But with respect to the murderer, the law was rigid and unbending—“The murderer shall surely be put to death. The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer, when he meeteth him.” (Num. xxxv.) Israel, then, through the marvelous grace of God, will be treated as a slayer and not as a murderer. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” These potent words ascended to the ear and to the heart of the God of Israel. They were heard and answered; nor are we to suppose that the answer was exhausted in its application on the day of Pentecost. No; it stills holds good, and its efficacy will be illustrated in the future history of the house of Israel. That people are now under God’s keeping. They are exiles from the land and the home of their fathers; but the time is coming when they shall be restored to their own land, not by the death of the High-Priest—blessed be His deathless name! He can never die,—but He will leave His present position, and come forth, in a new character, as the Royal Priest, to sit upon His throne. Then shall the exile return to his long-lost home and his forfeited inheritance. But not till then, else it would be ignoring the fact that they killed the Prince of Life, which were impossible. The man-slayer must remain out of his possession until the appointed time; but he is not to be treated as a murderer, because he did it unwittingly. “I obtained mercy,” says the apostle Paul, speaking as a pattern to Israel, “because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.” “And now, brethren,” says Peter, “I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.” These passages, together with the precious intercession of the slain One, do, in the most distinct manner, place Israel on the ground of the man-slayer, and not on the ground of the murderer. God has provided a refuge and a shelter for His much-loved people, and in due time they shall return to their long-lost dwellings, in that land which Jehovah gave as a gift to Abraham His friend forever. Such we believe to be the true interpretation of the ordinance of the city of refuge. Were we to view it as bearing upon the case of a sinner taking refuge in Christ, it could only be in a very exceptional way, inasmuch as we should find ourselves surrounded, on all hands, by points of contrast, rather than by points of similarity. For in the first place, the man-slayer in the city of refuge was not exempt from judgment, as we learn from Joshua xx. 6; but for the believer in Jesus there is and can be no judgment, for the simplest of all reasons, that Christ has borne the judgment instead. Again, there was a possibility of the slayer’s falling into the hands of the avenger if he ventured outside the gates of the city. The believer in Jesus can never perish; he is as safe as the Saviour Himself.