“What is your passion?” That question was put to me by one of my close friends as we endeavored to drive astraddle deep ruts in a village road somewhere in southern Moldova. Passion was just beginning to be in vogue at the time. Everybody needed one, and those who didn’t have one were looking for one. Somehow a passion was going to make our lives complete. I am passionate about most everything. Not all passions are the equal.
All passion and no thought is empty and leads to disillusionment. All thought and no passion is uninspiring. While on that trip, we happened by a gas station that had a Coca Cola sign painted on the outside wall. That is a universal symbol! Thinking we would have a Coke, we stopped. I said to the attendant, “We’ll have three Cokes.” He replied, “We don’t have any Coke.” My countenance fell, and I protested, “But you have a sign!” He smiled and his eyes brightened, “Yes. It’s very nice.”
There is a difference between sign and substance. You can’t drink a sign. It’s not the sign that is satisfying; it is the reality to which it points. It’s ok to be passionate about a sign, but if you don’t care about the reality, there is no substance to your passion.
The temple and all that goes with it were signs of a greater, ultimate reality. The temple and Jerusalem pointed to the incarnation of the Son of God and universal reign of God. Prior to the exile, the temple became an end in itself. The Southern Kingdom came to believe that they could never be defeated because of the “temple of the Lord.” Jeremiah warned, Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’ (Jeremiah 7:4 ESV). They lost sight of the reality to which the temple pointed—the universal reign of God. I think losing sight of the mission of the temple led Israel to see it as an end in itself before the exile, and to neglect its rebuilding in the restoration.
Old Testament prophecies usually have a triple rather than single fulfillment. We could term these past, present, and future. The temple is no exception. The past fulfillment was the immediate historical fulfillment in the life of the nation of Israel. The present is the gospel fulfillment in Christ and His Church. The future will be the ultimate or eschatological fulfillment in the new heaven and the new earth (Stott, Perspectives, 5).
Christ and His church is the fulfillment of the temple. With His advent, the temple proper became obsolete. Now in the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is constructing His church from the exiled nations of the world as a dwelling place for God that will realize its completion in the consummation of all things.
Zechariah is about the Kingdom of God. Specifically, the prophet shows us the Kingdom of God in the time of the overlap of the exile and the restoration. Like us, Zechariah experienced the now/not yet reality of God’s Kingdom. For the prophet Zechariah, rebuilding the temple was about the Kingdom of God. To rebuild the temple, the people had to come to see the reality to which it pointed—the universal reign of God. God’s Kingdom is His passion and mission that He pursues. The one all consuming passion of the church must be the Kingdom of God—God dwelling with His people. This reality answers every question of humanity.
The restoration that began in Zechariah’s day continues today. We are people of the restoration. Reluctance to engage in the Great Commission is similar to the neglect of those who returned from exile to rebuild the temple. In preaching the gospel, we are calling the nations out of exile into the community of faith—the church—that God may be their God and they may be His people.
I want us to see what it means to be in the flow of the restoration of God’s rule and to stir passion for that work.
In 1:1-6, Zechariah calls his listeners to repentance. “Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you.”(1:3) It is interesting that Zechariah is calling to repentance those who have returned to the Jerusalem. They had returned to Jerusalem, but they apparently had not returned to God.
Within two years of the beginning of the return, God’s people laid the foundation of the temple (538-536 BC). Due to local opposition, the work came to a stop and did not begin again until 520 BC, two years after Darius came to the Persian throne. God sent Haggai and Zechariah to call the people to repentance and complete this work (Ez. 4:24-5:2). The temple was completed 4 years later in 516 BC.
Restoration was about more than just leaving Babylon and returning to Jerusalem. That is not restoration. That is changing addresses. Repentance was more than just about rebuilding the temple. Repentance and restoration were about returning to God. Haggai poetically called the people to “Consider your ways….(Hag. 1:6-8). Their passion had become their own comfort. They were not passionate about what God is passionate about—His pleasure and His glory and the affection of His people (Hag 1:8). Rebuilding the temple was about taking pleasure in God, His Presence, and His Kingdom.
Repentance is about relationship. It is returning to God, and God returning to us. Too often we have a legalistic approach to repentance. I agree that we do need to name known sin and turn from it. If this is the complete scope of your repentance, however, are you sure you have confessed them all? If you have confessed them all, are you then sinless until you commit another sin? Is the problem of sin solved? You can name sin all day long, never have victory, and never be in relationship with God. You can turn from sin and not turn to God. The problem of sin goes much deeper and repentance must be as deep as indwelling sin.
