Second Exodus

Don’t grab your Bible and search for Second Exodus. You will not find it any more than you can read from the book of Second Hezekiah regardless of how often people “quote” from it. By pretending Second Exodus exists I am referring to the record in Ezra and Nehemiah that tells of the return of the Israelites to Jerusalem after their captivity. There are some interesting parallels between the first and second exodus of God’s people.

Second Chronicles closes with a list of the people who returned when King Cyrus fulfilled prophecy by releasing them from captivity. Just as God allowed Moses to lead His people from captivity in Egypt, Zerubbabel and Joshua led God’s remnant from captivity in Babylon. The conditions in Judah were not vastly different from what the Israelites faced when Joshua led them into the Promised Land. Just as the Canaanites had opposed Joshua’s incursion, the people who lived around Jerusalem in Zerubbabel’s time vehemently opposed the returnees’ rebuilding of the city and the temple.

The opposition was successful at first: the king of Persia being convinced that the Jews were rebellious; the returning Jews stopped building for sixteen years. Two kings came and went in Persia (formerly Babylon) before the Jews asked king Darius for permission finish the temple. Once Darius made a search of the records, he gave them permission to build. He also told the local residents to leave the Jews alone. They were able to complete the temple.

Almost one hundred years later, under king Artaxerxes, Ezra gathered several thousand Jews and led a second group to Jerusalem to teach the law. It was during this time that Nehemiah was inspired by God to go to Jerusalem to complete the wall which remained a pile of rubble around the city. With the king’s blessing and provision, Nehemiah and a large number of former captives made the trek across the desert to Jerusalem. The locals rose up against Nehemiah’s building project just as they had before, but things were different this time. The locals tried petitioning the king, but this time the king told them to stop hindering the work. They tried physical attacks, but Nehemiah convinced the Jews to stand strong against them. They succeeded: the walls and the temple were eventually completed.

Here the history lesson ends and the application for us begins. I suppose the main thing we might draw from this historical account is that God is without doubt a god of second chances. In reality, letting the Jews return from their seventy-year sentence in Babylon was not their second chance; it was more like their two hundredth chance – or two thousandth chance to prove faithful. God’s second chance nature was first revealed in the Garden of Eden when He did not execute Adam and Eve for their disobedience. He instead gave them the chance to live a few hundred years with the results of their rebellion. Their relationships with God, each other, themselves, and nature were all damaged by the fall from grace.

But God’s grace remained. As He promised Adam, He worked a plan to bring His wayward people back to Himself. Throughout the historical record, from Noah to Abraham to Moses to Joshua to David and finally to His One-and-only Son, God gave His people whatever chances they needed to accomplish His will. Then through Paul He exposed the mystery of His plan: all people, not just the Jews, would be offered grace unto salvation. “Not of works lest any man should boast,” Paul counsels. By grace through faith in the risen Savior, every living person has the chance to embrace God’s plan and gain adoption into His family.

The New Testament clearly teaches that God’s grace unto salvation is a one-time decision to get on board; however, the effort to stay on board is a daily struggle. That is not to say that a believer’s failures cause the loss of grace; that is assured by the sincere acceptance of the grace displayed on the cross of Calvary. However, believers can and will slip into times of trial and discipline when they feel far from grace. Stubborn disobedience cannot erase the promise of a sincere profession of faith, but it can and will hinder the close fellowship with God and fellow believers.

That is when we experience another “second chance.” My wife and I spent several years working with recovering addicts and returning felons; they knew the meaning of a second chance, and they lived daily in the wonder and glory of that knowledge. Sometimes they slipped, as we will also, but the beauty of God’s grace is that the opportunity of a “second exodus” from sin’s captivity into God’s grace and forgiveness always exists.

We must continually examine our lives as Paul says to be sure, “That [we] are in the faith.” The forgiveness bought on Christ’s cross is always available if we follow John’s advice and confess our sin. The people in the first Exodus proved so faithless that they died in the desert. The people in the second exodus from Babylon were not much better. But God soldiered on to fulfill His plan even though His people did not deserve it. And isn’t that the definition of grace: undeserved favor. We will never deserve grace, but let us at least try to live worthy of it. If we don’t let sin take us captive, we won’t need a second exodus.

Related posts: God of Demonstrations; For God’s Sake; The Knowledge of Good and Evil