It is a very interesting connection that provides a lot of good food for thought, thank you.
I had primarily thought of the time in the grave from the perspective of the high priest preparing and offering the sacrifice, and God receiving and honoring it, thus communion between God and humanity, and the vocation of humanity has been restored.
I like the consideration of the mikvah especially with what Jesus said about Jonah, and the 3 days connection. The place I start to feel a little uneasy is when death = mikvah glorifies or trivializes death. Even in the NT death is regarded as an unwelcome guest and final enemy to be defeated, a tool of tyrants to maintain control. The message of the resurrection is not that death is secretly a good or redemptive thing, but that God’s covenant faithfulness triumphs over death and can bring life even from the depths. So the nuance I would make is that trusting God through exile and death (posture of teshuvah) is what makes new life possible. That would seem to make the intentional burial and trust of the future to God that corresponds to mikvah, not death itself. That is the posture that Jesus embodied when fulfilling the Father’s covenant purposes leading to the cross, that a life lived in perfect trust and alignment with God’s character would not end at death, but be vindicated by God and result in new creation.
This is the kind of comment that makes the table worth setting. Thank you.
You're right about death. It is not good. It is not secretly redemptive. Torah treats a corpse as the most defiling thing a person can touch, and nothing in the text softens that.
But go to Numbers 19 with me.
Touch a dead body, you are unclean seven days. Verse 11. The remedy comes in verse 12. He purifies himself with the water on the third day. And what is that water? Verse 17. Mayim chayim. Living water, poured over the ashes in a vessel.
Living water. The third day. Torah's own appointed answer to contact with death.
That is not my reading imposed on the text. That is Bamidbar, plain, before anyone built a tractate on top of it.
Notice what the water does and does not do. It does not make death good. It does not honor it. Death remains the defilement. The water is what HaShem provides on the other side of it. The grave does not purify. HaShem does.
So death is not the immersion. Death is the defilement. The trusting descent is the immersion. The living water is the Father.
Your correction is not a correction. It is the thing itself, stated in your own words.
I will not overplay Numbers 19. The third day begins the purification there. The seventh completes it. That asymmetry is real and I am not going to pretend it isn't. But the shape was sitting in Torah long before I came looking for it.
Read Numbers 19 with the burial narratives open beside it. Don't take my word for any of it.
Sergio, to clarify, when the servant, Jesus, bore our sins to his death, he was simultaneously the living water 💧 that filled the tomb, his mikvah, and arose as the conquering warrior king.
This being so is what we get baptized into, the living water covenant flowing in and out of the baptismal, the person of Christ, the high priest and king. We come out with the covenant work completed, the royalty bath completed, the priestly washing completed.
HalleluYAH! May God bless you with time, energy and a mighty help from the Holy Spirit. Will you post it on Substack or where? I don’t want to miss it!!!!!!! ❤️
It is a very interesting connection that provides a lot of good food for thought, thank you.
I had primarily thought of the time in the grave from the perspective of the high priest preparing and offering the sacrifice, and God receiving and honoring it, thus communion between God and humanity, and the vocation of humanity has been restored.
I like the consideration of the mikvah especially with what Jesus said about Jonah, and the 3 days connection. The place I start to feel a little uneasy is when death = mikvah glorifies or trivializes death. Even in the NT death is regarded as an unwelcome guest and final enemy to be defeated, a tool of tyrants to maintain control. The message of the resurrection is not that death is secretly a good or redemptive thing, but that God’s covenant faithfulness triumphs over death and can bring life even from the depths. So the nuance I would make is that trusting God through exile and death (posture of teshuvah) is what makes new life possible. That would seem to make the intentional burial and trust of the future to God that corresponds to mikvah, not death itself. That is the posture that Jesus embodied when fulfilling the Father’s covenant purposes leading to the cross, that a life lived in perfect trust and alignment with God’s character would not end at death, but be vindicated by God and result in new creation.
Michael,
This is the kind of comment that makes the table worth setting. Thank you.
You're right about death. It is not good. It is not secretly redemptive. Torah treats a corpse as the most defiling thing a person can touch, and nothing in the text softens that.
But go to Numbers 19 with me.
Touch a dead body, you are unclean seven days. Verse 11. The remedy comes in verse 12. He purifies himself with the water on the third day. And what is that water? Verse 17. Mayim chayim. Living water, poured over the ashes in a vessel.
Living water. The third day. Torah's own appointed answer to contact with death.
That is not my reading imposed on the text. That is Bamidbar, plain, before anyone built a tractate on top of it.
Notice what the water does and does not do. It does not make death good. It does not honor it. Death remains the defilement. The water is what HaShem provides on the other side of it. The grave does not purify. HaShem does.
So death is not the immersion. Death is the defilement. The trusting descent is the immersion. The living water is the Father.
Your correction is not a correction. It is the thing itself, stated in your own words.
I will not overplay Numbers 19. The third day begins the purification there. The seventh completes it. That asymmetry is real and I am not going to pretend it isn't. But the shape was sitting in Torah long before I came looking for it.
Read Numbers 19 with the burial narratives open beside it. Don't take my word for any of it.
Shalom
Sergio, to clarify, when the servant, Jesus, bore our sins to his death, he was simultaneously the living water 💧 that filled the tomb, his mikvah, and arose as the conquering warrior king.
This being so is what we get baptized into, the living water covenant flowing in and out of the baptismal, the person of Christ, the high priest and king. We come out with the covenant work completed, the royalty bath completed, the priestly washing completed.
Yeah, I love how you broke it down.
There is so much to chew on here, LOTS OF MEAT! Kol Hakavod!!
Wow! Is there anyway way to get a PDF of this info? Would like to read in detail and check all your scriptural references.
Yes sir I’m working on a study guide. It’s just taking me a little bit of time.
HalleluYAH! May God bless you with time, energy and a mighty help from the Holy Spirit. Will you post it on Substack or where? I don’t want to miss it!!!!!!! ❤️
I’ll send you a link!
Greatly appreciated!