Numbers 9 thoughts

I love the interaction going on in Numbers 9. Some people approach Moses asking him some “what if” questions. I am a “what if question” kind of guy myself. I love to have all of the details to some situations. The people wanted to know what could be done for them if they were ritually unclean on account of a corpse on the day for offering Passover sacrifices. Moses seems to be stumped by their question and does what any good leader does when he doesn’t know the answer. He told them to wait while he asked God and he would get back with them. Wow…quite the humble Moses here. After reading how everything had to be just so in every situation through Leviticus and the beginning of Numbers I would think God would say, nope…if they are unclean on that day they just have to wait until next year. But that is not what he comes back with at all. He tells them they can offer the sacrifice in the second month if they are ritually unclean on the 14th day of the first month and even adds another circumstance that would allow someone to offer their sacrifice in the second month. Wow…God is sounding pretty lax here huh? Well, just when you start to think that, you are confronted with verse 13.

13 “But a man who is ritually clean and is not off on a trip and still fails to celebrate the Passover must be cut off from his people because he did not present God’s offering at the set time. That man will pay for his sin.

That man will pay for his sins. WOW. I begin to think, what if I had to pay for my sins. This is where I recall 2 Corinthians 5, stop reading, and lift my head to God and thank him once again for Jesus being my once and for all sacrifice. My Passover sacrifice has been offered, he was perfect, and he counted for all of the sins of all of God’s children for all time! I do not have to worry about ever having to pay for my sins because the highest price possible has been paid already. I may have consequences of my sins but that is God disciplining a child he loves in order to make me more like Jesus. God is not lax on sin. Payment must be made and payment has been made, once and for all in Christ. So today, God does not count my sins against me and he has even gone a step further to give me the righteousness of Christ and made me an ambassador of that message.