We cannot perfectly confess our sin. More than that, we cannot eradicate indwelling sin. Repentance is a grace that remains in us and brings us into a right relationship with God by the sin bearing death and perfect life of Christ. We understand that faith remains, and we are in a constant state of believing. Repentance and faith are inseparable graces. Repentance is an indwelling grace that puts us in an attitude of heart and mind for our sin continually to be dealt with by the grace of Christ. Repentance deals with sin through living in relationship with Christ. He wants to walk graciously into the darkest places of our souls and remove the very roots of sin. This is a process of relationship. Repentance is a constant turning to God in faithful relationship.
One other thing about repentance in this text is that it is corporate. We must be as open for God to do a work as deep in our church as we desire for Him to work in our own hearts. In reality, these are not different works. One impacts the other. My personal sin impacts the body and can lead the body to sin. I can come to love my church more than God’s Kingdom. The church can be seen as an end in itself where God’s people hole up as if God Himself has no other interest and no passion for His own Kingdom.
Repentance and restoration reach far beyond Zechariah’s day. The restoration was planned in eternity is being played out in time. Zechariah’s preaching of repentance to call sinners out of exile and into the Kingdom of God was picked up in the NT by Jesus and the Apostles. Still today the mission of the church is call sinners out of exile into relationship with God.
If you have not repented, God’s Word is pursuing you, and His Word will overtake you (1:6).
The greatest impetus to the work of missions is that God has a purpose of grace for the nations. Preaching to those who remain hostile is not in vain (as we will see), but the reality that some will believe is of great comfort.
Summary of Visions: Three months after Zechariah issued his call to return to God, he had a series of visions presumably in one night. The 8 visions immediately address the temple issue, but broaden the scope of the restoration to include the renewal of God’s people and the inclusion of the nations. The first (1:7-17) and the last (6:1-8) visions form the bookends of this vision section of the book. Both have horses with angelic riders who patrol the earth (1:10; 6:5, 7). In the first vision, God is angry because the nations that have abused His people are at ease (1:15). In the last vision, the Spirit is at rest because every foe is vanquished and every wrong against His people righted (6:8).
The agenda for the 8 night visions is set in the first vision (1:16). The temple will be rebuilt by a people called out of exile and God will dwell with His people. Visions 2 and 3 fill in details of the building project. In light of God’s dealing with the nations, Zechariah calls on those in exile to flee Babylon (2:6-13). In visions 4 and 5, (chapters 3 and 4) the Zadokite priesthood and the Davidic ruler appear, which merge into a priest/king in 6:9-15. Visions 6 and 7 stress covenant faithfulness in the restoration.
When you read the visions, you realize that they have a fulfillment beyond Zechariah’s day. They have a present fulfillment in Christ and the church and a future eschatological fulfillment in the consummation of God’s Kingdom.
Commentary on Visions 1-3 and 8: In visions 1-3 and 8, God has a purpose restoration and His people are called to give themselves to that task. The message of restoration is both good news and bad news. It is good news for those who repent, but bad news for the nations in rebellion against God. Once again we see in this text that salvation for God’s people means judgment for the nations.
In these judgment passages, references to the nations (1:15), Babylon (2:7), and the north country (6:8) refer to the nations in rebellion against God. Since tower of Babel, Babylon had come to symbolize all that is hostile to God and His people. We must think of these references in this way because God had judged geopolitical Babylon 16 years earlier. What remained of Babylon rebelled against Darius when he came to the throne. The first two years of his reign put down such rebellion so the nations were now at rest (1:10-11).
Haggai had prophesied an eschatological shaking of the nations (2:5-9; 2:21-23). The Angel of the Lord laments that the nations are at rest, expresses God’s anger over the nations at ease who oppose both Him and His people (1:12-15).
God loves His people. To live in opposition to God and His people is utterly shocking when you realize how God loves Himself and his people. You can see the inseparable link between God’s love for His glory and His people in 2:8. Hostility toward His people is personally to attack God. It is like poking Him in the eye with your finger (apple=gate=pupil).
In 1:18-21, the nations in opposition to God are horns, symbolizing strength. The craftsmen terrify and overthrow the nations. If you want to overthrow the strength of the nations, craftsmen are unlikely choices. Craftsmen are builders. This is a reference to the temple. What do builders in the temple have to do with overthrowing the nations? The temple represents the Kingdom of God.
That Kingdom is a city without walls that takes in all nations. Jerusalem is to spread throughout the earth. There will be no need for walls not only because it is global but also because of the glory and Presence of God (2:4-5).
Gospel ministry is the ministry of a craftsman. We take the gospel to the nations. In this gospel work, the message we preach is life or death. Paul said it like this: For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? (2 Corinthians 2:15-16 ESV)
The preaching of the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit is God’s ordained means by which the powers of darkness are overthrown, the church is built, and His Kingdom advanced in the world (Webb, 79).
