The Second Passover

The essence of biblical prophecy is that the Lord [YHWH] will restore Israel, that He will recover this chosen nation from the North Country and from all of the countries where He has driven the people of Israel. In this recovery, Israel’s exodus from Egypt will be forgotten (Jer 16:14–15; 23:7–8) as a remnant of the holy nation leaves Assyria [the North Country] as Israel came up from the land of Egypt. (Isa 11:11–16)

As the Holy One of Israel gave Egypt as the ransom for Israel, His firstborn son (Ex 4:22), He will again give the lives of men in exchange for the life of Israel (Isa 43:3–4), now a nation circumcised of heart by Spirit (Rom 2:28-29; Col 2:11; Deut 30:6), a nation that was not before a nation or a people (1 Pet 2:9–10). As the Holy One of Israel claimed the firstborn of Egypt, of men and of beasts, as His own to do with as He pleased; and as He required that Israel redeem its firstborn by a covering of blood on entryways into the houses of Israel; this Holy One of Israel will again claim the lives of firstborns when He redeems the spiritually circumcised nation from indwelling sin and death that continues to reside in the fleshly members of Israel … as He brought Israel up out of sin, He will bring Israel up out of death, what Assyria and the North Country represent.

Israel’s recovery from death—the nation’s salvation—is of such greater importance than the ancient nation’s liberation from physical bondage to a physical Pharaoh that the exodus from Egypt will be forgotten.

The covenant the Holy One of Israel made with Israel on the day He took the nation by the hand to bring it out of Egypt (Heb 8:9) was ratified with the death—the shedding of blood—of the firstborn of Egypt. This is the covenant that will be superseded by a new covenant, one that has the laws of God written on the hearts and minds of Israel, one that causes all to Know the Lord (v. 11). But a covenant is the distance between cuttings, between an initial shedding of blood and a shedding of blood that ends the covenant; thus, the covenant made between the Holy One of Israel and the fathers of the nation extends forward until the lives of the firstborn of this world are given as ransom for endtime Israel’s liberation from bondage to indwelling sin and death.

The seven endtime years of tribulation are about Israel’s recovery from Death, the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse, the fourth beast of Daniel chapter seven, the spiritual king of the North. The Passover Lamb of God, a lamb appropriate to the size of the household of God, was slain at even when the present long spiritual night of waiting and watching began. But death angels have not yet passed over the world—humanity has lived through nearly six thousand years of recorded history that are, typologically, as the six hours Israel watched and waited in Egypt were. At the appropriate time, death angels will pass over all of the earth, slaying firstborns not covered by the blood of the Lamb of God.

In the wilderness of Sinai when Israel was to eat the Passover lamb in the second year, certain men were defiled from touching a dead body. Moses asked the Lord what should be done, and he received an answer: “If any one of you or of your descendants is unclean through touching a dead body, or is on a long journey, he shall still keep the Passover to the Lord. In the second month on the fourteenth day at twilight they shall keep it” (Num 9:10–11). This makeup observation of the Passover is what has been traditionally identified as the second Passover. Thus, today, spiritually circumcised disciples keep the Passover when they take the sacraments of bread and wine on the night that Jesus was betrayed, the dark portion of the 14th day of Abib. But if a person who should take the Passover in the first month is unable to do so, the person keeps the Passover in the second month such is the importance of covering sin with the blood of Christ (Matt 26:28).

However, the importance of the second Passover does not begin or end with a makeup date for taking the Passover sacraments, for it is on this date when the lives of men will again be given as ransom for the liberation of now spiritually circumcised Israel in a manner foreshadowed by ancient Israel’s liberation from bondage to Pharaoh. It is on this date when Israel will be again tested by Sabbath observance (Ex 16:1–4). It will be on or about this date when a time as it was in the days of Noah, who in the six hundredth year of his life, on the 17th day of the second month (Gen 11:17), saw the flood come and sweep all away will begin that catches humanity unaware, this time being the Tribulation.

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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."

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