Zechariah 3

Zechariah 3  •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 14
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Zechariah 3:1-101And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. 2And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? 3Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel. 4And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. 5And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord stood by. 6And the angel of the Lord protested unto Joshua, saying, 7Thus saith the Lord of hosts; If thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house, and shalt also keep my courts, and I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by. 8Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH. 9For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. 10In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree. (Zechariah 3:1‑10)
The fourth vision is that of “Joshua, the high priest.” Having just received a pledge of the restoration of that city, we have now, in another vision, a picture of the justification of the people; and this, justification of Israel leads, in the end, to the beauty and acceptance of Israel in the days of the kingdom, when Messiah, “the Shepherd and Stone of Israel,” shall be exalted in providential authority over the whole earth. But this picture is so vivid, so graphic, that it can be used as the delineation of the story of the justification of any sinner, in the great principles of it—as we know that justification itself is one and the same for each and all of us. It is the sinner, the polluted one, the Joshua in filthy garments, chosen, cleansed, stripped and clothed again, all in grace, in a grace that acts as from itself on the warrant of the blood of Christ, while we, like Joshua, are silent before it.