THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ZECHARIAH
Zechariah
3
The first six chapters of
Zechariah present a number of visions.
They are visions that inform us in a very visual way of what God is
doing in the world. There is an old quip
that says, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” I don’t know if it is true, especially in the
face of inflation, but I do know that the pictures presented in these visions
are striking and they capture our attention and our imagination. That is what they are supposed to do.
The location for this vision
is not given. It might be in the temple
because there is a high priest. Or it
might be a courtroom because there is an accuser. Instead of being told where the vision takes
place, we are told who are the participants in the vision.
First there is Joshua the high
priest: Then he showed me Joshua the
high priest standing before the angel of the LORD (3:1).
The
high priest was the highest office in all of
But
we are not told that the vision entails merely the high priest. This is personal. He is named.
It is Joshua the high priest.
This is like the difference between having the picture of the president
of the
I
think it is specific for a reason. It is
specific because you are supposed to identify with this individual. It is not just any old high priest. It is the one you know by name.
Here
is the point. It is that God knows you
by name. He deals with nations and with
kingdoms, but He also deals with individuals.
There is coming a day when you must stand before the Lord and you will
not be able to hide behind your pastor or your husband or your wife or your
parents. You won’t be able to hide in a
group. There is to be a judgment where
every individual gives an answer before the holy God of the universe.
Secondly there is Satan: Then he showed me Joshua the high priest
standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to
accuse him (3:1).
Notice
the role in which Satan is portrayed. He
is here to accuse. We tend to think of
Satan as though his primary role is that of temptation. We say, “The Devil made me do it.” But there is another role that is described
in the Scripture. It is that of the
accuser. Indeed, this is the meaning of
the name Satan. The Hebrew text says
that Satan was “standing at his right hand to SATAN him.”
Revelation
12:10 calls Satan the accuser of our brethren, who accuses them before our God
day and night. It is not a pleasant
thing to be accused and it is even worse to be accused day and night. But the worst thing of all is to be accused
when that accusation is true. When
people say bad things about you, just stop and think what they would say if
they knew the truth.
Thirdly there is the Angel of the Lord.
The
Lord is seen in the persona of His messenger — He is termed here the angel of
the Lord. When we hear the term “angel”
we think immediately of one of those heavenly creations. The Biblical reference to an angel speaks
primarily of a messenger. Sometimes it
is a human messenger. Sometimes it is an
angelic messenger. And sometimes, when
we read of the Angel of the Lord, it is speaking of the ultimate messenger of
God, the One who eventually became flesh and who became the ultimate
communication of God’s message to men.
The
reason I mention this is because this chapter contains a curious interplay
between the angel of the Lord versus the Lord
Himself. First we see Joshua the high
priest standing before the angel of the Lord.
Then we see the Lord Himself rebuking Satan and then still another
reference to the angel of the Lord. It
is through this interplay that a drama unfolds.
It is a drama of hope.
THIS HOPE IS SEEN WHEN THE
ACCUSER IS REBUKED
And the LORD said to Satan,
"The LORD rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD who
has chosen
Amos 4 outlines the judgments
of God upon the nation of
• I gave you also cleanness of teeth in all
your cities and lack of bread in all your places, yet you have not returned to Me (Amos 4:6).
• I withheld the rain and there was no
water yet you have not returned to Me (Amos 4:8).
• I sent scorching wind and mildew insects
to eat up your gardens and vineyards and trees, yet you have not returned to Me (Amos 4:9).
• I sent a plague that killed your young
men and your horses until your land was filled with a stench, and still you
have not returned to Me (Amos 4:10).
It is then that God says, I
overthrew you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, And you were like a
firebrand snatched from a blaze; Yet you have not returned to Me,"
declares the LORD (Amos 4:11).
Do you see it? The description of
I
can identify with that. I’ve been to a
lot of fires in the course of my career with the fire department, but only once
was I actually on fire. It was during an
especially nasty warehouse fire that myself and my
teammates found ourselves on fire. It
didn’t last long, but it seemed like an eternity and the heat of the flames
seemed to cut right through my protective fire fighting gear.
The
next thing I knew, I was lying on my face outside the warehouse, my mask pulled
half off and my helmet ripped away. I
was told that I had been blown out of the building when it went up — tossed
like a firebrand being tossed from a fire.
And yet, God is going to do
something wonderful with
The works of Satan are
pictured in verse 3.
THIS HOPE IS SEEN WHEN
FILTH IS IN THE PRESENCE OF THE HOLY
Now Joshua was clothed with
filthy garments and standing before the angel. (Zechariah 3:3).
There is an old saying that
“clothes make the man.” It isn’t
true. The reason I know it isn’t true is
because man preceded clothing. In the
Garden of Eden, there was man before there were clothes. While it is not true that clothes make the
man, it IS true that clothing often serves to IDENTIFY the man.
