The Old Testament law contains many provisions which are typical of spiritual realities; they point forward to something on a higher level, and there is some similarity, or similarities, between the type and its fulfilment. One such provision is the city of refuge, given as a place of safety for the manslayer – corresponding to which is a spiritual reality.
But the city of refuge was not provided for someone who had committed deliberate murder, but for someone who had killed inadvertently. One of the examples given is a man wielding an axe and the blade comes away from the handle, flies through the air and hits another person with fatal results (see Deut 19:5). The city of refuge was a place where the manslayer could flee for protection from the “avenger of blood”, a close relation whose responsibility it was to kill the person who had killed his relative.
The law made clear that the murderer “shall surely be put to death” (Num 35:16). This requirement is not merely a provision in the civil law of Israel; it reflects the permanent command given immediately after the flood, for all mankind for all time: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man” (Gen 9:6). Thus capital punishment is still the proper penalty for deliberate murder. And countries that ignore God’s revealed mind on the matter should consider very seriously the further statement from a passage already quoted: “Blood . . . defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it” (Num 35:33).
In providing cities of refuge, God, in great kindness, was making a suitable provision for someone who killed accidentally. These cities point to a far more wonderful provision that God has made in His great mercy for sinners; they may not have killed, either deliberately or inadvertently, but they are condemned to eternal death, for the wages of every sin is death – eternal death is what every sin deserves; it is what every sinner deserves.
God has provided a place of refuge for sinners; a place where those condemned to eternal death can be safe. For “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim 1:15); He is the refuge to which sinners are to flee.
To flee to Christ is another way of saying to betake ourselves to Him, trusting in Him. To flee speaks of the urgency sinners should have in view of the dangerous position that they are in because of their sin and of the eternal death which their sins deserve – the eternal separation from God in the punishment of a lost eternity.
No doubt every manslayer would feel a tremendous urgency to get away to the nearest city of refuge. He would not delay; he would not go back home to say goodbye to his wife or to get some food to eat on the way. Nothing would have mattered but to get along the road as quickly as possible to the place of safety. So one would expect that the sinner, in face of the terrible prospect of a lost eternity, would flee with a tremendous sense of urgency to the divinely-appointed Saviour who is revealed to us in the Scriptures and freely offered in the preaching of the gospel.
Yet it is not so; sinners generally feel no urgency. Their spiritual blindness is such that they do not recognise their danger; nor do they take to heart the solemn fact that death can come suddenly and sweep them away to an eternity of woe. They may, like Felix, speak of a “convenient season”, but the danger is that they will never find any time they will regard as convenient to seek the Lord. Then, before they allow any serious thought to stir up their mind to a serious consideration of the reality of their situation, it is too late and they are passing into eternity, with all its solemnity for an unsaved sinner. But one cannot imagine the Israelite who had slain someone accidentally hesitating before setting out for the nearest city of refuge. His convenience would no longer be a consideration.
What is needed is a powerful work of the Holy Spirit to awaken sinners to a sense of their terrible danger as they teeter on the verge of a lost eternity, and to make them feel the evil of their sin, including their unbelief – especially their rejection of the good news concerning Jesus Christ – and their refusal to submit to the authority of God. It is the work of the Spirit to bring sinners to submit to God’s authority and come to Christ.
Yet, even when sinners are awakened in some measure to see their danger before the avenging wrath of God against them because of sin, they may refuse to believe that there is salvation for them. This refusal to flee for refuge to Christ is to continue in a state of unbelief; it flies in the face of His assurance, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (Jn 6:37). How appropriate for the sinner to cry to the One who thus welcomes sinners to Himself: “Draw me, we will run after Thee” (Song 1:4)! How wonderfully effective is Christ’s drawing power, through the Holy Spirit, in making sinners willing and able to flee from eternal danger to the place of refuge that God has appointed in the Saviour!
But how can God justly pardon sin? We get some light on this through the provision that allowed the manslayer to go free after the high priest’s death. Until then he must remain in the city of refuge; his life was spared, but he was not really free; in particular, he could not go back home. Matthew Poole (commenting on Numbers 35:25) states that this provision was intended “principally to show that the death of Christ (the true High Priest, whom the other [high priest]s did evidently and eminently represent and typify) is the only mean[s] whereby sins are pardoned, and sinners are set at liberty”.
When the high priest died, the manslayer was “free indeed” – an expression Christ used in reference to His own work: “If the Son . . . shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (Jn 8:36). People may have various kinds of religious experience, which do not involve saving faith in Christ through the regenerating work of the Spirit. Thus they are not free from the guilt and power of sin. They have not “fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Heb 6:18); they have not begun to seek the city of refuge, where they will be safe from the just anger of God. On the other hand, if the Spirit brings about new life in the soul, there will be real faith and repentance, and the sinner will no longer have sin on the throne of his heart; instead, because the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in the soul, this person is truly free to serve God sincerely.
At one time, Saul of Tarsus seemed to be serving God with all his heart; he seemed to keep every detail of God’s law. Yet the opposite was true; he was in bondage to sin and to Satan. Of course, there were many sins that Saul did not commit but, because his heart was in bondage, he could not love God sincerely; he was unwilling to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. He was nowhere near the city of refuge; he did not even feel his need of a place of refuge. Then, when he met the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus and the Spirit renewed his heart, Saul trusted in the Saviour. He fled to the city of refuge; he submitted to Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah whom God was to send; he looked to Jesus as the great High Priest who had offered a sacrifice which could really take away sin, and he was free indeed. He was free to serve the Lord as Paul the Apostle, which he did in a remarkable way for the rest of his life and is now – for the sake of the Saviour whom he so long rejected – experiencing the blessedness of heaven.
May we all feel the danger that continues to be ours if we remain outside the place of safety that God has appointed, and may we feel the urgency of fleeing there! The danger of remaining outside is tremendously serious. The urgency is real. Yet Christ, who is typified by the city of refuge, still calls to us: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). We have no right to delay.
A D Davidson
By a humble confession of sin, we give [God] the glory of His holiness, owning He is a holy God, and we are unholy sinners, and that He is of purer eyes than that He can behold iniquity.
Ralph Erskine