Zechariah 13

God has had much to say about the categories of "clean" and "unclean" over the history of His dealings with His people. One of the great challenges of living this mortal life in a world that is under the wrath and curse of God is this: Sin and uncleanness are everywhere. Not only are they all around us. Unfortunately they also come from within us. When Christ, the Son of David, comes to work out our salvation through His atoning death, He speaks authoritatively about this matter, setting aside all of the Old Testament regulations concerning clean and unclean foods for the New Covenant people. He says in Mark 7:15 "There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him."

In making this statement, our Lord teaches us that all of the symbolism of clean and unclean that was so much a part of Old Testament ceremonial life was at root about the filth that comes to us because of our own sin. Certainly we feel the impact of the sin of others upon our own lives. We all have been so greatly affected by the sin of Adam. Nonetheless, as we live in this world under the curse, we need to realize the serious problem of our own sin, so that we need not go through life merely considering ourselves victims of the evil done to us by others. The real question before us is the way out of all of this. Is there some fountain where we can wash so that we would be made clean? Zechariah announces the coming of such cleansing waters for all who are counted in the house of David through their relationship to Jesus Christ, the final King of the Lord's people from the House of David.

The prophet speaks of a coming day when a fountain will be opened. There will be some future day when the story of clean and unclean will be very different, not only because of a change in rules, but because of a new provision for us. We need to be cleansed from the guilt of our sin. We need to be cleansed from the slavery to sin that we experience. We finally need to be cleansed from every trace of the uncleanness of our sin so that we can live in a place that is not unclean. From the fullness of God's revelation to us in both the Old and New Testaments it is clear that this fountain can be nothing other than the atoning blood of the Lamb of God. From this great Source comes the pouring out of the Holy Spirit form on High, taking the benefits of the blood of Christ and applying these to all the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem. As a witness to the reality of these gifts, the church administers the waters of baptism, seeking that those who are rightly marked by these waters as a part of the covenant community will recognize and appropriate for themselves all of the cleansing power of the blood of Christ in their own lives. But beyond all of these great things, the church calls on people to believe that there is a day coming, won for us by the same blood of the Lamb, when all of the ugliness of all sin will be utterly washed away from us. That day comes when the Lord returns with the Jerusalem that is above, transforming the earth, and bringing about the wonder of the resurrection age.

That day that we long for begins, in a sense, with the first coming of Jesus, but it is finally and fully experienced only with the second coming of our Lord in glory. Zechariah writes long before the first of these two days. He looks to a day when all of the prophetic activity of the Old Testament would be completed. This first happens in the period of silence between Malachi and the coming of John the Baptist, but it is especially fulfilled with the completion of the New Testament as a result of the gift of the final Word, Jesus Christ (See Hebrews 1:1-2 and consider with Hebrews 2:1-4), and the completion of all of the attesting accounts concerning Him by those who were witnesses of our Messiah. They were inspired by the Lord to give us the completion of Scripture in the final books of special revelation written in the first century.

Now we look, not for new revelation, but for the completion of the revelation that we already have in the Scriptures. We look for the future day when we will be as clean as clean can be, not only legally before the judgment seat of God, but also experientially, without any spot or blemish or any such thing.

That final blessing does not come to us without much prior suffering. First the sword of the Lord God would have to come upon our Savior on the cross. Our great Shepherd needed to shed His own blood in order to be the effective Source of cleansing for us. Understand that there is no magic in His physical blood. When we refer to His blood we mean the life and death that it represents. His obedient life is the actual source of righteousness that is pleasing to the Father. His cross is the paying of the penalty that we deserve. There His "blood" is shown to have been shed for the sin of someone else, since He was perfectly righteous and did not deserve to die.

Yet He did die. The Shepherd was struck down, and the sheep were scattered, as He predicted to them using this verse from Zechariah. His suffering is now made complete in the plan of God through the sanctifying and testing of His church in the gospel age. This is something we experience. We should not be surprised by these fiery trials, but should remember that a day is coming beyond the devastation, a day of perfect renewal, a day of the fullness of holy and beautiful life, a day when we will see God. On that day we will call upon the Lord's Name, and He will answer. He will say, "You are my people," and we will say, "The LORD is our God."