The danger is that the church becomes sidetracked from this work. We have no other work, and all the work that we do must push to this endeavor. The sin of our age is busyness, doing good things, and doing the right things for the wrong reasons. We don’t meet in small groups just so we can feel connected; we don’t teach our kids gospel songs so that we can hear them sing; we don’t teach the Bible and theology so we can be smarter; we don’t study missions because the different peoples are interesting. We are in the business of training craftsmen because we are building churches for Kingdom work. We want to plant churches in the least reached cities of North America because they are at ease and it is utter insanity. We want to see God’s Kingdom come.
Repentance is necessary for restoration. God has a purpose of grace among the nations—a ministry that tears down and builds, a ministry that unseats all that is opposed to God and His people and advances His Kingdom.
How can God be gracious to the nations? Visions 4 and 5 (ch 3 and 4) help us see that God’s gracious pursuit of exiled sinners is not a shallow, sentimental pursuit but is based solely on the self-sacrifice of the Son of God in taking our sin and giving us His perfection.
In visions 4 and 5, two leaders of the restoration emerge—Joshua the High Priest and Zerubbabel the governor and builder of the temple. If the temple is to be rebuilt, the Priesthood must be consecrated for the work of the temple. Joshua is of the house of Zadok of the tribe of Levi, and Zerubbabel is a descendant of David.
We have a huge problem. Joshua the high priest is unclean (3:3). This is a huge problem for the people as well. They needed a mediator to make atonement for their sin. In this courtroom scene, the accuser has a point. The Lord rebukes the accuser and orders his filthy vestments to be removed and pure vestments to be put on him, which symbolized the removal of his sin. (3:4).
Joshua’s iniquity was taken away because God declared it to be so. How can God acquit one so obviously guilty? The basis of the cleansing and justification of the high priest was the future coming of the Branch (3:8), the Davidic messianic figure (e.g. Jer 33:15). Through the Branch, God would take away not only the iniquity of the high priest but also that of the whole land in a single day. This promise would be engraved on a stone presumably on Joshua’s breast plate (3:9). Every year on the Day of Atonement as Joshua entered the holiest place, he had a reminder that the Branch would come and in a single day take away the iniquity of the people.
The fifth vision (ch 4) is a vision of the lampstand in the temple. This lampstand is unique in its appearance. Zechariah asked for and explanation (4:4). Before the angel answers, he gives the message of vision, a message for Zerubbabel to assure him of the success in the building project (4:9). No amount of opposition would prevent the completion of the temple (4:7). Zerubbabel, however, must know that the work was not ultimately his and its success was not ultimately dependent on him. The building of the temple was the work of the Spirit of God (4:6).
The angel’s explanation of the lampstand is, obviously, tied closely to its message. The lamps signify the sovereign Presence of God working out His purpose in the world (4:10). Two times Zechariah asks the meaning the olive trees (4:11, 12). These anointed ones must be the two obviously anointed ones in the visions: Joshua and Zerubbabel. God would carries out His work through means, but it is nonetheless the work of God.
In visions 4 and 5, we have Joshua the high priest, Zerubbabel the builder of the house of God, and the Branch. 6:9-15 connects to visions 4 and 5 and further develops their themes. Oddly enough in 6:11-15 Joshua is crowned, the Branch is said to build the temple, and Zerubbabel is absent. Additionally, the Branch will rule and a priest will be on His throne (6:13). This seems to be the a merging of the priestly and kingly offices into one figure, the Branch. A crown was to be in the temple to remind the priests of this coming Priest/King (6:14). The Branch will bring the nations to help build the temple of the Lord (6:15).
What can we make of these things? I think three important things.
R.C. Sproul wrote a children’s book based on Zech 3:1-5 called The Priest with Dirty Clothes. In this story, a priest is to go and preach to a king. On the way, he falls on a muddy road and get his priestly robes filthy. He appears before the king but is not allowed to preach because of his dirty clothes. He is told to go and put on clean clothes and come back to preach before the king. The priest cannot buy new clothes. He scrubs and scrubs his dirty robes but they are stained through and through. He hears of a prince and goes to the prince to ask what can be done. The prince tells the priest to meet him at the palace and he would take care of everything. When the priest arrived at the castle, he went in to see the king, but his vestments we still dirty. The king said, I told you to come in clean clothes to appear before me. You cannot preach in dirty clothes. Then the prince came and commanded that the priest’s dirty robes be removed and put on Him and His own royal robes be put on the priest so that the priest could stand before the king.
In a single day, the Branch, the Son of God, put on our sin and willingly bore the wrath of God for our sins so that His righteousness might be placed on those who repent of their sins and place their faith in Him.
No matter how gifted and able Zerubbabel was, he could not have built the temple in his own strength. Too many variables were present. He could not control the decision of Darius to allow the rebuilding, the local opposition, or the will of the people. When the work was finished, he could not look at it and think, “Look what I did.” When he brought out the capstone amid shouts of “Grace, grace to it,” he could take no bows. (4:7)
To carry on the work of restoration in the world, the church must rely on the Holy Spirit. After Jesus had taught and trained the Apostles, He told them to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit would come upon them. Then they would receive power that would propel them to the ends of the earth as His witness. This work of restoration is the Spirit’s work. He wants the nations for Christ.
