It is refreshing to turn away from the contemplation of three wrecked lives and to meditate upon the notable Passover which Josiah held in Jerusalem. The sands of time were running out for guilty Israel, and soon their “place and nation “ would be extinguished by the righteous judgment of God, not to be restored until the appearing of Christ; yet, before the stroke fell, the remnant left in the land experienced one of the brightest moments that Israel had ever known. This was due instrumentally to the faith of the King, whose mind and heart had been reached by the Word of God, and who desired that both himself and his people might be wholly obedient thereto. All this is encouraging to us today. We are living in the late evening of the Church dispensation; but God is as willing as ever to grant blessing and joy to those whose hearts are true to Him. The gloom which surrounds us has arisen from the mists of our own disobedience and folly; but God is today towards His people as ever in grace and love.
In both records the Holy Spirit stresses the fact that Josiah’s Passover was unprecedented in character, in 2 Kings 23:22 we read, “Surely there was not holden such a Passover from the days of the Judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the Kings of Israel, nor in the days of the Kings of Judah?” In 2 Chronicles 35:18 (written after the return from the Captivity) we are told, “There was no Passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the Kings of Israel keep such a Passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” The date of this precious memory has been carefully preserved; in both “Kings” and “Chronicles” we are told that it was “in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah.”
That which made this Passover different from all that had gone before it was the scrupulous observance of the Word of Jehovah by both King and people. God had spoken through Moses, David and Solomon concerning the ordinances of divine worship, and Josiah was determined that it should all be carried out. The failures and shortcomings of earlier days were not allowed to influence things now. Hezekiah kept the Passover in the second month; but Josiah kept it in the first. In Hezekiah’s day the purification of the people and the sanctuary was but partial; Josiah saw to it that the purification was thorough and complete. Jehovah graciously pardoned the irregularities in the reign of Hezekiah; but since then the book of the law had come into renewed prominence, and Josiah desired that its every enactment should be carefully observed. Listen to his exhortation to the Levites, “Kill the passover, and sanctify yourselves, and prepare your brethren, that they may do according to the Word of Jehovah by the hand of Moses” (2 Chron. 35:6).
With such a spirit working we are prepared for the words “Josiah kept a Passover unto Jehovah in Jerusalem” (2 Chron. 35:1; 2 Kings 23:21). It was not an occasion for mere priestly pomp and display. Poor flesh loves such things! Magnificent buildings, costly vestments, entrancing music and the odor of incense attract multitudes in our own time. But it is all deeply offensive to Him with whom we have to do. “God is a spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Jehovah was in the mind of Josiah. His whole soul was going out to Him; and his one desire was to please Him in all things. Passing to the Gospel of John, what strange language we find there! “The Passover, a feast of the Jews was nigh” (John 6:4); “the Jews feast of Tabernacles was at hand” (John 7:2). The language of the Apostle is cold. Both Passover and Tabernacles were “feasts of the Jews”; not, as in Leviticus 23, the “feasts of Jehovah.” The ritual of those great days was duly carried out, but Jesus was in the land, and unwanted. Fearful hypocrisy! The God of Israel walking up and down amongst the people, a near neighbor in His condescending grace, yet unwanted! “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:10-11). When the great festivals of His own appointing were in progress, Annas and Caiaphas were welcome; one or both would attend in state; but Jesus was outside it all.
Some of the simple folk might inquire whether He would be present, and might argue with others concerning Him; but there was no move to exalt Him of whom every detail in the feasts of Jehovah spoke eloquently to all who had ears to hear, and hearts to understand (John 7:11-12).
Are our hearts going out towards God and Christ as fervently as the heart of Josiah went out to Jehovah long ago? Concerning the place of separation which many profess to have taken, have we really gone forth “unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb. 13:13)? When we set out for a meeting on any given occasion, is the thought uppermost in our mind that we are going to meet the Lord, or are we merely attending a religious service? We may be truly scriptural in what we do, as the priests and Pharisees were in our Lord’s day, and yet give no pleasure to the heart of God.
