And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed. – Numbers 16:48

Aaron the anointed one stands here, on that side is death, on this side life, the boundary between life and death is that one man. Where his incense smokes the air is purified, where it smokes not the plague reigns with unmitigated fury. There are two sorts of people here, and these are the living and the dead, the pardoned, and the unpardoned, the saved and the lost. The one division, the one great division between those who are God’s people and those who are not, is Christ. A man in Christ is a Christian, a man out of Christ is dead in trespasses and sins. “He that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ is saved, he that believeth not is lost.” Christ is the only divider between His people and the world.

What divides the true Christian from the unbeliever? Some think it is that the Christian takes the sacrament, the other not. That is no division, there be men who have gone to hell with sacramental bread in their mouths; others may imagine that baptism makes the difference, and indeed it is the outward token, the baptismal pool is the means by which we show to the world that we are buried in Christ’s grave, in type that we are dead to the world and buried in Christ, we rise up from it in testimony that we desire to live in newness of life by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

On which side then, are you today, my hearer? Please remember, brothers and sisters, that as Christ is the great divider now, so will He be in the day of judgment. Do you never think of that, He shall divide them the one from the other, as the shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. It is the Shepherd’s person that divides the sheep from the goats. He stands between them, and in that last day of days for which all other days were made, Christ shall be the great divider. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The High Priest Standing Between the Dead and the Living

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. – Romans 3:12

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? – Acts 9:3-4

There is no difference between the glorified in heaven and the doomed in hell, except the difference that God made of His own sovereign grace. Whatever difference there may be between Saul the apostle and Elymas the sorcerer, has been made by infinite sovereignty and undeserved love. Paul might still have remained Saul of Tarsus and might have become a damned fiend in the bottomless pit, had it not been for free sovereign grace, which came out to snatch him as a brand from the burning.

Oh, sinner, you say, “There is no reason in me why God should save me,” but there is no reason in any man. You have no good point, nor has any man. There is nothing in any man to commend him to God. We are all such sinners, that hell is our deserved portion, and if any of us be saved from going down into the pit, it is God’s undeserved sovereign bounty that does it, and not any merits of ours. Jesus Christ is a most gracious Savior…He asks you not to do anything, you say, “I have no merits.” Man, He does not want any, if you would help Christ, you will be lost, but if you will leave Christ to do it all, you shall be saved. Come now, the very plan of salvation is this, to take Christ to be your all in all; He will never be a part-Savior, He never came to patch our ragged garments, He will give us a new robe, but He will never mend the old one… “He came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” “He is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

The High Priest Standing Between the Dead and the Living

And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun. And Aaron took as Moses commanded and ran into the midst of the congregation; and behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense and made an atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed. Now they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred… – Numbers 16:46-49

It was Aaron, Aaron’s censer, that saved the lives of that great multitude. If he had not prayed the plague had not stayed, and the Lord would have consumed the whole company in a moment. There were some fourteen thousand and seven hundred that died before the Lord. The plague had begun its dreadful work, and only Aaron could stay it.

I want you to notice with regard to Aaron, that Aaron, and especially the Lord Jesus, must be looked upon as a gracious Savior. It was nothing but love that moved Aaron to wave his censer. The people could not demand it of him. Had they not brought a false accusation against him? And yet he saves them. It must have been love and nothing but love.

Was there anything in the voices of that infuriated multitude which could have moved Aaron to stay the plague from before them? Nothing! nothing in their character! nothing in their looks! nothing in their treatment of God’s High Priest! and yet he graciously stands in the breach and saves them from the devouring judgment of God! Oh! brothers and sisters—if Christ has saved us, He is a gracious Savior indeed. Often as we think of the fact that we are saved, the tear falls down our cheek, for we never can tell why Jesus has saved us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The High Priest Standing Between the Dead and the Living

And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun. And Aaron took as Moses commanded and ran into the midst of the congregation; and behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense and made an atonement for the people. – Numbers 16:46-47

As the old Westminster Annotations say upon this passage, “The plague was moving among the people as the fire moves along a field of corn.” There it came, it began in the extremity, the faces of men grew pale, and swiftly on, on it came, and in vast heaps they fell till some fourteen thousand had been destroyed. Aaron wisely puts himself just in the pathway of the plague. It came on, cutting down all before it, and there stood Aaron the interposer with arms outstretched and censer swinging towards heaven, interposing himself between the darts of death and the people. “If there be darts that must fly,” he seemed to say, “let them pierce me, or let the incense shield both me and the people. Death,” saith he, “are you coming on your pale horse? I arrest you, I throw back your steed upon his haunches. Are you coming, you skeleton king? With my censer in my hand I stand before you, you must march over my body, you must empty my censer, you must destroy God’s high priest, ere you can destroy this people.”

Just so was it with Christ. Wrath had gone out against us. The law was about to smite us, the whole human race must be destroyed. Christ stands in the forefront of the battle. “The stripes must fall on Me,” He cries, “the arrows shall find a target in My breast. On Me, JEHOVAH, let Your vengeance fall.” And He receives that vengeance, and afterwards up-springing from the grave He waves the censer full of the merit of His blood, and bids this wrath and fury stand back. On which side are you today, sinner? Is God angry with you, sinner? Are your sins unforgiven? Say, are you unpardoned? Are you abiding still an heir of wrath and an inheritor of death? Ah! then would that you were on the other side of Christ. Ah, brothers and sisters, if you have put between you and God, baptisms and communions, fastings, prayers, tears and vows, JEHOVAH shall break through your refuges as the fire devours the stubble. But if, my soul, Christ stands between you and JEHOVAH, JEHOVAH cannot smite you, His thunderbolt must first pierce through the Divine Redeemer ere it can reach you, and that can never be. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The High Priest Standing Between the Dead and the Living