ZECHARIAH 13 (NOTES OF A READING)
ZECHARIAH 13 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC I suppose we gather from the first verse that the Lord has means available for the cleansing of His people, so that their former state of sin and uncleanness may be removed.
Ques Is it not significant, the fact of its following on the great mourning in the previous section and history in connection with Christ?
CAC Yes, I thought so. That would produce the desire for cleansing. The thought is suggested in many parts of Scripture of cleansing by water, but it is not quite as the old hymn says, ‘There is a fountain filled with blood’. That is an unscriptural thought.
Rem The mention of water occurs very frequently in John’s writings, connected with the thought of cleansing, does it not?
CAC Yes, the thought of washing is often in Scripture. “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow”. It is the result of washing by water, not by blood. We can perhaps understand better the cleansing by blood because that is purely under the eye of God, while cleansing by water is a moral reality brought about in the saints, as I understand it.
Rem “Washing of water by the word”.
CAC Yes, we get that thought.
Ques Is the washing by water of those in positional nearness, at least those brought nigh, the people of God, or is it wider than that?
CAC It seems to be the first step in God’s ways according to 1 Corinthians 6. Paul mentions a number of things and he says, “These things were some of you; but ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified, but ye have been justified”. It seems to come two steps before justification.
Ques Is it not all because of the blood?
CAC Yes, but not in atonement here. I doubt if that question is raised in the book of Zechariah. No, I think it is the moral character, such as God refers to in Ezekiel 36: 25, “And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean”. “The washing of water by the word”, that comes in as a continuous process. The assembly is sanctified by the washing of water by the word. But the washing of water here is brought about once for all. “Ye have been washed”, Paul said to the Corinthians, and “Ye are clean” the Lord said to His own.
Ques Is that why prophets and unclean spirits pass out of the land?
CAC Yes, in moral cleansing these things have no place. It is a setting aside of the former condition.
Ques. As in baptism?
CAC Yes, it is a kind of finality Scripture speaks of as the washing of regeneration; that is, coming into a new order of things of which every saint is conscious. Putting off the old and putting on the new — every saint is conscious of it. “Born of water” comes into it clearly, the whole person takes on a new character. If we do not understand that, we do not [p. 547] understand much; we do not understand what it is to be a Christian. It is the outward means of purifying. It is the seeing in the death of Christ the closing up of our former state, and the washing brings that to us in a definite way so that we know it as a reality.
Rem It says, “In that day”.
CAC Yes, it is looking forward surely to that day when it will be brought about for Israel in the knowledge of the death of Christ. Israel will come under the action of the fountain then.
Ques Is not His death referred to in the thought of His being pierced?
CAC Yes, but it brings in the thought of the wickedness of men.
Ques Will the land come under this cleansing?
CAC Yes, all religiously unclean will pass out of the land. It is what comes to pass in christianity, the false prophets have gone, we do not listen to them.
Rem So it is not a case of “Ephraim is joined to idols”, but, “What have I to do any more with idols?”
CAC Yes; we do not want anything but what is of God. If you could not sign that statement you are not Christians at all.
Rem Numbers speaks of the water of purification.
CAC Yes, it is the setting aside of the former state. Baptism is a clear indication that a man’s former state is gone — buried. That is the teaching of it.
Rem “I will cut off the names of the idols”. Their names are not mentioned, their names are gone.
CAC That is very good. You see what a complete cleansing it will be for Israel. They will destroy false prophets and they will speak of their Messiah in all His blessedness and glory. And surely they are not to be in a better state than we are; I would not like to assert that at all. It is the day of Christ as the end for faith and love of our former state. We come to that in our spirits. We are not Christians if we have not taken that ground.
[p. 548] Rem When invited to shoot, J.B.S. said Mr. Stoney was dead.
CAC It is the application of the death of Christ in its purifying power so that a man’s affections are detached from all he was in flesh, and attached to Christ and all he knows of God in Christ. It is a new moral state. That is christianity.
Israel will benefit in the coming day. Not one will boast in being a child of Abraham, but in God and in Christ, and so will be morally clean. That sort of person is morally clean.
Rem John stresses both the water and the blood. There are both.
CAC In one way, but not in the sense we are speaking of. It is what is true all the time we are here. There is always the danger of retiring to the flesh, so that we leave the state we are in with God; something we have been delivered from we go back to and link on to it. That is very dreadful, for we are not true to our baptism. Peter was told, “What God hath cleansed, do not thou make common”. The sheet of animals represented the gentile world that had come under God’s cleansing. They were morally cleansed before, for they were judicially cleansed when they had received Peter’s gospel.
Rem “He that is washed all over needs not to wash save his feet”.