We do that all the time. If I were to walk into this room in uniform,
you would be able to identify me as a fire fighter. There would be a badge on my chest and
insignias on my lapels and labels and patches that would identify my rank and
the department for which I work. You
would see those various items and you would come to the conclusion that I was a
fire fighter.
Zechariah sees a similar sort
of vision. He sees Joshua, the high
priest, and the reason he recognizes Joshua the high priest is because he is
wearing the garments of a high priest.
But there is a problem. Those
garments are dirty. They are not merely
dirty, they are filthy. The Hebrew term
here is specific. It is the term that is
used for human excrement. This is filthy
filth.
It is bad enough to have
dirty clothes. It is even worse to have
clothes that a covered with filth. But
it is worse than that to have filthy garments when you are supposed to be
wearing robes of the high priest and when you are standing before the angel of
the Lord. We are meant to see the
contrast between the filth of Joshua’s condition with the holiness of his
position.
The high priest was to serve
as the mediator between God and man. He
represented the people to God. That is
rather different than a prophet.
• A prophet represents God to the
people. He is sent from God and he turns
to the people and he speaks the words of God to the people. You listen to the prophet and you hear the message
of God.
• A priest is just the opposite. He represents the people to God. He comes before God and he serves as the
personal representative of the people.
That means the priest is
there serving as your representative.
You look at the priest and you see yourself. The actions of the priest and done on your
behalf.
Naturally, we want our
representatives to represent us in the best possible light. If clothing identifies the man, then we want
the man who represents us to be dressed in the finest threads.
But that is not what we see
in the vision. Joshua the high priest is
dressed in clothing that is covered in filth.
Verse 1 had Satan accusing the high priest and now we see that there was
a basis for that accusation. The apparel
of the high priest is filthy and this is representative of the filthiness that
is to be found in those whom he represents.
This theme of inadequate
apparel is one that goes back to the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve first ate of the forbidden
fruit, their eyes were opened and they saw their own nakedness and the
inadequacy of that nakedness and their first instinct was to cover
themselves. Operation Figleaf. They
tried their hand at manufacturing their own clothing and perhaps they even convinced themselves that no one would notice and
then they heard the sound of the Lord God coming into the Garden and there was
an instant of panic as they realized their own inadequacy.
I don’t often have
nightmares, but one that I have occasionally experienced is when I find myself
inadequately dressed in a public place.
I might be at work or at school or in church and I realize that I have
forgotten to put on my pants. There is
shame and a desire to cover up.
There is in all of us, to
varying degrees, this same insecurity.
Am I adequate? Am I dressed? Do I have that shameful part of myself covered? I am not talking about physical nakedness, though I suspect that most of us are not that
proud of how we physically appear (otherwise the gyms and the spas would be out
of business). I am speaking of our inner
selves and the things we do to cover up.
It invariably involves a
focus upon the exterior. What we
do. What we say. How we act.
Fig leaves of externality that are carefully
sewn into the fabric of our lives to cover our shame.
It is at the same time our
deepest longing and also our deepest fear that someone might come to know the
real person inside — the real me with all of my filthiness and insecurity and
shame.
• It is a longing because we live lives of
loneliness and we long to be known.
• It is a fear because we are afraid that
anyone who really knows us will see the filthiness within and will reject us.
I was reading an online
article in the Caltech Counseling page that described what they called an
“imposter syndrome” — people who have feelings of inadequacy. The article pointed out that it is not merely
the mediocre or the losers who have this experience. Often it is people who are very outwardly
successful who wrestle with such feelings of inward inadequacy.
These longings and fears are
answered at the cross. This is seen in
the cleansing that is provided from the Lord.
THIS HOPE IS SEEN WHEN THE
UNCLEAN IS CLEANSED
4 And he spoke and said to
those who were standing before him saying, "Remove the filthy garments
from him." Again he said to him, "See, I have taken your iniquity
away from you and will clothe you with festal robes." 5 Then I
said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean
turban on his head and clothed him with garments, while the angel of the LORD
was standing by. (Zechariah 3:4-5).
The provision is announced by
the angel of the Lord. The garments of
filth are to be removed and replaced with festal robes. This was foreshadowed in the Garden of Eden. When the fig leaves proved inadequate to the
task, the Lord Himself provided garments of skin. There is something unsaid but assumed in the
book of Genesis about that provision.
Those new garments came at the cost of a life.
In order to clothe the
nakedness of Adam and Eve, God provided clothing of animal skin and that
assumes that an animal was put to death.
This was a prophetic picture, a type of what Christ would ultimately do
on our behalf. His death upon the cross
in our place, suffering the death that we deserved, results in our being
clothed in His righteousness.
He made Him who knew no sin to be
sin on our behalf, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him. (1 Corinthians 5:21).
When we come to Jesus Christ
in faith, believing that our sins were credited to Him upon the cross and
claiming through faith that provision on our behalf, we find that the very
righteousness of Christ has been credited to us. Like Joshua the high priest, our filthy
garments have been taken away and replaced by clean robes of righteousness.
