ZECHARIAH 12
To see how Jerusalem is viewed in the opening verses of this chapter we must keep the previous chapter in mind. It is the Jerusalem that has not known how to value Christ, but which has been ready to receive Antichrist, which is given over by Jehovah to be a bewilderment and a burdensome stone to all peoples, so that, in result, all come against her. This looks on to the time when God will resume His dealings with Jerusalem in a future day. She will have to reap what she has sowed, and pass through a time of terrible distress, but there will be a remnant, represented in this chapter by “the house of Judah” (verse 4), upon whom Jehovah will open His eyes.
It will be remembered that Judah made himself responsible for Benjamin to Israel his father (Genesis 44), and he was also the one to acknowledge that God had found out the iniquity of himself and his brethren, which referred to their cruel treatment of Joseph. It was he, also, who begged to be a bondman instead of Benjamin; he charged himself with responsibility for what had happened. All this had typical reference to the attitude which Judah will take up in a coming day. “The house of Judah” is that remnant which, in the time of Jacob’s trouble, will accept responsibility for what has brought it on, and will confess the true state of things before Jehovah. Then will be fulfilled the blessing of Judah by Moses the man of God. “Hear Jehovah, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people; may his hands strive for them; and be thou a help to him against his oppressors”, Deuteronomy 33: 7. Such a remnant will be a link by which Jehovah will resume contact with Jerusalem in the way of grace. Jehovah will open His eyes on those who feel the state of things, and who call upon Him, and from that point “the inhabitants of Jerusalem” appear in a new character. We get the remarkable statement, “And the leaders of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength through Jehovah of hosts their God”, verse 5. It is clear from this that we have passed over to an entirely different view of things. It is not now the corrupt city that did not value Christ, and was ready to receive Antichrist, and was consequently given over to judgment. It is now Jerusalem seen from the stand point that Jehovah of hosts is “their God”. So that “the inhabitants of Jerusalem” are now seen as God’s elect people, and they become the strength of the leaders of Judah. The praying remnant is encouraged and strengthened by apprehending that, in spite of all that has happened, God has an election of grace, and that He will assuredly carry out His purpose to bless Jerusalem.
When the repentant remnant own the true state of things, and pray to Jehovah, He will open His eyes upon them, and He will make use of them to express His judgment of all that has been adverse to His people. He will make them “like a hearth of fire among wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf”, verse 6. It will become a certainty that His purpose will be accomplished. “And Jerusalem shall dwell again in her own place, in Jerusalem”. And then the inhabitants of Jerusalem will be defended and strengthened so that they may be able to go through very deep exercise about the One whom they pierced. They will look on Him, and “mourn for him, as one mourneth for an only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn”. This is God’s work in His elect people. They will think of Christ with deep affection, as having learned His worth by divine teaching, and in proportion to their sense of His worth will be the bitterness of their mourning that they pierced Him, and that for two thousand years they have despised and rejected Him. Jerusalem could never be the city of the great King if its [p. 132] inhabitants did not go through this exercise individually, and every family apart.
There are conditions today which in great measure correspond with what is spoken of in this chapter. The prophetic declarations in Scripture of what will be in the last days lead us to expect a dreadful state of things in the public professing body. Take for example, 2 Timothy 3: 2; 2 Thessalonians 2; 2 Peter 2: 2, 3. We are living in the times thus spoken of; many hostile powers have combined to corrupt and destroy what is of God. Unfaithfulness has exposed the assembly to inroads of superstition, modernism, and worldliness of all kinds. The public profession has largely given up what is heavenly and spiritual. Few exercised believers would deny this.
But, notwithstanding all this, God is securing a remnant marked by right feeling about what has taken place, marked by self-judgment and prayer. God opens His eyes upon people who pray as understanding the conditions which have come about. Every believer should understand that God has an assembly here, but that in its public aspect it has dreadfully departed from what is in His mind. Every believer should, like Judah, feel responsibility for the condition of things at the present time. Any assembly recovery in a remnant today has been granted in answer to prayer. In this dark day we must look for companions who pray, “those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart”. That is “the house of Judah” today. As we pray we shall get light as to what the assembly is in the mind of the Lord. We shall get away in spirit from the corrupt profession, and we shall think of the assembly in its spiritual reality.
“The assembly of the living God” is certainly not a “mixed multitude” such as a national church must necessarily be, nor could there be anything sectarian about it. It is composed of persons who are “sanctified in Christ Jesus”, and who confess Jesus as Lord, and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The praying remnant learn to view all saints according to what they are by the grace and work of God, and they become able to judge all that is inconsistent with this. So the leaders of Judah are made “like a hearth of fire among wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf”. God would have everything that is contrary to His universal assembly thoughts to be judged by the faithful and prayerful remnant who answer today to “the leaders of Judah”. These things are to be judged in the spirit that marked Judah, as accepting responsibility for the things we judge, but refusing [p. 133] them in our spirits as not pleasing to God. If everything is burnt up, in a moral sense, that is opposed to the truth, there is nothing to hinder saints from taking up the ground to which God has really called them.
So what follows is, “And Jerusalem shall dwell again in her own place, in Jerusalem”. Our own place by the will of God is that we are of His assembly; therefore it is our privilege, and also our responsibility, to take that ground. We may have a great deal yet to learn of our own weakness, and of God’s sufficiency for us. We may have to go through deep and humbling exercises, but let us hold to assembly ground as being God’s ground for us just as it was for His saints at Corinth. Let us refuse in our minds every other ground but that on which God has set us. Let us not be diverted from it by anything that is wider or narrower than what God has in His mind for all His saints.
