ZECHARIAH 13
The exercises of chapter 12, when gone through with God, will prepare the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to appreciate the fountain which will be opened for them “for sin and for uncleanness”, verse 1. They will feel the need for purification from their whole former state. Jehovah will fulfil His word: “And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols will I cleanse you”, Ezekiel 36: 25.
While not losing sight of the direct application of this to a Jewish remnant in a future day, our chief object at present is to consider it as “written for our instruction”. The truth of purification by water has application to us as well as to Israel, though it is, perhaps, less understood by believers generally than cleansing by blood. But if we have learned that we long rejected Christ, and were of the same stock as those who actually pierced Him — if we have mourned for Him as feeling how terribly He has been treated — we shall be thankful to know the character of the purification which is to be known today. We need to know this in order to have liberty to enter upon affectionate relations with Christ, and particularly at a time when He is [p. 143] no longer to be known according to flesh.
The “fountain opened” has reference to the death of Christ, for there could be no moral cleansing according to God apart from it. Our righteous title to be apart from our sinful selves is the death of Christ. The “fountain” brings to us the witness of what was accomplished in that death, and gives us to know that our former state as in the flesh was ended, for God, in the death of His Son. We can be with God wholly apart from the flesh, and we cannot be in spiritual liberty until we know this.
It may be observed that John’s gospel — which from the outset views Christ as rejected (see John 1: 11) — is the gospel which chiefly presents the thought of purifying. He alone speaks of water as flowing from the pierced side of Christ as well as blood. The Lord told Nicodemus that it was necessary to be “born of water and of the Spirit” to enter into the kingdom of God. By natural birth we came into a state of sin and uncleanness, but as “born of water” we derive moral being from an entirely new source. If we are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1: 23), that word gives character to those born of it. A distinct feature of purification is brought in. It is not that the flesh is purified, but the one “born of water” is purified from it, as now knowing that there is no element of good in it. As entering into the kingdom of God he moves away practically from the will of the flesh into the sphere of the will of God, and it becomes very clear that moral cleansing has been affected.
Washing with water, as applied to saints in the New Testament, is always spoken of as a thing accomplished. The Lord spoke of His own which were in the world as persons who were “washed all over”, and now only needed to have their feet washed (John 13: 10), where a different word is used in the original. In this connection He said, “And ye are clean, but not all. For he knew him that delivered him up: on account of this he said, Ye are not all clean”. The disciples, with the exception of Judas, had been washed and were clean. The Lord said, further, “Ye are already clean by reason of the word which I have spoken to you”, John 15: 3. The word which Jesus had spoken to them had displaced in them the natural and the fleshly. His word had made Himself known in their affections, and what an immense inward purification this was! They did not understand the full bearing of it, but He did, and viewing them as having Him in their hearts as the Object of faith and love, He could say that they were “already clean”. Then the water flowing from His [p. 138] side, as well as the blood, sets forth the great truth that in His death there was the witness of complete purification being effected. The water is the evidence that the flesh, with all that pertained to it, has been ended in the death of Christ. It has been wholly removed, for the satisfaction and glory of God, and this, known by the Spirit in the heart of the believer, is what purifies.
The teaching of Paul is in accord with what we have seen in John. He said of the believers at Corinth that they were “washed”, contrasting their former state with what was now brought about in them by the work of God. Paul also speaks in Ephesians 5:26 of the assembly as having been purified by Christ “by the washing of water by the word”. Purification by water is seen here in its most complete aspect. It includes the whole purifying service of Christ for the assembly. In the practical application of “the word” the truth of Romans comes first. We learn that as baptised unto Christ Jesus, and to His death, we have died with him and that “if we have died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with him”. Colossians says, further, that we have not only died with Christ, but that we are risen with Him. In both Colossians and Ephesians saints are addressed as having put off the old man and put on the new.
The washing of water is “by the word”; that is, it is by the application to saints of what is in the mind of God in its own purity and completeness. There is no admixture of what is defective in “the word”; it is not contaminated or diluted by our faulty or imperfect experiences. When we hear Christ, and are instructed in Him, we learn the truth as in Jesus. Nothing comes short of God’s mind in Jesus, and the truth as in Jesus is that we have put off the old man and put on the new. There is no thought in “the word” of it not being done, or of it only being partly done. Our washing at the fountain is the application to our souls by Christ of the truth as it is in Jesus. This, as Ephesians 4: 21 - 24 clearly states, is our having put off the old man and having put on the new. It is not that we ought to do so; it is Christian truth applied to us for purifying. We shall never walk in the practical power of any truth until we accept it as the truth. We are then definitely committed to it; it governs the heart and the conscience and forms our exercises and prayers, and Christian practice follows.
