“And the king commanded all the people saying, Hold the passover to Jehovah your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant. For 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 of the kings of Judah; but in the eighteenth year of king Josiah was this passover holden to Jehovah in Jerusalem” (2 Kings 23:21-23).
The celebration of the passover is given us here in few words, whereas Chronicles describes it at length (2 Chron. 35:1-19); but this event has too great an importance in the history of the revival to fail to arrest the reader’s attention for a moment. We have just spoken of the two great principles which characterize revival in the end times: breaking with the idolatry of the world or its religious traditions, and returning to the Holy Scriptures. Following these two facts and as consequence of them we have the celebration of the Passover.
The Passover as an institution had first of all been celebrated in Egypt. The people of Israel had been redeemed from the land of bondage by the blood of the passover lamb. Through it, God’s judgment which overtook Egypt was turned aside from Israel. The people, placed under the sprinkling of the blood, ate the passover. It was a figure of the appropriating of the sacrifice of Christ that faith does for us once for all: this symbol corresponds to what is said of the Christian in John 6:53.
The memorial of this deliverance comes next. It was repeated each year on the fourteenth day of the first month (Ex. 12:14, 26-27, 45). This memorial was celebrated by all the people. In normal circumstances no one in Israel could abstain from it, under penalty of being “cut off from Israel.” As a first condition to partake, it was necessary to be circumcised (Ex. 12:48). This sign was the sign of the separation to God by the judgment of sin and the cutting off of the flesh. And so, at the time of entering into the land of Canaan, after the passage of the Jordan, all those who belonged to the generation whose fathers had fallen in the wilderness and who had not been circumcised were circumcised at Gilgal. “The reproach of Egypt” was thus rolled away from them, and they could celebrate the Passover in the plains of Jericho (Josh. 5:6-12).
By the fact that it was given to a redeemed and circumcised people, the memorial became the symbol of the unity of the people of God. The Passover was thus at the same time the remembrance of redemption and the proclamation of the unity of the people.
The Spirit of God shows us that this celebration was a fundamental institution, first of all in traversing the wilderness (Num. 9:1-14) and then upon entering Canaan (Josh. 5:10). From that time on the Word does not mention it again until the days of Hezekiah, not as though it had not been observed under the judges, under David, Solomon, and the kings, but it was not the special object presented by the Holy Spirit; whereas we see the feasts of the seventh month, especially the feast of tabernacles, occupying a preponderant place under the reign of Solomon.
At the time of Hezekiah’s revival, the Passover was not celebrated on the fourteenth day of the first month, but of the second month (2 Chron. 30:15), the date authorized by the Word for those who were unclean or on a journey at the time of the celebration of the feast (Num. 9:11). The priests found themselves in the first situation, having lacked the zeal to sanctify themselves, they were unclean, and Hezekiah acts in consequence of this. Josiah’s Passover was celebrated on the appointed date of the first month (2 Chron. 35:1). The need of sanctifying oneself for the Lord was much more generally felt than it had been under Hezekiah, for the Word of God was better understood, and the desire to obey Him was more real.
At the time of Erza, the Passover was celebrated by “the children of the captivity” on the day consecrated thereto, “for the priests and the Levites had purified themselves as one man” (Erza 6:19-20).
Therefore, in the measure that we advance in the history of the ruin of the people of God, the greater the importance to the faithful the Passover and the state of soul appropriate to it acquire; and, quite remarkably, the sign of the unity of the people becomes all the more important as the people are dispersed all the more by the ruin.
Is it needful to add that these truths answer to the present day? The Lord’s Supper, which on that night in which Jesus was betrayed replaced the Jewish Passover as a memorial, is served and the Lord’s Table is set up for His redeemed people and for them alone. The Lord’s death is proclaimed there until He returns. At the same time this table is a rallying center for the people of God, and it is the proclamation of the unity of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:17), even at a time when everything apparently contradicts this truth, or even when, as at the time Hezekiah, those who proclaim it are laughed at and mocked (2 Chron. 30:10).
The history of the Passover does not end here, and in fact shall never be ended. A willing people will yet celebrate it upon earth during Christ’s millennial reign (Ezek. 45:21). It will be celebrated at the same time in the heavenly kingdom where the glorified saints will be gathered around the Lamb that was slain (Rev. 5).
Thus since redemption is accomplished, the memorial of that which has acquired it for the people of God lasts, come what may, and will last throughout eternity. The remembrance of the death of Christ is always necessary for it is the sole foundation for every blessing.
Let us return now to Josiah’s Passover. The account in our book, though very brief, is characterized by an important expression: “As it is written in this book of the covenant”(2 Kings 23:21). No doubt, as we see in Chronicles, the people under Hezekiah had also come to celebrate it according to “the word of Jehovah” and “the law of Moses, the man of God” (2 Chron. 30:12,16), but under Josiah the written Word, marvelously preserved and rediscovered in the temple, takes on a yet much greater importance. Nothing that pertains to this memorial should be done without the Word. It was “according to the writing of David king of Israel, and according to the writing of Solomon” that they were to prepare it (2 Chron. 35:4); “according to the word of Jehovah through Moses” (2 Chron. 35:6) that one ought to present the sacrifice to the Lord (2 Chron. 35:12); “according to the ordinance” that one should roast it with fire (2 Chron. 35:13); “according to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun the king’s seer” that each occupied his place to observe the due order according to God in singing and praising (2 Chron. 35:15). And all was done “according to the commandment of king Josiah” (2 Chron. 35:16), that is to say, the instrument of this revival had the intelligence neither to communicate nor order the people to do anything but that which was in accord with the Scripture.
Let us take these things to heart. Josiah, warned by the Lord, knew perfectly well that in doing this he would not stop the course of judgment; he also knew that he would be gathered to his fathers before the evil would come and that his eyes should not see it (2 Kings 22:20), but he had but one thought. Feeling with deepest humiliation the dishonor inflicted upon the Lord and His worship, he was pressed to honor Him in the midst of the ruin of Israel, in the very place where He had been so dishonored. By all his conduct he was protesting against the infamy which had been committed in Judah under the cloak of religion. He humbled himself under this apostasy, as being responsible for it just as others were, but without being in the least distracted all his activity was directed toward the service of the Lord and toward the cleansing for Him of a peculiar people, however abased or dispersed they might be.
Josiah’s era was not marked, as Hezekiah’s, by special attacks of the enemy, by trials coming from without or from within. It was a relatively peaceful time when indifference certainly played a greater part than hatred; but whereas the world rested and let things be, Josiah used this lull to show forth greatest activity for his Master.
Our times, we have already said, resemble those times, and the faithful have the same position and the same duties. May we use these end times with their relative calm to render testimony to these three things: separation from the religious and irreligious world which surrounds us, attachment to the Scriptures, and gathering God’s children around the Lord’s Table until He comes.
Our chapter adds that “all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah took away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkijah the priest had found in the house of Jehovah” (2 Kings 23:24). Thus, to the end of his career Josiah put into practice the principles he had drawn from the Scriptures. There was no king like him, neither before nor after him, and that was not due to his personal merit nor to his righteousness, but to the fact that the Word of God, mixed with faith in his heart, had become an integral part of himself.