Judah has priority; verse 7. Those who carry exercise, and who pray, become God’s firstfruits in a day of restoration. Whatever God may be pleased to give in sovereignty will never be allowed to interfere with the special place which He assigns to those who take the lead in accepting responsibility, and in praying, and in judging what is contrary to His will. It is open to every saint to have his place in “the tents of Judah”. God delights to honour those who come forward to carry assembly exercises and responsibilities.
God does not suppose that assembly ground can be taken or held in a day of departure without special support from Him. But if we commit ourselves to what is in God’s mind for us He will most surely defend and strengthen us. “In that day will Jehovah defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that stumbleth among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David as God, as the Angel of Jehovah before them”, verse 8. It reminds us of Paul boasting in his weaknesses that “the power of the Christ” might dwell upon him. Our safe place is to be in fear and trembling, but counting upon God’s faithfulness to give all the support that is needed. Some of the words in the New Testament are quite as wonderful as what is said here. “I have strength for all things in him that gives me power”, Philippians 4: 13. “Strengthened with all power according to the might of his glory unto all endurance and longsuffering with joy”, Colossians 1: 11. “For the rest, brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the might of his strength”, Ephesians 6: 10.
A further exercise follows. “And I will pour upon the house [p. 134] of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look on me whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for an, only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn”, verse 10. It is most touching to think of the Lord Jesus — for it is He who speaks in this verse — acting so that He may become the loved Object of His people after a long period during which they have caused Him grief. He is at the present moment active to bring about that His saints may look upon Him with intense affection. The pouring out of the spirit of grace and supplications has its counterpart in that gracious movement by which a remnant has been prepared in this day to value the presentation of Christ which God has given. This is pure divine favour on one side of it, but on the other it is marked by “supplications”. How many, within the last few years, have had cause to thank God for a deepened sense of “grace”! How many have been led to “supplications” for a fuller knowledge of Christ! This is the Lord’s own preparatory action so that we may look on Him as He is pleased to present Himself to His lovers. A wonderful ministry of Christ has been going on through the whole lifetime of the present generation. If we are not conscious of this we have missed the greatest divine actings of the present time. The Lord is as much concerned that we should look upon Him as He will be that the remnant of Israel should.
The view of Him that is contemplated here is preparatory to “great mourning”. “They shall look on me whom they pierced”. This reminds us that, as the next chapter tells us, He has been wounded in the house of His friends. This may certainly be applied, not only to the Jews, but also to what has been done to Him in the Christian profession. How He has been pierced and wounded there! How the claims of His love have been disregarded! How the assembly order which He instituted has been set aside! How men have usurped His rights! This is all a matter for “deep mourning”. If we have affection for Him we shall mourn over it with a sense that we have part in the responsibility of it; we have even personally contributed to it. He would be well pleased to see us mourning thus as the outcome of loving Him. For there was a “time past” in our lives when we did not care to think of Him, or to receive Him. The thought of who He was, or of what He had done for us, or of what He had expressed of God, had no attraction for us. If He had not poured upon us “the spirit of grace”, He would never have become precious to us. But the moment came when we were arrested by the thought that He had come into manhood as the Child born and the Son given that He might be known and possessed by us. We began to realise that we needed Him to be righteousness and salvation for us. We began to think of His sufferings and death with appreciation of their atoning value, and with some sense of the love in which He gave Himself for us. All this was the result of the outpouring on us of the spirit of grace.
The “spirit of grace” was poured upon Saul of Tarsus when he said to the glorified One, “Who art thou, Lord?” and “What shall I do, Lord?” His heart was made ready in one instant to appreciate the One of whom he had been, up to that moment, the bitter enemy. It is the same “spirit of grace” which effects this moral revolution in hearts today, and the spirit of “supplications” still goes along with “the spirit of grace”. The Lord said of Saul to Ananias, “Behold, he is praying”. No doubt he was praying about the heavenly vision, and the new and wonderful light concerning Christ which it had brought into his heart. We must not suppose that Saul had heard nothing about Jesus before. He would not have been so bitter against His name if he had known nothing of it. No doubt he had heard much testimony from the many he persecuted. But he had thought that he ought to do much against that name. His prayer now would be that he might see everything in the light of Jesus being glorified. He would want to transfer all that the Old Testament had taught him concerning the Messiah to the glorified Man in heaven. What wonders would engage his heart and fill his prayers! He would want to understand how saints on earth could be one with the glorified Man. And he would certainly enter into that word, “They shall look on me whom they pierced”. Now all this, in the principle of it, enters into the experience of everyone who is intelligently in the assembly. Jesus must become precious to us, loved as an only son, as a firstborn; He must be the pre-eminent One.
Then comes the mourning, the bitterness, for Him. There is deep sorrow that the One who is now the Object of our love should have been despised and rejected, and that we have had our part in this. During the three days that Saul was blind, and neither ate nor drank, we may be sure this mourning had its place. He would very feelingly enter into the sorrow of knowing that those whom Christ had loved and served had pierced Him.
[p. 136] He had had his part in this, but now the deep sorrow is for Him, that He should be so treated. How this exercise would give point in our hearts to His desire that we should remember Him! It would lead us to earnestly desire to make up to Him in fervent affection for what He has suffered. We should think that we could never do enough to compensate Him for the treatment He has received. This is an exercise for “every family apart, and their wives apart”. It forms no part of normal assembly service, but it is a very important preparation of heart for the assembly. For it is mourning how the Lord Jesus has been treated amongst those who profess His name that we rally to His name, and to the remembrance of Him. Our portion as eating the Lord’s supper is in sharp contrast with what causes us to mourn. For we are with His lovers, where glad hearts are filled with His praise, and where all look for Him to come to find love’s satisfaction in the company of His own. We do not mourn there; “the disciples rejoiced therefore, having seen the Lord”.