THIS HOPE RESULTS IN NEW
CLOTHES AND A NEW CALLING
6 And the angel of the LORD
admonished Joshua saying, 7 "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'If you will walk
in My ways, and if you will perform My service, then you will also govern My
house and also have charge of My courts, and I will grant you free access among
these who are standing here. (Zechariah 3:6-7).
The cleansing provided in
this passage is not an end unto itself.
It contains a call to action.
This is the “so what” of the passage.
Notice that the cleansing is
not predicated on the calling. It is not
that you will be cleaned if you perform.
He does not say, “Straighten up your life and change your clothes and
then I will cleanse you.” First we see
the cleansing; then we see a call to action on how we are to live as a result
of that cleansing.
At the same time, we do a
disservice if we do not point out that cleansing is for the purpose of doing a
clean work. The Lord says, “I cleaned
you in order to give you a service of work that demanded clean hands and a pure
heart.”
What is the work that is
described? It is the work of a
priest. It is the work of worship. It is the work of coming into the presence of
God and bringing others into that same presence.
THIS HOPE IS FOUNDED ON
THE PROMISE OF A PRIEST
8 'Now listen, Joshua the
high priest, you and your friends who are sitting in front of you‑‑
indeed they are men who are a symbol, for behold, I am going to bring in My
servant the Branch. 9 For behold, the stone that I
have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave an
inscription on it,' declares the LORD of hosts, 'and I will remove the iniquity
of that land in one day. (Zechariah 3:8-9).
This is the explanation of
the vision of this chapter. We are told
that this vision of Joshua the high priest is a symbol and that it is meant to
point us to something that God was going to do in the future.
You need to remember that
this was written 500 years before Jesus was born. Those who want to teach that Jesus was just a
good teacher and who was misunderstood by His followers and who was deified by
later church counsels conveniently ignore the fact that the Old Testament tells
us all about the Messiah and what He would accomplish a long time before Jesus
was even born. That prophecy is given
here in three parts:
1. The
Branch: I am going to bring in My
servant the Branch (3:8).
When
you think of a branch, that is a part of a tree. But the Biblical picture of this branch is a
bit different.
We
have a large oak tree in our front yard.
When Hurricane Wilma hit last year, a large section of the tree snapped
off from the main trunk. It split the
tree so that there was now a large open space in the middle. In order to prevent dry rot from setting in,
that portion of the main trunk was cut away, leaving a large stump in the
middle of the tree. Paula looked at it
and said, “It has ruined our tree.” But
I said, “Just wait and watch; there will eventually grow from that stump a new
branch.” I want you to know that it has
happened. What started as a sprout has
continued to grow and is now showing leaves.
As
Zechariah shares this message, the nation of
But
there is going to be a Branch that will sprout up. New life is going to arise from what looked
to be a dead stump.
That
is a picture that is supposed to stay with you...
• When your life comes crashing down.
• When you feel as though you are going to
snap.
• When you are filled with the deadness of
daily humdrum.
There
is a source of life that can sprout up with new hope. Jesus is the Branch and that name is full of
irony because the means through which He brought life was to give up His own
life by being nailed to a tree. He is
the branch who was nailed to a tree.
2. The
Stone: For behold, the stone that I
have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes (3:9).
At
first glance, this description looks weird.
But it isn’t supposed to be. The
symbolism is rather simple. The picture
of seven eyes is merely a reference to the fact that God has perfect vision —
He sees everything.
It
is the same symbolism that is seen in Revelation 5:6 when John sees a Lamb
standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven
Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.
The
lamb in Revelation 5 is a picture of Jesus and the stone here in Zechariah 3 is
also a picture of Jesus. The Old
Testament had already described Him as the Stone that the builders rejected
(Psalm 118:22) who would become the foundation stone upon which God would
establish His people.
3. The
Inscription: Behold, I will engrave
an inscription on it,' declares the LORD of hosts, 'and I will remove the
iniquity of that land in one day (3:9).
What
is this inscription? I don’t know. The passage does not say. What it does do is to link the inscription
with the removal of iniquity. Notice how
the prophecy does this. God says that He
will do two things:
• I will engrave an inscription on it.
• I will remove the iniquity of that
land in one day.
.
It
seems to me that the second part of this promise helps to explain the first
part. There is something about this
engraved inscription that results in the removal of the iniquity. I'm reminded of something the Lord said to
Isaiah, “Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My
hands” (Isaiah 49:16).
What
are the marks on the palms of the hands of Jesus? They are the marks of His love for us. They are the marks that removed the iniquity
in one day.
Has
your name been inscribed on the palms of His hands? Have you come to Him in faith, trusting in
that which was accomplished on your behalf?
I am assured that most of you
have done this already. But you are
called always to come back to the cross and to be reminded of the forgiveness
that was purchased for you. It is a call
to drink deeply of the wellspring of hope.
Hope for the new year and hope for God’s
continuing faithfulness in fulfilling His promises to you.
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