them because of the discourse in John 6, it is more persuasive that he has omitted the report of the institution of the remembrance ceremony to avoid the connection being made between the two sayings of Jesus. If John had included the words of the institution of the feast ‘this is My body’ and ‘this is My blood’ after giving us this strange declaration in John 6 it would be hard to avoid the conclusion that to take of the bread and wine of the communion service was in fact the eating and drinking that Jesus referred to in John 6. But John (who has told us so much of what happened on the night of the last supper to dispel any thought that he simply did not know or forgot about this aspect of it) has chosen not to include the words of the institution of the communion service. We therefore have no authority to link the two, and in fact have the warning of John’s avoidance of the linkage to steer us away from such a linkage.

If however we are correct in identifying the red heifer ritual as relating to resurrection, and including a promise of our resurrection on seventh (or last) day, and have recognized in the longer discourse in John 6 that there is an underlying theme of resurrection (a foundation for which can even be discerned in the way John concludes the narrative of the feeding of the five thousand) then perhaps we can find a key to the strange statements about eating flesh and drinking blood from the precedent of the red heifer ritual. We have already observed that the unique feature of the red heifer ritual was the way in which the whole of the animal in incinerated. Is the point that Jesus is making the astounding revelation that just as the Numbers 19 ritual cleansing required the effect of the death of the entire heifer, so in the strange language of John 6:53, the effectiveness of salvation is only procured by the total giving of the Son of Man. There was nothing partial about God’s giving of His Son. To win salvation, a salvation that would be effective against death, and restore man, as man, to the purposes of God, required the offering of all of God become Man. In this sense, God, as spirit alone, could not roll back the defilement of death in man. For God to restore man to be man, required GOD to become man and die man’s death, and it is as Son of Man, that Christ presents the application of the entirety of His sacrifice in these shocking and dramatic terms of eating His flesh, and drinking His blood.

There is also in the language of John 6 an emphasis on the totality of the identification with Jesus that faith requires. Jesus has indicated that winning salvation requires a total giving of Himself. To receive salvation requires a complete commitment to Jesus that can be depicted as like eating and drinking Him. This is why the discourse in John 6 should not be connected with the remembrance celebration of communion. It is entirely possible to go through the communion ceremony many times without making any real kind of commitment to Jesus. That is just a ceremony. What Jesus referred to in John 6 is the making of a real and total commitment that is a response to the real and total commitment that He made, not by giving the disciples bread and wine, but by going into death in order to cleanse from sin and conquer death.

But based on such an entire offering, Jesus promised that the effect of it will assuredly be the rolling back of the defilement of death for man. Jesus promises that He will raise up on the last day those who have been given life by Him. Thus we have a promise of resurrection on the last day from the one who Himself was raised on the third day. If therefore we are correct in identifying the washing on the third day of the red heifer ritual as depicting and requiring the resurrection of Jesus, then surely the washing on the seventh day is the resurrection ‘on the last day’ that Jesus promised in John 6.

Baptism for the dead

Can we now see that although the sprinkling with the water containing the ashes of the red heifer was a cleansing of the living, yet it was more than that. To the extent that it was a promise of the rolling back of the effects of death, it was, in a very real way, a baptism on the behalf of the dead, because it is the dead who will experience the reality of resurrection. I would suggest that this is what Paul has in mind in 1 Corinthians 15:29 (cited above).

It would seem quite probable therefore that it is the red heifer ritual washing that Paul is meaning when he talks about the baptism for the dead. His argument is, if there is no resurrection, first of all of Christ, and then of the believer, then the red heifer ritual is a waste of time, because there would be no cleansing from the real offence, death.

However since Christ has been raised from the dead, God has kept the first promise from the Numbers 19 ritual. God will therefore faithfully keep the second promise, and those who have (being Jews) undergone the ritual washing to cleanse from the defilement of touching a dead body will surely see the reality of that token cleansing when God brings both the righteous and the unrighteous back from the dead (see John 5:25-29).

The red heifer ritual and the concept of ‘washing in the blood’

From Hebrews 9, 1John 1 and Revelation 7 come a concept that has been a foundation for many older hymns and evangelical phraseology about being ‘washed in the blood of the Lamb’. Visually the idea of washing anything in blood is far removed from concepts of cleansing.

The idea of blood washing, or blood as cleansing does not immediately ring as a Jewish or Old Testament notion. The use of blood in Leviticus or Exodus in the sacrifices carries many concepts, but it takes quite a bit of stretching to see in them any thought of cleansing by 'plunging into the blood'. In fact the Old Testament seems so far away from any thought of cleansing by blood-washing that it can use the notion of washing in blood to convey a very very different thought. In Psalm 58:10 we read,

^{PS 58:10} The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; He will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. ¹¹ And men will say, "Surely there is a reward for the righteous; Surely there is a God who judges on earth!"