The earth has no enclave to which we cannot take the gospel. I don’t want to sound overly simplistic, and I think I am right in this. You can go and plant churches without all kinds of resources, but One. You must rely on the Holy Spirit. You may be good looking, articulate, charismatic, and resourced but you will accomplish nothing unless the Spirit of God uses you as a tool in His hand.
Christ is building His church of the nations. This truth should turn my heart to my neighbor, to my city, to my countrymen, and to all the peoples of the world. In Acts, the gospel overcame all barriers. The gospel crossed racial, social, and ethnic distinctions. The churches by and large were made up of Jews, gentiles, slaves, the free, rich, poor, powerful, and weak. These walls the gospel rightly proclaimed tore down. The church did not, however, leave these down long but rebuilt them and came up with fancy terms to justify them.
The Kingdom of God could possibly be an uncomfortable place for many of us. It gets messy quickly because God saves sinners. Christ wants us to invest in people who are different from us. If everybody in your posse looks the same, acts the same, is at similar life situations, thinks like you, lives like you, and agrees with all your opinions, it looks more like you’re trying to be friends with yourself. Where is the wisdom of surrounding yourself with yesmen. This really may not be the best thing for you or God’s Kingdom. We need to branch out. This is why we do intergenerational small groups.
The two visions in chapter 5, a giant flying scroll and a woman in a basket, address the tables of the law, which can be summarized in the commands to love God and love your neighbor. If we have a temple, we must have a law and priesthood.
On the one side of the flying scroll, thieves are addressed. On the other side, perjurers are warned. Stealing deprives a man of his property. Perjury can deprive him of much more. God would eradicate such from His restored community. No one and no area of life was beyond the reach of the law (5:1-5).
The vision of the basket represented the iniquity of the land (5:6). The woman in the basket was wickedness (5:7-8). This basket was a ephah, a measuring basket used to measure grain. This vision shows the grotesque nature of evil. It is like a scene in a horror movie. The woman in the basket would be like seeing a woman in a 5 gallon bucket. Evil is an absurd distortion of reality. The woman in the basket is taken to Shinar—Babylon—and put on a pedestal in a temple.
The message is clear. The exile came about because of covenant unfaithfulness. The prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel) had warned the former generation to “return from their ways and their evil deeds” (1:4). They preached against two main sins: idolatry and hypocrisy. Idolatry is giving the honor that belongs only to God to another. Hypocrisy is worship divorced from life.
There is a danger that is always lurking near the community of faith. The temple became an end in itself. They reasoned that as long as they had the temple and did temple right, God was on their side and all would be well. The people lost sight of the reality of what the temple symbolized—the Kingdom of God, God present and ruling in the lives of His people. The purpose of the church is ultimately the restoration of God’s rule in the world.
When we lose sight of why we are here, why God saved us, and why God put us in His church, we cease to love God and love our neighbor—we are no longer faithful to the covenant. Stealing, false witness, and idolatry feed each other. The application of these sins is broad and compels us to examine our lives.
This is no invitation to legalism. Legalism is when the things of faith become ends in themselves. The means become the end. This is an invitation to love. Love is the only thing that will produce covenant faithfulness. If I love God and my neighbor, I won’t steal from him or lie about him, and I won’t bow to idols.
A lack of love leads me steal, lie, and bow to idols. When we don’t give, we steal. When we don’t witness, we lie. When 95% of all trained Christian workers are in the US, we are stealing, perjuring, and worshiping idols. Love compels us.
In the new covenant, we live in relationship to God through the grace of Christ. This standing in the justifying grace of Christ gives us place from which to fight sin and pursue holiness. God by the justifying grace of Christ has given us an unchangeable standing. Yet, from that justifying grace, Christ works in us by the Holy Spirit to sanctify us. Although I fail constantly by my sin rather than condemn me, Christ calls me back to Himself and the sufficiency of His sinless life.
The danger is that we come to think of this work as a list to check rather than a relationship. Faith is displaced by religious practice devoid of relationship. Guilt becomes my religious guide. Duplicity slips into my life and a grotesque distortion of the reality of a relationship with Christ invades my soul. All kinds of evil lives in me that I cannot even admit to Christ. I hide my sin and fight it secretly and pretend like I am fine. Rather than a believer, I have become a make-believer.
Christ is the law of the new covenant. To live rejoicing in His justifying grace strengthens us to fight sin by running to Him. To flee the sin that pulls at my soul where do I run? In what direction will I go? Run to Christ. Rejoice in His sinless life and sin bearing death. We are going to come to the table now. Christ is calling us, Return to me, He says, and I will return to you.