The Water of Separation

Salvation—could there be any greater gift?  To become one with the Father through the Son?  The Father, the God of creation and the author of the Holy Bible, stood in someplace other than the universe when He created it and was someplace outside of time when He created time.  Being one with the Father through the Son means being bigger—much bigger—than the universe.  Being one with the Father through the Son means eternal life—eternal life that transcends time.  Being one with the Father through the Son means to be independently wealthy—yes, even healthy, wealthy, and wise.  Being one with the Father through the Son means that the Kingdom of God dwells within your earthen vessel.  If this concept seems abstract and distant, count your days, for very soon you will arrive at the end of your journey.  Psalms 90:12:

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

If you are 30 years of age and live to be 74, you have 16,071 days left to live, or the number of seconds in 4½ hours.  If you’re 70 and make it to 74, you have 1,461 days left, or the number of seconds in just four tenths of an hour.  At the end of this life, we will all stand before God to give an account of how we responded to His marvelous offer of salvation.  Jesus sent forth the living church, the body of Christ, to proclaim the day of salvation.  Mark 16:15-16:

15  And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

16  He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Today, all who read or listen to this message are having the gospel preached unto them.  Have you chosen Jesus Christ and the salvation His blood affords?  Are you born-again?  Are you ready to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and begin a brand-new life, void of the sin and shame of your past deeds?  GodSaidManSaid has very good news.  Today is your day of salvation.  Click onto “Further With Jesus” for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God.  NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Numbers 19:1-22:

1  And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,

2  This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke:

3  And ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face:

4  And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times:

5  And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn:

6  And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.

7  Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the even.

8  And he that burneth her shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the even.

9  And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation: it is a purification for sin.

10  And he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: and it shall be unto the children of Israel, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among them, for a statute for ever.

11  He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.

12  He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.

13  Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him.

14  This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.

15  And every open vessel, which hath no covering bound upon it, is unclean.

16  And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.

17  And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel:

18  And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave:

19  And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even.

20  But the man that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he hath defiled the sanctuary of the LORD: the water of separation hath not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.

21  And it shall be a perpetual statute unto them, that he that sprinkleth the water of separation shall wash his clothes; and he that toucheth the water of separation shall be unclean until even.

22  And whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean; and the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even.

MAN SAID: Man made God as a crutch to navigate life.  He does not exist.  He did not author the Holy Bible.  There is no judgment day.

Now THE RECORD.  Knowing that the Word of God, found in the majority-text Authorized King James Bible, is inerrant truth is central and critical to one’s salvation and to the development of the church.  God has only authored one book.  As Christians, we are required to build our lives and eternal hopes upon it.  It is the foundation of life and it is life’s source of all the necessary building materials, its blueprints and the schematic for every intricate detail.  Psalms 11:3:

If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

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The perfectness of God’s commandments and insights are staggering.  Thousands of years before the modern sciences begin to unravel a particular marvel, the God of the Bible declares it—truth only the Creator Himself could know.  Carnaldom clamors for truth and God says here I AM.

Hidden in a commandment of God are sundry benefits and very deeply connected secrets for the edification of His children.  In these commandments you will find numerous spiritual and physical rewards, and so it will be seen with the red heifer.

The Old Testament blood sacrifice via various clean creatures, which was a shadow of the shed blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses from all sin, was central to the Old Testament believers’ absolution from sin.  John the Baptist, speaking of Jesus Christ who was crucified on the Passover, said in John 1:29:

…Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

In the Old Testament, the blood sacrifice was administered daily.  During Holy celebrations when all Israel came together, scores of thousands of animals would be offered up.  Keep in mind that in most cases, after the sacrifice was purged of the blood and fat, etc., it was consumed by the priest and his family and by the family of the individual who offered the sacrifice.

The colossal daily contact with death on the Temple Mount created a serious defilement situation.  God gives a wide range of directives to ensure that potential bacterial contamination would be averted.  The ancient Hebrews knew the term tumas ohel which deals with the issue of being defiled by the dead (animal or human).  God’s directives to remedy such exposure would include (and this list is not exhaustive) the burning of certain bacteria-destroying incense, exacting sanitation and washing procedures, the water of separation via the recipe of the red heifer, and to quarantine.  Click onto the following GodSaidManSaid subjects for amazing, truly edifying detail: 

Blood

A Matter of Law

The Difference Between Clean and Unclean

Smell

Twenty-One Signs of Doomsday -- Part One

Quarantine

Nose and Smell

Frankincense and Your Nose

The amazing formula for purification, which to this day is not fully understood, demonstrates a mastery of chemistry that only the God of creation could know.  Numbers 19:5-6:

5  And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn:

6  And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.

This necessary formula was given by God 3,500 years ago.

The following excerpts are from the book, The New Temple and the Second Coming, written by Grant Jeffrey, an accomplished best-selling author and explorative investigator:

According to the Mishneh, the ceremonial burning of the red heifer happened rarely in Jewish history: the first time under Moses during the Exodus, once by Ezra, and five to seven other times after the Babylonian captivity and before the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70.  Each time, a portion of the ashes were added to the new ashes to provide spiritual continuity, creating a perpetual sacrifice.  Maimonides wrote that there were only nine red heifers sacrificed from the time of the Tabernacle worship till the destruction of the Second Temple.  He indicated that the tenth sacrifice of the red heifer would occur only when the messianic King was ready to appear.

