1. The red heifer was a sin-offering. This is denied by some, who would draw a fine distinction. Says Bishop Patrick: “Though this was not a sacrifice, it had something of that nature in it, and may be called a _piaculum_, an expiatory thing, though nothing was called _korban_, a sacrifice, but what was offered at the altar.” But, (1.) _korban_ does not mean a sacrifice, but a gift, a dedicated thing; and is used, not only to designate sacrifices and offerings at the altar, but even the wagons and oxen which the princes gave for transporting the tabernacle and its furniture. (Num. vii, 3.) (2.) The blood of the heifer was sprinkled by the priest toward the door of the sanctuary. It was thus brought into a relation to the altar and the mercy-seat, typically as manifest and close as though it had been actually sprinkled on the altar. (3.) The law itself expressly declares it to be a sin-offering. “It is a purification for sin,”—Num. xix, 9. The original, here, is the same that is in other places literally translated, “It is a sin-offering.”—Lev. iv, 24; v, 9, 11, 12. In this, its character as a sin-offering, lay the meaning of the rite as a purification. It represented atonement for sin, at the price of blood,—the blood of Christ. Hence its use in purifying those uncleannesses which typified moral corruption in its forms of intensest malignity and deadliness. Hence the appeal to this meaning of the rite which the psalmist makes, in his penitence and sorrow for his crimes. “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.... Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.... Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities.”—Ps. li, 5, 7, 9. The Targum thus paraphrases this place: “Thou wilt sprinkle me, as the priest which sprinkleth the unclean with the purifying waters, with hyssop, with the ashes of an heifer, and I shall be clean.” The same conception is apparent in God’s language of grace to Israel, and to the nations. “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you.” And, “So shall he sprinkle many nations.” In a word, in every instance in which this rite is appointed, or figuratively alluded to, it will be found to indicate a typical impeachment of sin; and the design and effect of its use was the removal of that impeachment, the cleansing of the subject. It was _baptism unto the remission of sins_.