«　WEEK 5　DAY 2　»

　　Num. 6:3-4 He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink; he shall drink no vinegar of wine or vinegar of strong drink, nor shall he drink any juice of grapes, nor eat fresh or dried grapes. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grape vine, from the seeds even to the skin.

　　God desires that all of His people be Nazarites. To be a Nazarite is to be sanctified absolutely and ultimately to God. To be sanctified in this way is to be for nothing other than God.

　　God wants His people to be clean, righteous, and faithful....God wants us to love only Him, to love Him with our heart, with our mind, emotion, and will, and with our physical strength (Mark 12:30). He wants us to have no one else and nothing else other than Him as our first love and our unique love. Even if we love Him in such a way, we still may not be absolutely and ultimately for Him.

　　The matter of the Nazarite is a test of our absoluteness. If we would be a Nazarite, we must be absolutely, utterly, and ultimately for God. (Life-study of Numbers, pp. 55-56)

　　Numbers 6:2 speaks of a man or a woman making "a special vow, the vow of a Nazarite, to separate himself to Jehovah." Here we see that a Nazarite is sanctified by making a special vow to separate himself to God. At times we might have made a vow to the Lord, but it might not have been very strong or absolute, and we might not have kept it. Can you make a vow and be faithful to it for your whole life?

　　There is a difference between separation and sanctification. Separation is on the negative side, and sanctification is on the positive side. On the negative side, we separate ourselves from the worldly people. On the positive side, we sanctify ourselves; that is, we give ourselves to God. First we are separated, and then we are sanctified.

　　The priests, who are such by birth, are ordained by God out of His initiation. A priest must be a Nazarite, a person absolutely for God. This is according to God's ordination. One's becoming a priest is a matter of God's initiation; it does not depend on what the person does but on what God does concerning him.

　　The Nazarite, who becomes such by a vow, is separated to God by himself out of his initiation. This means that a person is not a Nazarite by birth but can make himself a Nazarite by making a special vow. Thus, the priests are ordained by God out of His initiation, but the Nazarites become such by a vow out of their own initiation. Today we are in the Lord's recovery out of God's initiation and also out of our initiation. Both are needed.

　　The accomplishment of God's purpose requires man's cooperation to complement God's ordination. This is illustrated by the case of Samuel. Samuel was a Nazarite who complemented the deficient Eli, a priest ordained by God....Samuel, out of his own initiation, came in to fill up the gap caused by Eli's deficiencies and thereby to complement the deficient Eli.

　　[In Numbers 6:3 and 4] we see that a Nazarite had to abstain from wine and anything related to its source. This signifies abstaining from the earthly enjoyment and pleasure (cf. Psa. 104:15; Eccl. 10:19). To abstain from all kinds of wine is to abstain from all kinds of earthly enjoyment and pleasure.

　　We should be careful of anything earthly that makes us happy. Earthly pleasure leads to lustful conduct and to a lustful intention. Earthly enjoyment and pleasure would defile a Nazarite.

　　A Nazarite had to abstain from vinegar made from wine, from the juice of grapes, and from grapes fresh or dried....Vinegar is classified with wine because the source is the same. Wine, vinegar, and grape juice are all prohibited. From this we see that the one who is absolute for God is altogether separated from anything of earthly pleasures. This shows the absoluteness of the Nazarite. (Life-study of Numbers, pp. 56-58)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Numbers, msg. 8