CAC Yes, I think that is the idea. An element of purification enters into the saints from the very beginning. We are cleansed to be suitable to Christ risen and glorified, which is more than could be said of Israel. God tells us in detail in Ezekiel 36 how He will purify them until the point is reached in the end of this chapter: “They shall say, Jehovah is my God”. That is a clean people.
Rem Refining comes in in addition to the water.
CAC It is a cleansing by fire.
Rem That is a more drastic matter.
CAC So the prophets are dispensed with — those that give wrong impressions of God — so room is made to bring in Christ in verse 5.
Ques Why does he say, “I am a tiller of the ground”?
CAC One comes in really to serve man on God’s part. “He shall say, I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the ground; for man acquired me as bondman from my youth”. That is the place that Christ has taken to serve man. It is a very beautiful thought, He came in to be acquired by man, to be a Bondman, to do anything and everything man needs. He came not to be ministered to, but to minister. Instead of His service being accepted, His hands were wounded. He was wounded in His very service. He was reproached for His service. One would have thought men would have been thankful to have such service, but Israel as such did not value it.
Ques Why does He say, “I am no prophet”? He was the greatest Prophet.
CAC I thought from this point of view the Lord disclaims being anything but a Servant. The condition of lowly service into which He came is the point of view in this book.
Rem The prophets are cut off and He comes in on an entirely new basis.
CAC Yes, I think so. His only thought was to serve men.
Ques What would the thought be of the Husbandman?
CAC “Tiller of the ground”. He came to labour. A prophet would have some status and be rather an important personage. The Lord disclaims that. He came to labour, that was His object here.
Ques Referring to Adam as tiller of the ground to produce that which is for his sustenance, is it here the Lord taking up what fell upon man?
CAC Yes, and in that humble place of taking no reputation, a humble Toiler for the good of men. It is one of Zechariah’s unique statements about the Lord you do not get anywhere else. It is just the opposite to what you get of man in his greatness. If we had nothing before us but the thought of service, we should be supremely happy. When we are not happy, it is because we are not in the spirit of service. The happiest people are those who are given up to service. I covet that for myself — I should be a great man spiritually if [p. 550] I coveted nothing for myself but serving the saints. It follows the purification of the fountain, which cleanses us of all those wretched self-importances that hinder our service.
Rem “I am in the midst of you as the one that serves” (Luke 22: 27).
CAC Yes, His whole life was on that principle. It is very encouraging because it is open to us — proposed to us — to think of others and serve. The youngest child can take that up, willing to help and serve others. It is a wonderful model.
Rem I notice in the tilling of the ground in Genesis, there is a river flowing out to water the garden.
CAC Out of the service there is the living water going out of Jerusalem. In the next chapter it flows out of those who are set to serve. They do not think of themselves, then you get the water flowing out. The Lord serves in love, and will in a sense serve eternally; and in the days of His flesh He gets no recompense. His hands were pierced in the house of His friends, who should have thought much of Him. They were the very persons to pierce His hands.
Ques Would you say something about verse 7, “Awake, O sword against my shepherd, even against the man that is my fellow, saith Jehovah of hosts”?
CAC That is almost beyond us — to find there is something in the pathway of the Lord that is far greater than His rejection and His piercing by men. He finds Himself in the position where He finds Jehovah’s sword against Him, and He has entered Isaiah 53. “We did regard him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted”. That is what He was publicly. His service came to an end in the smiting of God. I find a fathomless depth in it which I cannot say much about. A time came when He was smitten, but not in atonement.
Ques Who says this, “Awake, O sword against my shepherd”?
CAC It says, “Saith Jehovah of hosts” (verse 7). The time came in the Lord’s history when His service as Shepherd had to cease, and He had to taste what was before Israel, as about to be smitten and cut off, and He entered into their [p. 551] position of being smitten and cut off. He felt it in His own spirit. It all came to an end, His service in the flesh and the fruit of it — the few that He had gathered around Him scattered. It was God’s doing. “Jehovah’s fellow”. It is just then, when in extraordinary humiliation, that He is always saluted according to His divine glory.
Rem It is the same where it speaks of smiting on the cheek the ruler of my people.
CAC Yes, the Lord had to face the smiting and the giving up of all the promises that centred in Him in the flesh. He felt it intensely. We see something of it, “Now is my soul troubled”. It all had to be given up in view of being taken up in resurrection.
Rem “Cut me not off in the midst of my days”.
CAC This is not the thought of atonement, for the sheep are scattered. It would be gathering if it were the assembly. “That he should also gather together into one the children of God who were scattered abroad”. He said, ‘You will all be offended in Me tonight’. They did not understand it and I feel how little I understand it. The Shepherd smitten and the sheep scattered, they had to go through it.