This short chapter is one of the most powerful and revelatory in all of Scripture. Zechariah prophesied during the time of Judah’s restoration after the exiles had returned from their seventy years in Babylon and were rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, around 520 to 470 BC. I’ve always been impressed by the presentation of the unique and unmistakable portrayal of the gospel in this chapter, and in how few words it’s done. It unmistakably magnifies God’s grace and mercy, but something else stood out to me in this specific period of learning in my life, something flowing out of God’s mercy and grace: our obedience and the blessings flowing from it. In other words, we are saved unto good works. The forgiveness of our sins and restoration of our relationship to our Creator God should manifest itself in the life we live, and transformed lives will transform the world.
In the past I always focused on the gospel side of the implications represented, we might say the Protestant side. Our understanding is that Jesus’ death on the cross was a substitutionary atonement for our sin: because he paid the price, death, for our sin, and by faith (i.e., trust) we are legally granted his righteousness before God. This was always a challenge for Christianity because sinful human beings will often jump to the non sequitur; since we’re saved by grace it doesn’t matter if we sin. The Apostle Paul had to deal with this because it’s an ever present temptation as we read in Romans 6:
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We who died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
“By no means” can be translated as may it never happen, never be born, never come to be. It should be literally unimaginable to us. Alas, we are still sinners so sin will happen, but that is why Christ is our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (I Cor. 1:30), yet there is never any excuse for sin. This struggle highlights another focus of this chapter, the spiritual war we are part of, but more on that in a minute. First, the gospel presentation here is just too good not to review.
It is no coincidence the story is about Joshua or Yeshua (Jesus’ name), the High Priest who was the first man chosen to be the High Priest for the reconstruction of the Temple. He is in the process of being accused and condemned by Satan and is portrayed wearing “filthy clothes.” There is an historical reason for that given the exiles had recently returned from Babylon and Temple worship was just getting started again. The important thing is that the Lord commands these be taken off, and he’s told: “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.” The Lord does this pointing forward with three Messianic references. The first is by sending “the Branch,” a common Messianic reference in the prophetic writings. There is also a stone with “seven eyes” (all seeing, all knowing), and then the final reference, the Lord Almighty will “remove the sin of this land in a single day.” Which is also clearly a Messianic reference, one the Jews could never conceive happening in the way it actually did. It is only exactly the way it did happen that gives us hope that our sin has been removed, and we have been clothed with “rich garments” of righteousness.
What I love about how God presents the gospel in this chapter is the direct connection between being granted His righteousness, His call to obedience, and the implied blessings that results if we “walk in His ways.” Once the clean garment is put on Joshua, the angel of the Lord gives him this charge:
This is what the Lord Almighty says: “If you will walk in obedience to me and keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you a place among these standing here.”
In the prophets there is often more than one meaning in a text, which is clearly the case here. While this is spoken to the High Priest Joshua in that historical moment, it is also spoken to our High Priest Jesus of Nazareth who obeyed the law perfectly for us, and now governs all of God’s house, all of creation from God’s right hand.
Then after the sin of the land is removed in “a single day” we’re told:
10 “‘In that day each of you will invite your neighbor to sit under your vine and fig tree,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”
God forgives our sin so we can be reconciled to Him, our Creator. Out of that reconciliation flows a changed heart that slowly (sanctification) orients our lives from self to God and others, thus the greatest commandment encompassing all the law and the prophets, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. God changes our affections to desire the right things, as Augustine said, He gives us right ordered loves.
God want to bless us, but He will not bless sin. This is why Paul in Ephesians 5 talks about the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control—because exhibiting these traits to others, and ourselves, will bless us, make us happy, fulfilled, make life truly enjoyable and compelling. Compare it to the “acts of the flesh,” and there is no comparison. If you want to be miserable, do those things. This is all fleshed out, so to speak, in the context of an unimaginable, to us, cosmic spiritual war.
The Lord of Hosts
Notice the one who is making all this happen is The Lord Almighty, translated in other versions as the Lord of Hosts or the Lord of Armies. Yahweh, our God is the God of war! In fact, this adjective is the most common associated with Yahweh in the Old Testament, used upwards of 280 times. But God doesn’t wage war as the world does because the war, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12 is “not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” We also see Christ conquering evil in Revelation with a “sharp, double-edged sword” coming out of his mouth. And the writer to the Hebrews tells us, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
We get a glimpse of our Lord or Hosts in the first two verses of this chapter with Satan accusing and the Lord defending this man, Joshua the High Priest, who is “a burning stick snatched from the fire.” No matter how pathetic we are, He goes to war for us. But that requires, as Jesus says, seeking first his kingdom and His righteousness through daily prayer and time in His Word (for man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God), daily repentance and thanksgiving, and obedience to his law. As the Lord says to Joshua, “walk in obedience to me and keep my requirements,” and He will bless our efforts as pathetic as they may be. He wants us to live as richly as the garment of righteousness he’s placed on us.
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