The Lord cometh to dwell in Zion. Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day and shall be My people. This promise is likewise followed that this will be evidence from which the people will know that the Lord of Hosts has sent Him. How often the orthodox Jew has come to us and told us that when Messiah comes all their enemies will be cast down – there will be peace for Jerusalem and the nation Israel; and then saying, Ah, where is that peace? – behold our enemies! When Messiah comes we shall know Him by what He does for us in overcoming our enemies. Likewise the orthodox Jew will say, Where are the many nations who join themselves to the Lord, the nations who worship the Lord of Hosts? When Messiah has come, he will say, We will know Him by the fact that nations shall join themselves unto the Lord. It will hardly do to tell the well informed Hebrew that there are now Christian nations in existence. Thus the Jew waits for the fulfillment of these prophecies at some future time, and seeing them accomplished he hopes to know then his Messiah and King. Only the small remnant, according to the election of grace, sees Him now by the eyes of faith – Him who is altogether lovely, and in whom alone these prophecies can find their fulfillment. To-day individuals from Jews and Gentiles are joining themselves to the Lord, but in that day of His appearing and manifestation nations will be converted, and many nations shall go and say, “Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways and we will walk in His paths.” “Lift up thine eyes and see: they all gather themselves together – they come to Thee. Thy sons shall come from far and thy daughters shall be carried in the arms. Then thou shalt see and be lightened, and thine heart shalt tremble and be enlarged, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned unto thee. The wealth of the nations shall come unto thee, the multitudes of camels shall cover thee – the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah, they all shall come from Sheba; they shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praises of the Lord.” (Isaiah lx:4-7.) Only then will India and China, South America and Africa be won to Christ and the world converted to God. But the land of Judah is to be the portion of the Lord (verse 12).
This vision of restoration and the coming of glory ends with one of the sublimest exhortations in the Word of God. Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for He is waked up out of His holy habitation. The exhortation does not belong really to the restoration. It is an appeal to all flesh to be silent before the One who is raised up – the coming One. Now is the time when God is silent. He is silent to the wicked deeds of men. He is silent in regard to the nations who are treading down Jerusalem and who are scattering Israel. The flesh speaks now and is not silent, and the language it speaks is rebellion against God and against His Anointed. And louder and louder speaks all flesh, and in the midst of a boasted civilization, at the dawn of a new century, the days of Noah and the days of Lot are at hand. Gain, pride, possession, expansion, is the universal cry – a mad hunt after Mammon is seen in individuals and in nations; and while the flesh speaks thus, and its language becomes more and more defiant, God keeps silence. But our God shall come and keep silence no longer. Rapidly His day – the terrible day of the Lord – is approaching; the day in which He will roar out of Zion. Oh, what a hush there will come upon those that dwell in the earth when the darkened sun and the falling stars will herald the approach of a God who will keep silence no longer. Oh, dear reader, Jew or Gentile, listen! The signs of the times truly tell us that the Lord who is to come must have already risen from His holy habitation. He is coming. Soon He will gather His saints unto Himself before the day of wrath breaks, when neither gold nor silver will deliver. Wilt thou not become silent before Him, the coming One? Will not every reader yield himself to that wooing spirit of Him, whose power does silence the flesh? Be silent all flesh! He is waked up out of His holy habitation!
CHAPTER III
The fourth vision. – Joshua the high priest accused by Satan, but cleansed by the angel of the Lord – The branch. – The stone and the sewn eyes upon it. – The coming peace.
The fourth vision is like the first and second, closely connected with the foregoing one. It gives the crowning event of Israel’s restoration. The prophet recognizes in the figure which is seen by him Joshua the high priest, who is standing before the angel of the Lord, while at his right hand stands Satan to oppose him. Joshua was not clothed with his clean, priestly robes, but he wears filthy garments. Jehovah rebukes Satan and terms Jerusalem a brand plucked from the fire. After the accuser is rebuked, the filthy garments of the high priest are removed, his iniquity is forgiven, and he is clothed with festal raiment. The prophet is so carried away with the vision that he asks that a clean mitre is to be put upon his head. And now, after the high priest is thus clothed, the angel of the Lord charges him with an important message: If thou wilt walk in My ways and keep My charge, thou shalt judge my house and also keep my courts. I will give thee access among those standing here, etc. The servant – the branch – is promised, and the stone which is laid before Joshua is to have seven eyes. The iniquity of this land is to be removed in one day, and the vision closes with the peaceful scene, every man inviting his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree.
The authorized version has a superscription for this chapter. “Under the type of Joshua the restoration of the church is promised.” This is not alone very misleading but also erroneous. No restoration of the church is necessary, and as far as fallen, apostate Christendom is concerned, there is no promise of restoration, but the Lord will spew her out of His mouth. Others speak of this vision as a type of the justification of the sinner, but we need not spiritualize Old Testament visions to get assurance of our justification. The Epistle to the Romans is sufficient for that. The High Priest Joshua stands here for Jerusalem and for the sinful nation Israel. The calling of Israel to be a nation of priests is too well known, so we need not to enlarge on it. But it is a nation stiff-necked, disobedient, unclean and defiled. Disobedience and sin have been the cause of Israel’s misfortune and Jerusalem’s ruin. What would be a restoration of Israel to the land without a healing of their sins and a regeneration of the nation? It is this divine forgiveness and cleansing of the nation, which so many prophets uttered in Jehovah’s name, which is here so wonderfully shown in this vision. Like the priests in the temple, standing before Jehovah, thus Joshua and Israel is before the Lord. Though Joshua is standing before the Lord in filthy garments, yet he is still the High Priest. The filthy garments do not change the office to which God had called him. Oh, wondrous truth, which we meet all through the Word! Israel, though in dispersion and in sin, is still the priest, called by Him who is a covenant-keeping God! And is it not a perfect picture of Israel as it is yet to-day? A priest, but defiled and unclean. In Isaiah lxiv we have part of that wonderful prayer which the remnant of Israel is yet to utter. It begins with that sublime prayer, Oh, that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come, that the mountains might flow down at Thy presence. And then follows the confession: We are all become as one that is unclean, and all our righteousness is as a polluted garment. Alas, how little Israel knows at this present time of such a confession. On the day of atonement the lips confess sin and unrighteousness in similar words, but it is still the lips and not the heart. But at last Israel will confess her guilt and the bloodguiltiness like David did.
In the vision Satan is seen. This is not the enemy who at Zechariah’s time tried to hinder the rebuilding of the temple, but it is Satan, the old serpent, the accuser of the brethren, the adversary. He is the enemy of Israel. He has tried in the past to hurt and to destroy the nation of destiny. He knows the purposes of God concerning Israel better than many a learned doctor