The Second Month Passovers
The end of the year, 2016, has just passed, and during December both Christmas and Hanukkah were celebrated during the same time frame. Christmas Eve and the first day of the Hanukkah celebration fell on the same day: two significant celebrations linking Judaism and Christianity. The two are linked together in one perfect Jewish man: Jesus Christ. In both of these celebrations, lights shine all over the world. Jesus proclaimed, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12).
The Old Testament
One of the scriptures referenced in our book, Somebody Call 9:11, was Numbers 9:11 which recounts one of only two known celebrations of the Passover which occurred in the second month and not in the first month as God had originally decreed through Moses. As the reader may recall, God had said to Moses and Aaron that the celebration would occur in what would become the first month of the year for the Jewish people, the month Nisan, the literal meaning of which is beginning.
This celebration of the feast of Passover was to be a day of memorial that would be kept as a feast to the Lord throughout their generations. It was to be a feast of an ever-lasting ordinance as stated in Exodus 12:14. Two occasions in scripture record that the feast had to be celebrated in the second month due too overriding circumstances.
The first of these occasions was recorded in Numbers 9. The Lord had spoken to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt that the whole assembly should keep the Passover at its appointed time on the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight, Numbers 9:1-4.
So everyone celebrated the Passover at the appointed time except for a group of men who had become defiled by touching the body of a dead man and were thus ritually impure. Even though they were excluded from celebrating the feast, they came before Moses and Aaron and asked what they could do to still participate in the celebration. Moses inquired of the Lord and was instructed by God that they could keep the feast in the second month, and that is what they proceeded to do. There were serious consequences if one did not keep the second special Passover at its appointed time, and the concluding phrase in Numbers 9:13 is: “ that man shall bear his sin.” In the same verse it states that, “he would be cut off from among his people.”
The only other time in the Old Testament when we are told that the Passover was celebrated in the second month was during the reign of King Hezekiah. He was a godly king who restored temple worship and also the celebration of the Passover. He had requested the priests and Levites to come to Jerusalem to cleanse the temple and restore the sacrificial system.
Second Chronicles 30:3 tells us that they could not keep the Passover in the first month because a sufficient number of priests had not sanctified themselves and the people had not had time to gather themselves to Jerusalem. Therefore the celebration was held in the second month giving the priests time to sanctify themselves and the people time to assemble in Jerusalem.
The New Testament
In the New Testament Paul tells us that Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us (1Corinthians 5:7). In our fallen condition we have all been defiled by sin. Romans 3:23 states that, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
The good news of the gospel is that Christ has taken the penalty of our sin, death, upon Himself and paid the price for each of us when He died upon the cross so that by faith in His finished work we might inherit eternal life.
Jesus said in John 8:24b that, “If you do not believe that I Am He, (the Messiah and Savior of the world), you will die in your sin.” Jesus became defiled for us. He fulfilled both the first and the second Passover. Linking to the Numbers 9 statements, Jesus became “that man” who was “cut off from his people” in His death, but in so doing he became the one who would “bear the sins of the world” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Linking to the 2 Chronicles 30:3 passage, Jesus was not late to the celebration as the priests who were not sanctified were late. Jesus, however, was preordained to be there on time. He was not delayed. He came into Jerusalem at the appointed time and would become the One sanctified priest, the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8b). Jesus was also the One ordained by God who would become the “High Priest of good things to come” (Hebrews 9:11).
Hebrews 9:27-28 proclaims, “As it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him, He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. Jesus completely fulfilled the first Passover, the second Passover celebrations, and guess what? He will appear a second time to those who eagerly await Him. He has trusted us to be the light of the world until He returns."You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden... Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:14 &16).