THE ROBE OF GRACE
Text: Zechariah 3:1-10
Zechariah 3:1-10 Then he showed me the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. (2) And the LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a brand plucked from the fire?" (3) Now Joshua was dressed with filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. (4) The angel said to those who were standing before him, "Take off his filthy clothes." And to him he said, "See, I have taken your guilt away from you, and I will clothe you with festal apparel." (5) And I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with the apparel; and the angel of the LORD was standing by. (6) Then the angel of the LORD assured Joshua, saying (7) "Thus says the LORD of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. (8) Now listen, Joshua, high priest, you and your colleagues who sit before you! For they are an omen of things to come: I am going to bring my servant the Branch. (9) For on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven facets, I will engrave its inscription, says the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the guilt of this land in a single day. (10) On that day, says the LORD of hosts, you shall invite each other to come under your vine and fig tree."(NRSV).
In Zechariah's fourth vision that we are observing in today’s text, he sees a vision that resembles a courtroom setting. “The angel of the Lord is thought to be a Theophany meaning God in physical form”. (Who is the angel of the Lord? | GotQuestions.org). Therefore, God is the judge, Zechariah sees in this vision, Joshua as the accused/defendant, Satan is the is the prosecuting attorney and we know from the New Testament that Jesus is our defense attorney. This vision seems to be not only prophetic but also symbolic. This vision is about Zechariah’s nation as God’s chosen people. It also appears to operate like an allegory in the sense that like the nation of Israel, Joshua represents Israel a high priest with filthy rag righteousness, we too, as individuals in every age stand guilty as charged. Jesus is our High Priest who paid the price for our sin with His own blood!
Today we want to talk about being guilty--- guilty as charged, having unmerited grace and restoration.
GUILTY
What were the children of Israel guilty of in this vision?
1) Breach of covenant: The children of Israel were called to be a holy nation----to lead others to the Lord and they failed (Isaiah 42:6 and 1 Peter 2:9).
2) Generations failed: Moses had been God’s chosen instrument to get the children of Israel out of Egyptian captivity. Joshua was Moses’s successor. Yet, their mission to be a covenant people was the same. Even after Joshua became their high priest, he failed to get his people clean according to this vision.
3) Unrequited love: Once they were delivered they had a new beginning and they failed to be the people that God called them to be because of their sin. As someone (Harold Cooke Phillips) once said, “We are at liberty to reject the love of God, but never at liberty to escape the judgment that falls on that rejection. We are free to sin, but never to escape the wages of sin, which is death”. (George A. Buttrick. ed. The Interpreter's Bible. Volume 6. Harold Cooke Phillips. “The Book of Hosea: Exposition”. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987 [thirty-seventh printing], p. 572). God deliverance of us always gives us a new beginning. God does not want us to be careless and foolish once God has delivered us.
What are the biggest dangers of failing to repent?
1) Foolish: Proverbs 26:11-12 Fools are famous for repeating their errors, like dogs are known to return to their vomit. (12) There’s only one thing worse than a fool, and that’s the smug, conceited man always in love with his own opinions (TPT).
2) Denial: A prison chaplain writes of a study in which he talked with twelve inmates in the penitentiary. He asked each "Why are you here?" The answers were instructive: "I was framed." "They ganged up on me". "It was a case of mistaken identity". "The police had it in for me". Not one said he was guilty of something. They were all innocent. An insurance adjuster said that he would estimate 90 percent of the people involved in automobile accidents see themselves as blameless" (Emerson Colaw. Beliefs Of A United Methodist Christian. Nashville: Tidings, 1972, pp. 44-45). When it comes to sin, no one is blameless for all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
3) Our denial increases our filth: Incidentally, it is worth noting how Satan reports things that would increase our denials. As the late Warren Wiersbe said, “When Satan talks to us about God, he lies, but when he talks to God about us , he tells the truth!” (Warren W. Wiersbe. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: OT. Colorado Springs , Colorado: David C. Cook 2007, p. 1504). How far are we in denial of the things in our culture that have gone against the grain of what is godly only to line up with the things that are of this world?