A very important step had to be taken before the Passover could be rightly held in Jerusalem—the ark of Jehovah had to be restored to its place. Josiah “said unto the Levites that taught all Israel, which were holy unto Jehovah, Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David, King of Israel did build; it shall not be a burden upon your shoulders: serve now Jehovah your God, and His people Israel” (2 Chron. 35:3). This command is startling to read! There has been no previous mention of the ark being displaced. Who did it? What king was evil enough to remove the sacred vessel from the Holy of Holies? How low had the people of God fallen that such profanity could be tolerated? And where was the ark during the years of its dishonor? It is true that the ark was but a chest made of shittim wood, overlaid with gold, with a cover upon which the atoning blood was intended to be sprinkled. But the ark spoke to God of Christ, and Josiah very properly spoke of it as “the holy ark.” It was the most expressive of all the types of the Levitical economy our Lord’s incorruptible humanity is set forth in the shittim wood; His deity in the gold which covered it, and His accomplished sacrifice is suggested in the blood on the Mercy Seat (or, propitiatory) upon which the golden cherubim looked down. Typically, it was Christ in His person and work which had been utterly rejected in Israel until Josiah was divinely raised up to put everything in its true place. Christ is God’s true center, and this must be made clear (at least in type) before the Passover could be acceptable Jehovah.
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Early in the nineteenth century there was a movement of the Spirit of God in Christendom which went for beyond the great work of the Protestant Reformation. In the sixteenth century the important truth of justification by faith was recovered, and multitudes rejoiced in it. But not much more was recovered at that time. But in the “twenties” of the last century there were quiet, stirrings in many hearts concerning the Assembly — its true relationships to God and to Christ, and the walk that is proper for those who, by grace, have part therein. Pride in denominational prosperity, and boasting in religious leaders was abundant; but for all practical purposes Christ was displaced. He is everything to God, and He should be everything to us. He sits on high as Head of His body the Church; what other head dare we acknowledge? He is the only true gathering center for His saints on earth, according to His own words in Matthew 18:20 “Where two or three are gathered together unto My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” When these precious realities are made good to the soul by the Holy Spirit, emancipation from human traditions results. Beloved Christian reader, is Christ all this to you—the Head with whom you are in conscious union, and the Center to whom you delight to gather with others who love His peerless name?
What a week of joy and blessing Josiah and his people experienced in Jerusalem! It was a revival indeed. We have already seen that in both “Kings” and “Chronicles” we are told that there had been nothing like it for several centuries. But why did Josiah convene a Paschal week rather than a week for the feast of Tabernacles? Because the Passover was Jehovah’s great foundation institution for His people, and His people must begin where He begins. It was the memorial of His marvelous deliverance of Israel in the days of Moses. It was intended to have a three-fold appeal—(1) to the individual; (2) to the family; and (3) to the nation corporately. Every firstborn in Josiah’s time would recall how the firstborn was spared in Egypt, and he would thus learn something of the value of the sprinkled blood. So with the individual now. It is good to sing with the assembly:
“Worthy the Lamb that’s gone on high
To be exalted thus;
Worthy the Lamb that died, we cry,
For He was slain for us.”
Dr. Watts.
But each individual also delights to say, “The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Personal pronouns are very acceptable upon our lips when we sing to God individually; but personal pronouns are out of place in the assembly.
“My Redeemer! Oh how sweet to call Thee mine!” is more suitable for the home than for the assembly.
Every family in Israel would feed together upon the roast lamb. Are we careful to have family worship? Do we so train our children that with one accord in the home we speak and sing in terms of appreciation of the Lamb that was slain! But beyond the appreciation of the individual and of the family, there is also the gathering up of the congregation to bless God and the Lamb—in Israel’s case, the whole nation; and in this era the whole Assembly of saints.
The Pascal gathering in Jerusalem in Josiah’s day was a small affair compared with the gathering in the days of Solomon to keep the feast of Tabernacles. “At that time Solomon held a feast, and all Israel with him, a great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt before Jehovah our God” (1 Kings 8:65). But Solomon’s day was the time of Israel’s glory; the nation was undivided; and it was suitable that the feast of Tabernacles should have prominence, for it speaks typically of millennial glory and blessing. In Josiah’s day the nation was broken; and large numbers of the people had been removed from the land by Gentile Powers. Only a remnant was left, but it was very precious to Jehovah to see them coming together at that late moment in the history of the nation to place themselves once more in their danger and need under the shelter of the blood of the lamb. Precious lesson for us in this day!
