Imagine that! After the offerings were made for the Levites, then they became an offering, too!
Cleansing the Levites and their clothes with water was all well and good, but there was more to be done. “Then let them take a young bull with its grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil, and you shall take another young bull as a sin offering” (v 8). You’ll remember that the grain offering speaks of life (because there was no blood) and the sin offering required death. We might benefit from quoting a few verses from the New Testament. Regarding our Lord Jesus, we read, “The death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God” (Rom 6:10). And Paul had just commented on every true believer, “We were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (v 4). These are the two big ideas in the Christian life, especially if we want to be His servants: dead to sin and alive to God. This is only possible for us through Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection life. He died our death for us and now lives His life in us. So notice the two kinds of offering in the chapter. The sacrifices were offered for the Levites (Num 8:8, 12), but then the Levites themselves were offered to God! “So you shall bring the Levites before the Lord, and the children of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites; and Aaron shall offer the Levites before the Lord like a wave offering from the children of Israel, that they may perform the work of the Lord” (vv 10-11; see v 13). This is the great need of God’s people today. How many accept and appreciate the sacrifice of Christ for them, but how few understand that now we are to be an offering for Him! The secret of true fulfillment? He died for us and now we live for Him.