4) It goes without saying: I don’t have to say it. We can all fill in the blanks of what is not godly right now in real time. >>>>> Aren’t those same things that made Joshua’s robe dirty (Zechariah 3:3) as he represented the nation are the same kinds of things that make America dirty (immoral sins, all of the ways our world calls evil good and good evil)? >>>>> There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9)! Remember how evil Sodom and Gomorrah were in Genesis 19? >>>>> How many Americans are “walking in God’s ways and keeping God’s requirements today” versus those who reject God and choose their own way (Zechariah 3:6)?
5) Rejection: Will it be any wonder that fools will not figure out their folly until they wind up in hell?
> Why are so many answering fools according to their folly (Proverbs 24:6)?
> How often and how many are reverting like a dog to its vomit with the folly of all of the things tht are ungodly (proverbs 26:11 paraphrase)?
> God knows our folly and our wrongs----our looking the other way and ignoring it are not hidden from God (Psalm 69:5 paraphrased). Who wants that kind of 20/20 hindsight of regret?
UNMERITED GRACE
Did you notice that God provided a robe---a new and clean robe for Joshua in this vision?
1) Joshua---the High Priest: Joshua was the high priest for the children of Israel as Moses’s successor. His robe was excessively filthy because of the sins of the people he represented (Zechariah 3:3). Consider what the role of the high priest is according to Hebrews 5:1 -2: “For every High Priest was chosen from among the people [‘mortals’ NRSV] and appointed to represent them before God by presenting their gifts to God and offering sacrifices on their behalf. 2 Since the High Priest is also one who is clothed in weakness, he humbles himself by showing compassion to those who are ignorant of God’s ways and stray from them” (TPT).
2) Like a brand snatched from the fire: “God punished Judah through the fire of great trials, but he rescued the nation before it was completely destroyed, like "a burning stick that has been snatched from the fire” (Life Application Study Notes). Even then, God did not punish them as they deserve or our generation now as we deserve (Psalm 103:3 & 10) ,
3) On a side note: When John Wesley was only six years old, he was trapped in a burning house and was only rescued when one neighbor climbed on another’s shoulders and pulled him out of window. A picture of the scene was drawn for Wesley and he kept the drawing until he died, and wrote under it Zec_3:2 : Is this not a brand plucked from the burning?” (David Guzik’s Enduring Word Commentary).
4) Intercessor: Did you know that Joshua’s intercession as a high priest is a forerunner to the Son of God--- Jesus Christ being our high priest?
5) Name: “… Joshua … led the children of Israel into the Promised Land. This is the Joshua who served as high priest among the remnant of Israel who returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. The name Joshua means “Jehovah saves,” and in the Greek language of the New Testament, the name is translated as “Jesus.” (McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Prophets (Zechariah) (electronic ed., Vol. 32, p. 37). Nashville: Thomas Nelson)..
6) Jesus is our High Priest: Hebrews 5:5 So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you"; … Hebrews 9:24-26 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. (25) Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; (26) for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself (NRSV).
Did you know that Jesus took your punishment for your transgressions?
1) Spanking boy: In his book the Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain (which Samuel Clemens’s pen name) wrote about a character who looked just like the prince of a royal family. That same look alike was also known as what they call a “spanking boy” because if the prince misbehaved, the look alike took his punishment. What that fictional spanking boy did for that prince, Jesus Christ, the Prince of peace (Isaiah 9:6)--- the lamb of God got dirty on the way to the cross to take away our sin (John 1:29) has done for us .
2) Level of suffering: Joshua was being accused by Satan because of how dirty his robe that was as it was covered with stains from the sins of the nation that he represented as their high priest (Zechariah 3:1)! How dirty did Jesus have to get to represent those who came before us as their High Priest? How dirty and filthy is the robe of our High Priest Jesus Christ who represents us? How can we be clean without repentance? Jesus’s robe as our High Priest must be caked with dirt on dirt because of our adding sin to sin (Isaiah 30:1) in all the places in our culture that call good evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20) . >>>>> That’s a lot of suffering and a lot of dirt! God cannot stand the sight of our sin which must be why Jesus said “ … in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" (which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?") (Matthew 27:46 NIV).