We must remind ourselves that the Passover proper was a one-day feast, but inseparably connected with it was the feast of unleavened bread for seven days more. The whole was concluded with a holy convocation. “On the seventh day ye shalt have a holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work therein” (Num. 28:25). Nothing of this was overlooked by Josiah. How anxious he was to be obedient to the Word in every detail! “The children of Israel that were present kept the Passover at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven days” (2 Chron. 35:17). In Jehovah’s original instructions concerning the Paschal week leaven was absolutely forbidden. He who dared to eat leavened bread during that season was to be cut off from Israel (Ex. 12:14-20). No work and no leaven were the divine rules for the Paschal week (Lev. 23:6-8). No work, for the great Calvary work of Christ was in view (typically), and no human efforts must be placed alongside it, Christ is not a mere helper of sinners, making up for their deficiencies; He is Savior, doing all that is necessary to save us from eternal ruin. Every day during the feast of unleavened bread burnt-offerings were to be offered to Jehovah, for they spake to Him of the perfections of Christ in life and in death, in virtue of which we are accepted and blessed. The contrast between what man is and can do, and what Christ is and has done was thus strongly presented typically.
No work and no leaven. No leaven, for it is suggestive of evil throughout the Scriptures. The application of these instructions to Christians is shown in 1 Corinthians 5. The Corinthian saints (resident in a particularly vile city, and not long converted had low thoughts of what is suitable to God. The Old Testament types of the Passover and unleavened bread were therefore brought to bear upon them by the Apostle. “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leavening of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:7-8). The Lord’s Supper is not in view in this passage. The Lord’s Supper is dealt with in 1 Corinthians 11, and the fellowship connected therewith in 1 Corinthians 10. The teaching of 1 Corinthians 5, goes far beyond the Supper, which indeed is never Called a “ feast” in the New Testament. The Apostle had in mind the whole life of believers in Jesus. Israel’s seven days of unleavened bread are typical of the whole period of our “sojourning here” (1 Pet. 1:17). We are to keep ourselves free from everything that suggests, not only on the first day of the week, but also every day in every week in every year. All that is hateful to God, which cost His beloved Son His precious life must be absolutely excluded from our lives.
Returning to 1 Corinthians 5 the Holy Spirit uses homely figures, which are nevertheless very instructive. “Ye are unleavened,” says the Apostle to the Corinthian Assembly. Grace thus, likened them to a lump of pure dough—a character which they were responsible to maintain, especially in view of the impurity all around them. But their state did not correspond to their standing. “Old leaven”—bad Corinthian habits—had crept in amongst them, to the Lord’s dishonor and to their own hurt. They must “purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.” Moral evil was active in their midst. Elsewhere we are warned against doctrinal evil (Gal. 5:9; Matt. 16:12), The latter is the product of minds insubject to God, and it may work more disastrously than open immorality. Leaven in its every form must not be tolerated by those who profess to appreciate the grace of God and the blood of the Lamb.
Israel’s next Passover will be held in the millennial kingdom. Instructions concerning it will be found in Ezekiel 14:21-24. Restored to their own land, not by the political schemes of Gentile Powers, but by the infinite grace of God, the people will once more place themselves gratefully under the shelter of the blood of the lamb. The animals that will be sacrificed then will speak to them of Christ. The veil having been removed from their hearts, they will see and understand all that has been so long obscure to their fathers (2 Cor. 3:15-16).
During Josiah’s Paschal week, the rich helped the poor to provide all that was necessary for the great feast; the singers led the praises of the congregation; and the porters guarded the door against all intruders (2 Chron. 35:7-8, 15). When the hearts of the people are right with God they are generous, praiseful and watchful. May the Holy Spirit make all these things true of us at this time also.