Reading the Bible in 2014: Day 86 - Navigating Numbers v. 3 - Atonement: An Unlikely Marriage

The first reflection on Numbers was about the tribes of Israel who camped and journeyed together through the wilderness.  The second reflection was about whole-hearted vs. half-hearted following.  We have several examples of whole-hearted following in Caleb and Phineas.  We have plenty of examples of half-hearted following which I shared in that reflection.  This third reflection will be about the idea of atonement.

Atonement is easily understood by looking at the word itself – at-one-ment.  Atonement takes parties that have been separated and reconciles them to new unity, bearing the cost of whatever caused the division.  A sinner and a holy God.  They are ‘one’ again.  At-one-ment.  Atonement.

Have you ever seen an unlikely marriage – he’s a slacker and she’s type A…she’s athletic and he’s clumsy…he’s short, and she’s tall (or maybe the other way around : - )… and you wonder, “How did they ever find each other?  They seem like such opposites.  What an unlikely marriage!”

Justice and mercy are an unlikely marriage.  Justice is severe with no exceptions made.  Mercy covers over sins.  Throughout history, it has been downright impossible to keep the two together.  Mercy without justice is too lenient.  Justice without mercy is too severe.  Where do we find them both?  In Christian worship.  In atonement.

Atonement is a miracle, really.  It is the marriage of God’s justice and God’s mercy.  God alone is 100% just and 100% merciful.  Consider two examples from Numbers.  In Numbers 16, Dathan and Korah have just rebelled against Moses and against God.  They tried to usurp the priesthood by offering unauthorized fire with censers.  Those are like torches.  The Lord’s wrath goes out against the sinners like a plague.  It is basically moving person to person!  This is God’s holiness and justice – his anger against sin.  This is the same justice that you rarely see married to mercy in the world.

Look what happens next.  Aaron goes out with his censer and rushes out into the plague as it sweeps peoples’ lives away.  How scary!  But the plague stops.  The rightful priest stands in the gap between the living and the dead.  He makes atonement.  This is God’s mercy on his people. 

That’s not all.  Consider the censers – the torches I just mentioned.  These disastrous instruments which have caused such awful death are brought into the tabernacle, the most holy place of worship.  What is such a sinful thing doing in the house of worship?  Look at the passage: “For the censers of these sinners have become holy at the cost of their lives…Thus they shall be a sign to the Israelites.” (16:38)  Do you see what has happened?  The censers are now a reminder.  It is a reminder of God’s holiness.  They remind everybody of the terrible sin that Dathan and Korah did.  To look at it is to say, “I fear God, so I will obey him.”  But that is not all.  It is a reminder of his mercy as well.  To look at it is to say: “God has been merciful to protect me from danger in this way.”  God’s ways alone are life for us.  In this way, atonement creates in us the vivid and authentic, whole-hearted worship of God that he desires.

This is atonement – a marriage of justice and mercy.  To remove one of them obliterates the concept.  It is a miracle.  It is at the heart of the Christian faith.  We must keep this in mind as we read.

Here’s another example.

In chapter 21, the people sin and “speak against God”.  God sends poisonous serpents into their midst.  We are told that many died.  The people repent.  God instructs Moses to make a serpent out of bronze, to put it on a pole.  If an Israelite had been bitten, it took only a glance at the bronze serpent and they would be healed.  The bronze serpent made atonement for the punishment of sin.  They would live.

In John 3:14-15, Jesus speaks about the bronze serpent of Numbers 21.  He says, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  He would be lifted up.  On the day he died, he was lifted up on a cross. 

In this lifting up, he accomplished our atonement.  We can see Jesus in these stories from Numbers.  Although the censers of Dathan and Korah were unholy, they become holy through the sinners’ death.  The serpents brought death to the Israelites’ camp.   Redemption came when their eyes fastened upon the image of the serpent.  Even though this is the Old Testament, we see that our atonement in the New Testament is similar.  Jesus died a long time ago.  But when we see through the eyes of faith that he bore our sin on the cross, we receive eternal life as God’s gift.  We see our judgment fall on our divine substitute.  We are cleansed.  At-one-ment.  We are ‘one’ with God again.

Do you believe this?  Isn’t it powerful to know that another has made atonement for you?  Justice and mercy are married together in him.  Death to sin, and alive to Christ in his new life.  This is his gift to you.  Your chains are gone.  This is the heart of Christian worship.  It is an old truth – as old as Leviticus and Numbers!  But it isn’t old-fashioned.  The atonement we see throughout the book of Numbers in these examples and others is “lifted up” by Jesus.  It is fulfilled when he is lifted up on the cross to make atonement for us.

Are you thankful that God’s judgment has fallen on another instead of you?  Are you grateful for the mercy that has given you new life?  Spend some time thanking God for Numbers, for Jesus Christ, and for how the marriage of God’s justice and mercy in Jesus has changed your life.