Consider 1 Peter 3:18-20 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, (19) in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, (20) who in former times did not obey …” (NRSV). >>>>> Isaiah _53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes [39 lashes with a cat of nine tails before He went to the cross] we are healed” (NRSV). That is why we call what Jesus did for us as our High Priest unmerited grace!
RESTORATION
How can restoration happen without Jesus being our High Priest and our defense attorney?
1) John 8: Remember what happened in John 8 when the teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery? They wanted to stone her according to the law. They sought to use their accusation as a trick question to put Jesus on the spot. It backfired as they themselves were put on the spot because they too were not without sin. Jesus was her defense attorney. He forgave her, acquitted her and told her not go back to that former sinful lifestyle. We call that “God’s grace being greater than our sin” (John 8:1 -11).
2) The cross: Jesus took our filth, our sins to the cross and gave us His righteousness in exchange for our sinfulness (2 Corinthians 5:21). It is because of what Christ did for us that we can become new creatures in Christ! (2 Corinthians 5:17). The garments that are given to Joshua are much like the robe that was given to the prodigal son. Both were given a new robe because of God’s grace not because of our merit which was filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). We are also given our new robe through Jesus Christ! Without this robe we are not worthy!
3) Lepers: Although leprosy is not mentioned anywhere in this passage of scripture, it serves as a great example of sin and how destructive it is. Leprosy is a metaphor for sin because of how leprosy does to the body what sin does to our spiritual lives. Jesus healed many lepers in the New Testament. Consider these five reason why sin is likened to leprosy.
1. Leprosy was an inward disease
2. Leprosy was a loathsome disease
3. Leprosy was a separating disease
4. The leprous person could not cure themselves
5. Jesus can heal the leper
5 Ways Leprosy is a Picture of Sin – The Fight of Faith (fightoffaithblog.com)
Again, Jesus is the only One who can take care of our sin problem which He did on the cross as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)!
The third chapter of Zechariah closes with four images of Jesus.
1) Forerunner priest: This forerunner priest, Joshua in Zechariah’s fourth vision, is signaling the coming of the Messiah High Priest (Zechariah 3:8).
2) The Branch: the branch represents the Messiah. The book of Isaiah mentions a branch in Isaiah in Isaiah 4:2, and again in Isaiah 11:1 that will be fruitful: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse [see Ruth 4:17 where it says that Jesse is David’s father], and a branch shall grow out of his roots” (NRSV). Consider the preceding verses in Isaiah 10:33-34 that metaphorically describe how the Lord will cut down trees of high stature like cutting down a forest of tall trees and leaving nothing but stumps as a metaphor for humbling the haughty (see Isaiah 10:33 KJV).
3) Stone: “1 Peter_2:4-5 speaks of Jesus much as Zechariah’s vision describes Him. He is the living stone chosen of God upon which God’s people are built as a spiritual house” (College Press Bible Textbook Series). Consider Psalm_118:22 The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone (see also Matthew 21:42). Unless the Lord builds the house [on His Cornerstone] the builders build in vain (Psalm 127:1)!
4) The fig tree: How many are in our culture are falsely saying "peace, peace" based on ungodly behaviors? “Looking on into the glorious Kingdom Age when Jesus comes again, the Branch, and establishes His kingdom and the iniquity will be purged in a day, and the Lord will reign.” (Chuck Smith’s Commentary C-2000 Through the Bible Commentary). How many have said “peace, peace when there is no peace?” (see Jeremiah 6:13 - 14). This fig tree obviously represents a peace that only Jesus can give to us --- peace we long for that only the Lord can give and not the kind of flawed peace that the world offers apart from Jesus (See John 14:7).
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
