Hope for the Guilty
*note: this article deals with THIS text from Zechariah 3. If you’re not familiar with this passage, it may enhance your reading of the article to start there first.
Have you ever had the misfortune to step in animal excrement? If so, you’re aware of how the smell lingers, following you around despite attempts to clean the bottom of your shoe. That odor is the primary smell associated with the beginning of Zechariah 3.
The chapter opens with the prophet Zechariah seeing Joshua, Israel’s high priest, standing before the Lord wearing “filthy” garments (v. 3). However, the ESV gives a genteel translation of this word, for the Hebrew expresses that Israel’s high priest stood before God wearing excrement-spattered clothing. Imagine the shock Zechariah would have experienced at seeing and smelling this scene!
When Israel’s high priest came before God, he represented the nation, and Zechariah 3 begins with a courtroom scene presenting God as the Judge, Satan as the prosecuting attorney, and Joshua as the defendant. Joshua’s soiled clothing indicates his defilement and guilt, and ultimately, it points to Israel’s guilt before God.
What had Israel done that they would be depicted in such a repugnant state before the Lord?
Context of Zechariah
Zechariah prophesied in the aftermath of one of Israel’s most traumatic points in history: the Babylonian captivity. For hundreds of years, God sent prophets to Judah, and he warned the Israelites that captivity and exile from the land would be the consequence if they did not repent of their idolatry. While there were some years of godly kings and repentant people, the Israelites’ idolatry continued generation after generation, and as the Babylonians expanded their empire, this wicked nation served as God’s instrument to judge his people for their sin (Isa. 39:5–7; Jer. 25; Ezek. 21).
To conquer Jerusalem, the Babylonians laid siege to the city for about two years, and the people starved to the point that they ate their dead children (2 Kings 25; Lam. 4)! Eventually, the Babylonians burned the temple, destroyed the city, and raped and killed many of the people. Those taken alive were deported, scattered across the empire because a scattered people couldn’t easily revolt against the empire.
Israelites who went into captivity dealt with memories of death and destruction, were displaced from their homes, and were separated from many of their loved ones, and what is more, they knew they deserved what had happened. They bore the weight of their guilt.
At the time of Zechariah’s vision, the Israelites had been permitted to return to their land and to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, yet they weren’t a free people. The Israelites experienced the promised consequences for generations of idolatry and the worst of those consequences were over. But feelings of guilt can linger even after one confesses and receives a consequence. Thus, the vision of Zechariah 3 served to remind the Israelites of what was true about God’s response to their guilt.
God Takes Away His People’s Guilt
As Joshua stands before God the Judge in this vision, his excrement-covered clothing serves as proof of his guilt. Satan didn’t have to make up accusations against Joshua. There is no doubt of Joshua’s guilt; he was literally wearing the evidence! Feel the hopelessness here. The high priest—the people of Israel—stands condemned before a holy and righteous God.
But God does an incredible thing in this scene. Rather than judging the guilty party, he rebukes Satan, the prosecuting attorney!
Not only that, but God the Judge directs his angels to remove the soiled garments from Joshua, which represents God taking away Joshua/Israel’s sins (v. 4). Joshua couldn’t get rid of his own guilt, but God got rid of it for him.
The vision then depicts a clean Joshua standing in God’s presence, no longer seen as guilty because he has been cleaned and pardoned. Furthermore, God restores Joshua to ministry, which is shown in how God authorizes Joshua to be clothed in priestly attire, which included the high priest’s turban with its gold plate stating, “Holy to the Lord” (Zech. 3:5; Ex. 28:36–37).
“Joshua couldn’t get rid of his own guilt, but God got rid of it for him. ”
How This Connects to Jesus
How could a just God do all of this? In verse eight, God tells Joshua that he and his “friends” (the priests of Israel) were signs that God would bring “my servant the Branch.” This refers to Isaiah’s prophecy regarding a descendant of David upon whom God’s Spirit would rest and who would rule and judge with righteousness (Isa. 11:1–5). Joshua and the other priests of Israel stood as signs pointing to the ultimate High Priest who would come—Jesus. Yet unlike Israel’s priests who went before God on the Day of Atonement with the blood of a goat, Jesus went before God with his own blood, “thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12).
After telling Joshua about the Branch who would come, God says something really strange about an engraved stone with seven eyes that he sets before Joshua (v. 9). While there are many options for what the stone can represent (a literal capstone in a construction project, an actual gem in the priest’s breastplate, a metaphor for the Messiah, etc.), the point is that God will “remove the iniquity of this land in a single day” (v. 9), and ultimately, this occurs when Jesus dies on the cross. Whether the engraved rock in verse nine is literal or metaphorical, it finds its ultimate fulfillment in Christ whose body was engraved or cut by the nails that fastened him to the cross.
How can God rebuke Satan for accusing a guilty party? How can God pardon, clean, and reinstate the guilty? Because of a day when the iniquity would be borne and the debt of sin paid by One whose body was cut for us and whose blood redeems us.
Zechariah 3 for Us
Have you ever felt the weight of your guilt before God? Maybe you feel burdened by what you’ve done and the consequences of your actions. Maybe you feel ashamed when memories of past sins are aroused. Maybe you feel dirty, as though you can’t even approach God in such a state. Maybe you feel like Joshua in Zechariah 3.
As with Joshua, God knows your sin and your guilt, and he knows you’re powerless to clean yourself up on your own. Yet, the One we’ve sinned against offers us a pardon. If we turn from our sin and trust in Christ for salvation, he cleans us. He forgives our sin, pardons us, makes us new, and adopts us into his family!
Just as God rebukes Satan in Zechariah 3 for accusing Joshua, you too can respond to Satan’s accusations of your sin and your guilt by remembering Christ’s work on your behalf. You might feel guilty for things you’ve already confessed to God, but at such times, your feelings don’t match the facts. The fact is that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). Satan’s accusations against Christians don’t hold any weight because, when God looks at His people, He sees the righteousness of Christ.
Maybe you feel as though how you’ve lived in the past disqualifies you from being used by God in the future. Just like Joshua’s cleansing and new priestly garments represented his ongoing service to God, Zechariah’s vision communicated to Israel that they too were restored to spiritual service. While in their idolatry Israel failed to point the nations to God, this vision expressed to Israel that God still had a plan and purpose for his people. No matter your past, God has a plan and a purpose for you. No matter what you’ve done, you can turn to God who will clean and restore you, and you can trust him to use your life as a testimony to the world of his grace, power, and goodness.
RESOURCES ON SPIRITUAL GROWTH
IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen articles are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select writers each week, articles shared on the Journeywomen website do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the authors or any other resources mentioned.
