Zechariah (3)

This is our group's third week in Zechariah:

Our text is Zechariah Chapter 3.

You may have noticed the term “the angel of the LORD (Yahweh)” in our reading, I will mention that there are folks who think that this term is used to designate the Second Person of the Trinity, the Preincarnate Christ, in the Old Testament. I’m not going to delve into this but I mention it in case you want to ponder it. However we want to approach this, I do think that we see the Trinitarian mystery of God throughout the Bible – often veiled in the Old Testament and unveiled in the New Testament.

Zechariah 3:1: Compare with Job 1:6 – 12; Revelation 12:10.

3:2: Compare Jude 9

3:4: Compare Isaiah 6:5 – 7; Revelation 3:4 - 5; 6:11; 7:9; 19:7 – 10.

3:8: Compare Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15; Revelation 5:5; 22:16

3:9: Consider Isaiah 8:14; 28:16; Psalm 118:22 – 24; Matthew 21:42; Acts 4:11 – 12; Ephesians 2:19 – 22; 1 Peter 2:4 – 8

3:10: Compare Micah 4:4 – a sign of peace and rest.

A look at the above passages should remind us of how expansive the Scriptures are and how consistent their narrative, spanning centuries – and moving from the visible to the invisible. Throughout the prophet Zechariah we see the veil that separates the seen from the unseen (2 Cor. 4:18) pulled back. Can you see a link between Zechariah 3:6 – 7 and Hebrews 12:1 and Hebrews 12:18 – 24?

We are part of a transcendent and universal fellowship in Christ, whether we realize it or not. What we see concerning Joshua the high priest in Zechariah Chapter 3 takes us beyond the visible into the invisible, it takes us beyond the material into the spiritual.

What do our lives look like in terms of the visible and invisible? Are we worshipping God in spirit and in truth? (John 4:23 – 24). Are we “seeing” the invisible (Hebrews 11:27)? Is the Master able to use us in His House as He used Joshua in Zechariah (2 Timothy 2:20 – 21)?

Our Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit desire to draw us deep into the Trinity, together in the Trinity – our Lord Jesus prays that we will see His glory (John 17:20 – 26). If we ask our Lord Jesus to open our eyes He will, if we ask Him to teach us to see Him and His glory He will. And note that in John 17, as throughout the Bible – we are in this together – we need not only our Lord, but in Him we need one another. The Bible is a book about one another in Christ. What does this look like in our lives?

In our congregations? Are we truly living as one another people? Churches? (John 13:34 – 35; 15:12 – 17).

In Ephesians 3:10 Paul writes that through the Church God’s wisdom is being manifested to entities in “the heavenly places”. In 1 Cor. 4:9 Paul writes about the apostles being made a spectacle to angels and to men. My point is that the visible and invisible are closer than we think but that we have had our sense of the invisible and spiritual educated out of us. God hasn’t changed. Spiritual realities haven’t changed. But we have changed and have lost our spiritual sight, our spiritual vision. What we’re reading in Zechariah may be foreign to us, but it would not necessarily have been foreign to the people who first read Zechariah’s words, nor to those who continued to read them for centuries afterward.

Let us ask our kind heavenly Father to open our eyes to see Jesus and His glory; to share that glory with one another, to bring others by His grace to know Him.