The other day, I was finishing up Numbers for my (very behind) bible-in-a-year reading plan. Though the book strangely goes back into seemingly random laws, chapter 35 is a new high point for me, as it unlocked some beautiful Christian symbols in the New Testament.
To summarize the chapter, though I would recommend you read it yourself, the Lord gives the Levites 48 cities, ensuring them an inheritance. However, 6 of these are "cities of refuge," which I will explain in a bit. Three of these places of sanctuary are in Canaan and three are "beyond the Jordan, that is, with the non-contiguous tribes of Manasseh, Gad, and Reuben, but in all of these places, they are not in Israel-proper.
These cities of refuge are part of a specific legal institution for the Israelites, centering around the manslayer. Murder is a capital offense for Israelites, but there are of course those who unintentionally kill someone, which we call manslaughter. Rather than executing this person, they would instead be exiled. The first reason for this is protection from an avenger unjustly seeking their murder (Num 35:12), as while they are within the city of refuge, anyone who kills them will be considered a murder and thus liable for capital punishment. The second reason is for ritual purity: "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," and the land must remain pure because "the Lord dwell[s] in the midst of the people of Israel." However, there is one exception to this rule. If the high priest dies, anyone living in the city of refuge because of murder is able to return to Israel, and there is no redemption for him otherwise.
If you haven't spotted it already, this is immensely typologically significant. When our Lord speaks to the pharisees that glory in being children of Abraham according to the flesh, he says, 'You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him' (John 8:44). This passage is often misused to call Jews the children of Satan, which Christ does to a certain extent. However, this use is often meant to say that they are especially deserving of this title. This, however, could not be farther from the truth. As St. Paul clarifies in Ephesians 2, 'And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.' This condemnation of all mankind is precisely the same which the Lord gives to the Jews--we are murderers because we are the sons of murderers, by nature wrathful corpses who are dead and rage against Life Himself. This is why the punishments for Adam and Eve were exile. They could no longer dwell in the presence of a just God and thus were cast out of paradise. This is also very reminiscent of Cain, who murdered his brother and thus became a sojourner from his home, but the Lord graciously protected him with a mark that would tell men not to kill him.
Thus, Satan gladly does his job as accuser and points out that we are all deserving of death. This is why the Lord first preached repentance through the baptism of John. In Romans 7, St. Paul describes the Christian life of repentance: 'For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.' Here we see that in repentance, our sins are no longer ours but are the Old Adam's, the sinful man who still dwells within us. Thus, we can rightfully be called manslayers, since the murderous nature dwells within me but is not actually me. However, like the manslayer, this is still not enough for redemption. As St. Athanasius rightly points out in his work On the Incarnation, repentance does not "call men back from what is their nature — it merely stays them from acts of sin" (7.3). Thus, though the manslayer is free from the death penalty, they are not able to return to the promised land, paradise. This is why, as I discussed in a recent work on Sheol, the righteous went to Sheol just as the wicked did. They were comforted by dwelling with their fathers and by God's mercy were not tormented, but because their natures were still sullied, they could not dwell in the presence of God.
All of this changes in the incarnation. In the incarnation, the Logos becomes our new High Priest. This is necessary because, as mentioned above, the manslayer's blood is the only thing capable of atoning for his sin. The high priest's death is the exception, because as we see in the day of atonement rite, he is the representative of all of Israel, confessing all their sins before the goat before it is driven out. Thus, his death is acceptable because he represents the same man who was exiled. This is why Christ "had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people' (Heb 2:17). If He weren't like us--say, without a human soul or mind, or with a single unique God-man nature--then He is no longer our representative and could not die on our behalf. But Christ was and is like us, and thus His death is our death in baptism, as we confess in Romans 6. Thus we can see that the death of Christ, our High Priest, frees us from the penalty of death, because His death is on our behalf.
What’s more, this is not simply idle speculation, but this plays itself out in the Evangelical’s favorite biblical scene: the thief on the cross. In this passage from Luke 23, Christ is speaking to a criminal on his right. This is one who bears both repentance, acknowledging his sin, and faith, looking towards the one who can help him and begging, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” To this man, who is condemned to death, our Lord promises, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” This is what Christ is doing! He looks at the brigand, the murderous robber, and in view of His own death, our Lord promises him entrance into the promised land, Eden, the New Jerusalem. And thanks be to God that the very same promise is applied to us in the Gospel, Baptism, the Absolution, and the Supper.
Delightful type