Numbers 6

Those who follow Jesus Christ follow the one true Holy Man. In Him, in His death, in His resurrection, we have been granted the status of holy ones (saints), but also the experience of heaven-sent holiness as a growing reality in our lives now.

One day, when we live with Christ in the heavenlies, we will finally be as holy as we ought to be now. Until then, we seek the gift of living holiness in the midst of a world with so much death.

In the Old Covenant Scriptures, there were many ceremonies and laws that told this great story about Jesus and His kingdom of holiness. One of them was the Nazarite vow, a picture God gave to Israel about a person in their midst who was set apart as holy.

This was a vow that an Israelite of any tribe, whether a man or a woman, could willingly make to the Lord. The person needed to abstain from all things connected to grapes, even the seeds or the skins. He could not cut the hair on his head. He could not go near a dead body, not even for a close relative. Everything about this holy one was to be without stain, and without the touch of death.

Any defilement from the dead that would violate the Nazirite vow necessitated a cleansing ritual including the shaving of his head and a sacrifice of birds brought to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Breaking the Nazirite vow required this atonement before the Lord: one bird for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering. Another offering, a guilt offering of a lamb, was required when the separation time for defilement was over, and the previous period of remaining pure was not counted toward the pledge that had originally been made.

At the end of the pledged time, further offerings were required as gifts to the Lord, a lamb for a burnt offering, a ewe lamb for a sin offering, and a ram for a peace offering, with an unleavened bread offering and other grain and drink offerings. Then his head would be shaved, and his hair put on the fire under the peace offering. The priest would be given some of the gift, the holy portion for the priest. Then the Nazirite was free from the vow, and could again drink wine.

All of this would have been quite an expense for an average person, and all for the privilege of living out a picture of holiness. But we have been declared holy in the blood of a far better and more costly sacrifice.

Christ's holiness was complete. It was far more than any of the Old Testament pictures. His holiness extended all the way into the thoughts and intentions of his perfectly pure soul. His holiness was lived out under fire. His head was on the line, and His enemies were obvious.

At the very beginning of His ministry, He was led by the spirit into the wilderness, fasted forty days and nights, and faced the temptations of a cruel demonic adversary. He passed this test for us. Much more, He later faced the test of the cross.

Through all His suffering that procured our holiness, Christ was holy without the slightest fault. To have His Name given to us, so that we would now have the privilege to be sons of God in Him, is the greatest blessing that could ever come to us. And this has come to us not because of our holiness, but because of His.

This blessing for sinners through Jesus was so sure in the mind of God that words of blessing were spoken to His covenant people 1500 years prior to the coming of the Messiah. The priest, in another rich picture of the coming grace of God, spoke words of blessing from the Lord upon His people.

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” This triune blessing has come to us today through the one true Nazirite who did so much more holiness for us than the most scrupulous Nazirites during the 1500 years between Moses and Jesus.

The name of God has been put upon His people forever. We are richly blessed.