What are ashes? Ashes are the final state of everything in the world. I am not referring to the facts of chemistry, but to our everyday experience. Ashes are the last state of all things. If a table undergoes corruption again and again, its last state will be ashes. Hence, ashes represent the final state. When something has reached its very end, and cannot be changed to something else anymore, it is ashes.

Everything of the heifer is burned. Note particularly the blood. In these ashes are the skin, the flesh, and the blood. This means that in these ashes are the redemption of Christ and the eternal efficacy of His redemption. Christ is eternally efficacious before God. He has become the ashes. The shedding of His blood is eternally efficacious. Even the blood has become ashes. The work of redemption is finished. The red heifer portrays the Lord's redemptive work, and this work has now become ashes.

There are three other things added to the offering: the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet. In the Bible, when cedar wood and hyssop are put together, it denotes the whole created universe. First Kings 4:33 says that Solomon had great wisdom. He spoke of all the trees, from the cedar tree to the hyssop. He went from alpha to omega. He exhausted the whole subject. The Bible uses the cedar tree and the hyssop to represent the whole world. Putting the cedar wood and the hyssop into the fire means that when the Lord Jesus was judged for sin, not only was He burned, but all of us were burned as well. God has judged all men in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. When the fire passed over Him, you and I, the cedar wood and the hyssop, all, passed through the same fire. Everything in the world, whether great or small, sweet or bitter, rich or poor, was laid on Him and judged by God. Here scarlet was also put in the fire. Isaiah 1:18 says that our sins are as scarlet. Hence, scarlet denotes sin. Not only has God judged us, but He has judged our sins as well. All sins were included with the Lord Jesus. When He was judged by God, our sins were judged as well. All the problems related to sin were also judged. Hence, the casting of the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet into the fire indicates that the whole world and all the sins of the world have passed through the fire with the Lord Jesus and have become ashes. The ashes include all the work of the Lord Jesus. They also include us and our sins. These ashes are eternally efficacious. Hence, this work has an efficaciousness that meets all of God's demands before Him. These ashes were kept outside the camp in a clean place.

From Numbers 19:11 on we are told about the function of the ashes. "He who touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days. He shall purify himself with the water on the third day..." Verse 9 tells us about this water for impurity. "And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and place them outside the camp in a clean place; and they shall be kept for the assembly of the sons of Israel for the water for impurity; it is a purification of sin." The impurity spoken of refers to the impurity of touching a dead body. Why is touching a dead body considered an impurity? It is because death is the evidence of sin. Without sin there would be no death. Therefore, where there is death, there is also sin. A dead body means that sin has done its work. The result of the work of sin is death. For this reason, the Old Testament uses leprosy as a symbol of curable sin and a dead body as a symbol of incurable sin. When a man is dead in sin and trespasses and therefore dead in his flesh, he is a dead body. The Lord Jesus talked about these dead ones. He said to let the dead bury the dead (Matt. 8:22). If you touch these dead ones, if you have intercourse with the world, if you build up a friendship with it, and if you have your living among it, you are touching dead bodies. If you touch dead bodies, you will surely be infected and defiled with impurities. When Christians sin and fail through touching the world, the ashes are needed.