Zechariah 3

To be a true priest is to be granted amazing access to the presence of God. The Lord is holy, and He demands holiness of all those who enjoy this special closeness to Him. How will we who have sinned against Almighty God ever have this closeness? We have heard of the priesthood of all believers (see Revelation 1:6), but how could we be priests in light of the obvious facts of our sin? This sin is known to our adversary Satan, who stands ready to accuse Joshua, the high priest in the day of Zechariah.

It is the Lord who speaks to him, and as we saw in the last chapter, we have here the Lord speaking about the Lord, as if referring to another person. This is part of the wonderful mystery of the Godhead contained in this episode from hundreds of years before the birth of the Son of God as a man and as the final High Priest. The new Joshua, Jesus Christ, would be Himself the visible divine representation of Yahweh. The Lord is more powerful than Satan, and He is able to put him in his place. By His electing love, Yahweh has chosen His eternal Jerusalem. We are plucked out of the fire of God's judgment, and we will somehow be made clean.

This Old Testament priest Joshua is pictured here first as very unclean. His garments are ritually filthy. If we were to seek close access to the Lord based on our own holiness, this same sentence of "unclean" would be rightly spoken against us. Even our greatest acts of righteousness are as filthy rags. Our pride and presumption, our seeking for glory, and our immoral thoughts and deeds testify against us. Like this Joshua of old, we are clearly unclean. Yet the command goes out from the angelic ambassador of the Lord, "Remove the filthy garments from him."

There are two aspects to our justification in Christ, and the first of these is seen here. We do not come to God in a state of innocence or neutrality, but in a state of deep guilt. This guilt must be taken away from us, and it must be dealt with in a manner that is consistent with the Lord's true justice. Christ, the sinless One, has taken upon Himself our filthy garments and He has been willing to wear those spiritually unclean rags. This was a tremendous act of love for the unworthy. Can you imagine being willing to wear the guilty filth of someone who has insulted you or hurt you badly? We don't want to even come near people like that, but Christ wore our guilt.

This was only the first part of His justifying love. It is one thing to have the dirty clothes taken off. We also need to have clean clothes put on. For Joshua the high priest that meant wearing the garments that were designed by God for the Old Testament priest; the special vestments and the clean turban. These represent the active righteousness of Christ's perfect obedience to the Law of God. We need to be clothed in those righteous garments if we are to have this access to God of holy priests who will serve Him forever.

By the removal of our guilt, and then by the provision of a new righteousness for us that was performed by another, we have been given bold access to the throne of God, and have been invited into the household of the Almighty. Through faith in our great High Priest Jesus Christ we have become a priesthood of all who have faith. Now it is ours to walk in the faith that we profess. This is the Lord's will for us now, our sanctification or continued progress in holy thinking and living in this present gospel age. He is not satisfied that this work would be done in a partial way. He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it, and to grant to all His true priests glorification in the day of His coming. We should not think that we can have the continued experience of access to God if we continue in sin. In that final day, all sin will be banished from all the resurrection people of God.

This all comes to us through the Lord Messiah, the One who is called "the Branch." This righteous Branch is the root of Jesse, and also a descendant of Jesse's son David. We are called to find our connection in Him and to bear fruit for His glory. He is also the solid living Stone with the fullness of insight and wisdom, spoken of here as a single stone with seven eyes. Through His death on the cross He has removed our iniquity in a single day, and thus fulfilled the prophetic Word written concerning Him.

The place of safety, the place of provision, the place of protection is under His vine and His fig tree. When everything around us may seem to fall apart, it is yet time for us to invite our neighbors to find their place of rest and fruitfulness in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God's good plan announced through Zechariah. The One who is our High Priest has become for us a Root of every good blessing. He has taken away the entirety of our sin and clothed us in His righteousness. Though many men rejected Him – even some who were the key men of their day, He has become a solid stone of wisdom for millions upon millions, and a tree to us of eternal life and abiding hope.

Be of good cheer. Satan's accusations against us will not stand. Whatever suffering we face in this age is for but a moment. Christ has overcome the world, and has brought us near to God forever.