Numbers 15:37-41--Tassels on Garments

Numbers 15:37-41
English Standard Version
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Tassels on Garments
37 The Lord said to Moses, 38 “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. 39 And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. 40 So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God. 41 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the Lord your God.”

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This passage is almost certainly descriptive and not prescriptive to us today as the Law is supposed to be something internal to us (written on our hearts) and not something external to us that we have to have external reminders of.  However, God knew His people and knew that the heart of man is deceitfully wicked and fallen and corrupt due to sin, and that they would need this visual reminder not to give into temptations to follow after their own hearts and "do what is right in their own eye"--the phrase that best describes the book of Judges that we'll be coming to soon.  God says that we are inclined to whore after the things that our eyes and hearts lust after.  That's some pretty strong language--God is saying that we prostitute ourselves to sin when we should be remaining pure for Him.  God instead calls them, and us, to be holy and blameless, not by our own works of the Law, but by the righteousness of Christ that we put on because He fulfilled and obeyed the Law completely when we could not, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, God makes all things new and gives us a new heart and a new covenant--the covenant of grace--that is written on our new hearts so that we might be made into the very image of the Son of God.  When God sees us who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, redemption, and eternal life, He no longer sees our sin or us as sinners who are far off and rebellious, but He sees the Son's righteousness and we are brought near to Him by adoption as sons into His own family, so that we are coheirs with Jesus.

God often ends his commands to his people with something similar to what we see in verse 41.  For us this is still something applicable.  While our story may not be one of a people physically redeemed out of physical slavery in Egypt, the New Testament tells us that we have been redeemed from an even greater slavery to sin and that Christ was also our Passover Lamb and our Redeemer and the one who led out "out of Egypt" (out of our slavery to sin and the Law that resulted in death) and through "the Red Sea" to our point of repentance and regeneration, through wilderness of life between our conversion and going to heaven (whether our physical bodies die or will be transformed at Christ's glorious appearing) and that He will lead His people into the Promised Land and lead them in battle to defeat all the enemies of God where He will fight and win the battles (what we'll see in the book of Joshua and through some of the books of History) and that He will be the Righteous Judge and the King of Kings and Lord of Lord who will rule over His people (not just the true Israel, but all who are in Christ--the Church) forevermore and His kingdom will have no end.  We too are to remember the gospel of what He has done and to remember and to see the transformation of what is going on in us (chapter 17 of Numbers that's coming up will show us about regeneration and the preservation of that which God has brought from death to life and made new) and we are to know with certainty that what He has promised, He will accomplish--it is as certain as if it has already happened and we can talk about it as if it was decided and done in the past, even though it is a future event (we'll see this sometimes in the Prophets where the prophets talk about future events in the past tense to show this very thing).  The same God who was powerful enough to do all these things to us and make us into His people is the one who is commanding us to be His people and He is able to keep us just as surely as He was able to make us.