In all this, we read, in unmistakable characters, the holiness of God; but we read also, as distinctly, the grace of God. If divine holiness could not suffer defilement upon the people, divine grace made ample provision for the removal thereof. This provision is set forth in our chapter under two forms, namely, the blood of atonement and the water of separation. Precious provision! a provision illustrating at once the holiness and the grace of God. Did we not know the ample provisions of divine grace, the lofty claims of divine holiness would be perfectly overwhelming; but being assured of the former, we can heartily rejoice in the latter. Could we desire to see the standard of divine holiness lowered a single hair’s breadth? Far be the thought! How could we? or why should we? seeing that divine grace has fully provided what divine holiness demands. An Israelite of old might shudder as he hearkened to such words as these: “He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days;” and again, “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.” Such words might indeed terrify his heart. He might feel led to exclaim, What am I to do? How can I ever get on? It seems perfectly impossible for me to escape defilement. But then, what of the ashes of the burnt heifer? what of the water of separation?—what could these mean? They set forth the memorial of the sacrificial death of Christ applied to the heart by the power of the Spirit of God. “He shall purify himself with it 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.” If we contract defilement, even though it be through negligence, that defilement must be removed ere our communion can be restored. But we cannot get rid of the soil by any effort of our own; it can only be by the use of God’s gracious provision, even the water of purification. An Israelite could no more remove, by his own efforts, the defilement caused by the touch of a dead body, than he could have broken Pharaoh’s yoke, or delivered himself from the lash of Pharaoh’s taskmasters.