At the time of the celebration of the Passover in Numbers 9, it had been a year since their deliverance, and they were still in the wilderness. When the Passover is understood, the present power of deliverance is a very intelligible thing (Ex. 13:33And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten. (Exodus 13:3)). They had been in bondage, but they were out of Egypt and in the wilderness, though not yet in Canaan. They had memory of deliverance, with toil and exercise as the fruits, because they were in the wilderness. So we have the joy and peace of deliverance, but not yet rest. They were out of Egypt, but were still in trouble and trial. They felt it when they said, “Were there no graves in Egypt?” Herein is the exercise and often failure with us, but there is no failure on God’s part, because He brings us into the wilderness.
The Passover was to be kept as an offering to the Lord (vs. 7) in remembrance of and retaining full consciousness of their being the Lord’s delivered people. We have spiritually the principle of the thing in the Lord’s supper. There is deliverance in Christ, but trial and exercise as to the actual condition here. Unbelief may say, “We shall die in the wilderness,” but faith will always keep the Passover. It recognizes God’s deliverance, and this is blessing. Spiritually it is an offering to the Lord, and so by communion we have present joy — a privilege only to faith, for the deliverance has only brought us into the wilderness where we get trouble. We see grace and holiness brought together to meet defilement in verse 10, “If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the Passover unto the Lord.” Defilement now has to do with death, because, by the energy of the Spirit of God in us, sin is known in its actual power as death. God brings in the remedy where the need is, the moment it was a question of being kept back from offering to the Lord. When there is the power of the Spirit working in our souls from day to day, there will be the constant detection of sin, for what is not of the Spirit is flesh and sin, and in its power is not merely defilement but death. They were delivered from Egypt, which was nothing but a place of defilement, and yet they were defiled so that they could not keep the Passover. Where there is any consciousness of sin, there cannot be worship. They could not come to God because they were defiled, for “holiness becometh Thine house forever.” When the Spirit is grieved, there cannot be worship to God; still they were not shut out from Israel, though there must be the humiliation that owns the defilement. We can never return to the power of worship without referring to past failure. There must be humbling and purging from the sin before we can really worship, and the Lord judges of cleanness according to the energy of the life of God.
Adapted from J. N. Darby