Restoration Principles - Their Biblical Basis (8)

RESTORATION PRINCIPLES - THEIR BIBLICAL BASIS - 8

Yeow Chin Kiong

The pre-Babylonian exile efforts of King Hezekiah of Judah and his great-grandson, King Josiah, to restore the worship of God as commanded by the Divinely-inspired Law of Moses were not continued beyond their respective reigns partly because they were top-down in implementation. Commanded by their king, all that was needed to undo their efforts was the u-turn by their sons, Manasseh and Jehoahaz respectively, bringing back idolatry to Jerusalem. It took a 70-year exile to a foreign land, followed by a mass return to Jerusalem, for the Israelite people to pursue restoration as enthusiastically as their leaders and with more enduring results.

When the assembled people for whom it was intended responded individually with attentively listening, shouts of "Amen" and tears of sadness to the reading and explanation of God's scripture (Nehemiah 8:1-12), it is not yet clear that they will follow-up with obedient action and a changed behavior,- and at great personal cost to themselves. Very much unlike during thr restoration of Hezekiah and Josiah, just after the gathered Jews of Ezra's and Nehemiah's day heard the reading and teaching of the Law of Moses, they entered into a written covenant with God,- in which they recalled God's unfailing goodness to them and their repeated unfaithfulness to Him, ending with a rededication by covenant under oath and seal to God (Nehemiah 9:4-31).

For all the initial evidence of religious restoration in Ezra's and Nehemiah's day, there were merely verbal commitments of renewed faith to begin with. But, then as today, faith without works is dead (James 2:26). There were two notable restoration works of note right after the public reading and teaching of Moses Law by Ezra, aided by Nehemiah and others. Firstly, there was the restoring of the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles (or "Booths") prescribed by the Law of Moses. (Leviticus 23:33-43). This feast had not been practiced by the Israelites "... since the days of Joshua the son of Nun ..." until the Israelites returned from Babylonian exile (Nehemiah 8:17). For this feast, much labor was required to set up the booths in Jerusalem to dwell in during the feast (Nehemiah 8:13-18). As God's chosen people then were under the dispensation of Moses' Law, obeying all of that Law, including the keeping of prescribed feasts, was necessary for them.

The restoring of the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem by Ezra, Nehemiah and the other returnees fron exile mirrored the restoration of the seven-day Feast of the Unleavened Bread immediately after the Passover under King Hezekiah before the Babylonian exile of the Israelites (2 Chronicles 31:1-27). Although commanded under Moses' Law (Exodus 12:1 to 13:16), the Passover and the Feast of the Unleavened Bread had been neglected by the people for a long time before King Hezekiah's restoration of it (2 Chronicles 30:5).

As for King Hezekiah, so it was for the returnees from the Babylonian exile,- restoration of the worship of God according to His commands was an urgent matter requiring immediate action. Much needed to be done, without any necessary matter left unaddressed. True restoration must be urgently all-encompassing in our time (see Matthew 23:23). Hosever, as we shall see, there are aspects of religious restoration which demand greater personal cost and sacrifice than mankind can imagine