The Bible, by and large, has not been organised chronologically. Yet strangely the ideas of blood-washing as cleansing appear almost as though it was. Even in the New Testament the idea is absent from the gospels and from the writings of Paul. It first raises itself implicitly in Hebrews, especially chapter nine.

^{HEB 9:11} But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; ¹² and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. ¹³ For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, ¹⁴ how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? ¹⁵ And for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, in order that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. ¹⁶ For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. ¹⁷ For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives. ¹⁸ Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. ¹⁹ For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, ²⁰ saying, "THIS IS THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT WHICH GOD COMMANDED YOU." ²¹ And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. ²² And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

In verses 21 and 22 the writer of Hebrews extrapolates from the covenant cutting ceremony of Exodus 24 seemingly to draw out a principle (of blood as a cleansing agent) that is not defined in the Old Testament in precisely the terms cited. The first explicit reference seems to be in 1 John 1:7

^{1JN 1:5} And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; ⁷ but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

Revelation 7:14 is the final reference -

^{REV 7:12} "Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen." ¹³ And one of the elders answered, saying to me, "These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and from where have they come?" ¹⁴ And I said to him, "My lord, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

In the KJV a variant manuscript yields the text of Revelation 1:5 to read

^{REV 1:4} John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; ⁵ And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

Most other translations follow a manuscript tradition that gives 'released' or 'loosed' as the verb in verse 5, thus –

^{REV 1:4} John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne; ⁵ and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood,

So really the main source for the hymnology seems to be the brief reference in 1 John 1, or perhaps the KJV text of Revelation 1:5. But from where did the writer of Hebrews, John and Revelation take their cue in developing this powerful but seemingly odd concept of being 'washed in the blood of the Lamb,', and what does it mean?

We have already observed that that one of the dramatic and singular features of the red heifer ritual was that the ashes of the heifer that were mixed with the water were the ashes of the entire heifer, blood and all'. Given the repeated insistence throughout the Bible that the blood belongs to God, it cannot be that the inclusion of the blood in the ashes of the heifer would have been regarded as insignificant by the Jews. As a pointer to the contrary Maimonides records that the practice had grown up of the High Priest adopting this red heifer ritual wash twice during the seven days of the celebration starting with the Day of Atonement even though this was going beyond the strict law of Numbers 19.

If this washing with the ashes containing the blood of the red heifer is deemed to be especially powerful and effective in the removal (cleansing) of ritual impurity, it seems a very small step to see this red heifer cleansing as a 'washing in the blood'. We have seen that the whole ritual and law of the red heifer washing is a promise of the resurrection (first of Christ then of us). In John 6 we have observed the comparison of the wholeness of the sacrifice in Numbers 19 with the implied wholeness of Jesus’ self-offering, and we would note that Hebrews 9:13 includes the red heifer rituals as prototypes of the cleansing (of the conscience) that the death of Jesus achieves.

Thus if the washing of the red heifer could be deemed to be a washing in blood (because of the inclusion of the incinerated blood in the water) and if the death of Jesus is the anti-type of the red heifer (Hebrews 9:13) then it is not a great extension to view the new life, cleansed consciences and hope of resurrection that we receive from Him as coming metaphorically from a ‘washing in His blood’.

Whether there is any direct line from the development of thought in Hebrews to John in 1 John or Revelation is not important. The linkage of the red heifer ritual with the concept of cleansing lends itself so neatly to the concept of bloodwashing that it is not difficult to understand the application of the concept in the writings of John. Perhaps in Revelation 7 we may find that this thought is combined with the picture from Isaiah 1:18.

Conclusion

We have considered that the Old Testament instruction about washing with water containing the ashes of an umblemished red heifer to remove the defilement brought about from contact with a dead body are more than some archaic ritual. The practice was a token and pledge of resurrection, first of Jesus on the third day and then of us, on the last day. The law of Numbers 19 is therefore the source of Paul’s confident assertion (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) that the resurrection of Jesus was required by the Old Testament scriptures.

The ritual washings can also be referred to as a baptism and are likely (given the substance of Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15) to be the ‘baptism for the dead’ that Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 15:29. The totality of the incinerated heifer, including its blood, may be the source of the concept in Hebrews and the writings of John of ‘washing in the blood of the Lamb’ as a euphemism for receiving the forgiveness of sins by faith in Jesus.

The expression is not therefore a hangover from a barbarous age but the conclusion to a Biblical thread showing the confidence that Christians can have in the removal of sin and in the ultimate defeat of death.

© DAB 2004