The Medical Importance of the Red-Heifer Sacrifice

In addition to the obvious spiritual significance of this sacrifice, we now understand that the water of purification described in Numbers 19 actually had the ability to destroy germs and stop infection.  The water of purification contained ashes of the heifer’s body combined with cedar, hyssop, and scarlet thread.  This water of purification contained cedar oil, which came from a type of juniper tree that grew in Israel and in the Sinai.  This cedar oil would mildly irritate the skin, encouraging people to vigorously rub the water solution into their hands.

Most important, the hyssop tree—associated with mint, possibly marjoram—would produce hyssop oil, an effective antiseptic and antibacterial agent.  Hyssop oil contains 50 percent carvacrol (almost identical to thymol), which is an antifungal and antibacterial agent still used in medicine, according to the book None of These Diseases.  When we note that the waters of purification were to be used to cleanse someone who had become defiled and unclean from touching a dead body, we see that this was not only a spiritual law but also an incredibly effective medical sanitation law to protect the Jews from deadly infections.

The book of Hebrews reveals that the red heifer sacrifice had a practical medical effect.  “The blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh” (Hebrews 9:13).  Because of God’s commands, the Jews stood apart from the pagan nations in their attention to sanitation and personal cleanliness.  To fully appreciate the usual health implications of God’s commands, we need to remember that even medical doctors did not understand the need for hygiene and basic sanitation until the 1880s, when the danger of germs and infection was first discovered.  The recognition of the need for sanitation and cleansing from deadly germs in the words of Scripture provide a powerful and compelling proof of the supernatural inspiration of the Word of God.  [End of quote]

Concerning hyssop, carvacrol, and thymol, Wikipedia weighed in with the following:

The Ancient Egyptians used thymol and carvacrol in the form of a preparation from the thyme plant (a member of the mint family), because of their ability to conserve mummies.  Thymol and carvacrol are now known to kill bacteria and fungi, having made thyme well suited for such purposes.

Thymol has been found to be useful in controlling varroa mites in bee colonies.  A minor use is in bookbinding: before rebinding, books with mold damage can be sealed in bags with thymol crystals to kill fungal spores.  Thymol has been used in alcohol solutions and in dusting powders for the treatment of tinea (ringworm) infections.  It is also used as a preservative in halothane, an anaesthetic, and as an antiseptic in mouthwash.

The Bee Balms (Monarda fistulosa and Monarda didyma) are natural sources of thymol, a primary active ingredient in modern commercial mouthwash formulas.  The Blackfeet Native Americans recognized this plant’s strong antiseptic action, and used poultices of the plant for skin infections and minor wounds.  A tea made from the plant was also used to treat mouth and throat infections caused by dental caries and gingivitis.

Recent medical research on rats concludes that “Thyme extract had relaxing effects on organs possessing β2-receptors (uterus and trachea).”

In a 1994 report released by five top cigarette companies, thymol was listed as one of 599 additives to cigarettes.  It is said to be added to improve the flavor of cigarettes, but as mentioned above, it relaxes the trachea.

There is also evidence supporting the belief that thymol when applied two to three times daily, can eliminate certain kinds of fungal infections that affect finger nails and toe nails in humans.  Regular application to the affected nail over periods approximating three months has been shown to eliminate the affliction by effectively preventing further progress; by simply cutting the nail as one normally would, all infected material is eventually eliminated.  [End of quote]

Another ingredient in the formula of the water of separation was cedar wood.  Cedar oil is a huge deterrent to a wide range of insects, from dust mites to spiders.

The following paragraphs are cedar profiles from distributors of cedar products.  The next excerpt is from essential7.com:

Thuja Oil (cedar leaf oil) Uses—American Indians have used leaf tea for headaches and colds, in cough syrups, and in steam baths for rheumatism, arthritis, congestion, and gout; externally, as a wash for swollen feet and burns.  Doctors once used the leaf tincture externally on warts, venereal warts, gonorrhea, syphilis, prostate problems, toothache, whooping cough, piles, ulcers, bed sores, and fungus infections.  It is also a Folk medicine cancer remedy.  Both fenchone and thujone stimulate the heart muscle.  The decoction has been used in intermittent fevers, rheumatism, dropsy, coughs, scurvy, and as an emmenagogue.  [End of quote]

These final sentences are from innvista.com:

It is strongly disinfectant and used to rid the respiratory tract of invading organisms; and, as an expectorant, it is effective for catarrhal conditions.

In Ayurvedic medicine, cedar leaves are used to treat tuberculosis.  A decoction of the heartwood is given for chest infections, insomnia, and diabetes.  The essential oil is prescribed for syphilis and leprosy.

The essential oil is a strong medicine; and, when diluted and massaged into the skin, it treats colds, bronchial congestion, and cystitis, as well as wounds and ulcers.

The tips of the leaves can be made into a tea to treat such respiratory conditions as coughs and colds.  The cones can relieve colic in babies, and the needles functions as a diuretic.  Topically, an infusion of the leaves is effective against skin conditions, including athlete’s foot and ringworm.  [End of quote]

It is also common knowledge that animal products have been and are used in the production of soaps, etc.

Three thousand, five hundred years ago, the God of the Bible combined the perfect chemistry to solve a very big and dangerous contamination problem, and He put the solution into play long before the world’s wisdom began to know why.  This is just another proof that God is “and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

GOD SAID, Numbers 19:5-6:

5  And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn:

6  And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.

MAN SAID: Man made God as a crutch to navigate life.  He does not exist.  He did not author the Holy Bible.  There is no judgment day.

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

Jeffrey, G.R., The New Temple and the Second Coming, Thompson-Gale, 2007, pp168-170

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