Numbers 19 · a question people ask
Hebrews mentions the heifer's ashes. Does that make the heifer a picture of Jesus?
Hebrews names this chapter's ashes: "For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify to the cleanness of the flesh" (Hebrews 9:13), "how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without defect to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:14). Christians who hold each view below agree on what Hebrews says outright: the blood of Christ cleanses the conscience. They differ on how far to take the heifer herself.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
One of the law's shadows of Christ
Those who hold this view start from how Hebrews speaks of the whole law: it has "a shadow of the good to come" (Hebrews 10:1), and the first tabernacle is "a symbol of the present age" (Hebrews 9:9). Hebrews sets the heifer's ashes right beside the blood of Christ (Hebrews 9:13-14). On this view the heifer is one of those shadows, and what her ashes did for the flesh points to what Christ does for the conscience.
Hebrews 10:1 · Hebrews 9:9 · Hebrews 9:13-14
A comparison of what each one does
Those who hold this view note that Hebrews names only what the ashes did, "sanctify to the cleanness of the flesh" (Hebrews 9:13), and then argues "how much more" for the blood of Christ (Hebrews 9:14). Hebrews gives no meaning to the heifer's colour, the cedar or the scarlet (19:2, 19:6). On this view the point is the comparison Hebrews makes, from the lesser cleansing to the greater, rather than a picture in each detail.
Hebrews 9:13-14 · Numbers 19:2 · Numbers 19:6
The verses
“For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify to the cleanness of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without defect to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”