Our chapter goes on to speak of the names of the idols being cut off out of the land, and also the false prophets and the unclean spirits; verse 2. Those who have been purified at the fountain [p. 139] will not tolerate idols or false teaching. Even the father and mother of a false prophet will thrust him through when he prophesies; verse 3. If people knew what Christian purification was they would not go on with fleshly religion, modernism, or any system of evil teaching. The truth of purification maintained in power in the souls of believers would expose every error, and make the teachers of it ashamed; verse 4.
Just at this point the Spirit of God introduces Christ prophetically, as though to mark the contrast between Him and all false prophets. The object of every teacher of wrong doctrine is to exalt himself; he would like people to believe that, like Simon of Samaria, he is “some great one”. But the Lord Jesus came in, not to be a great one here, though He was truly great, but to be the Servant of all. “And he shall say, I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the ground; for man acquired me as bondman from my youth”, verse 5. There are scriptures which bring out the Lord’s lowliness of heart, His wondrous self-humiliation, in a remarkable way, and this is one of them. If He says, “I am no prophet”, it is that we may understand how entirely He disclaimed taking any place of self-importance. He came to labour and to serve. The context here is that there were those who assumed to be prophets to gain some distinction or prominence for themselves; but He said, “I do not seek my own glory”, John 8: 50. To one who addressed Him as “Good teacher”, He said, “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, God”, Luke 18:19. The One who subsisted in the form of God — the One spoken of in the chapter now before us as “the man that is my fellow, saith Jehovah of hosts” (Zechariah 13: 7), “emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form”, Philippians 2: 7. Beware of those who would use such scriptures to take away from the Lord of glory what pertains to Him as a divine Person in manhood. When He said, “I am no prophet”, it was to show that He would not take any place that might seem to give Him glory in the eyes of men. The tempter suggested that He should take such a place in casting Himself down from the edge of the temple to fulfil a scripture concerning Him as the Messiah, but He would not glorify Himself, nor tempt Jehovah His God. He was indeed a Prophet above all others, but He would not assume that office as a distinction amongst men; any more than He would consent to be made a king. He was here to labour and to serve, not to have public honour in the eyes of men.
So He says, “I am a tiller of the ground”, verse 5. He was [p. 140] here to labour that there might be some result for God in Israel. As regards the nation, alas! He laboured in vain, and spent His strength for nought and in vain. Israel was not gathered, Jacob was not brought again to Jehovah, but, as we know, their refusal of His service led to a wonderful extension of God’s work. He has been given “for a light of the nations”, and has become God’s salvation unto the ends of the earth; Isaiah 49: 4 - 6.
His service was available for men; “man acquired me as bondman from my youth”, verse 5. He was at man’s disposal for service, nor did any ever claim service from Him in vain; He was, in infinite grace, bondman to all. To His own He said, “But I am in the midst of you as the one that serves”, Luke 22: 27. He who was the Lord as well as the Teacher undertook in love bondman-service in washing the feet of His disciples. He had taken a bondman’s form, and He still serves in love of that wondrous character.
The answer to the Lord’s service in Israel was that He was wounded. “And one shall say unto him, What are those wounds in thy hands? And he will say, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends”, verse 6. It might be thought that man would be glad to have such a Servant, but it was otherwise. Everything that was of God for the blessing of Israel was set forth in Him, and therefore their moral state was fully brought to light by their cruel rejection of Him. If Israel according to the flesh could have been blessed, the blessing was there in Him for their acceptance; He came to them as the house of His friends, but all He got was wounding. This was Israel’s part in His unspeakable sufferings.
Christendom has treated Him no better. Men profess to honour the Bible; they read it in their churches just as the Jews did in their synagogues. But the living service of Christ is of no account in their eyes. He is still knocking at the door, and seeking admission, but it is as One outside who is not wanted within. Can we wonder that God’s judgment is imminent on Christ-rejecting Christendom as it was on Christ-rejecting Judaism? Happy are those who receive and confess Him as the Son of God, the Christ of God, and find through Him the true knowledge of God as the Source of all blessing! Fearful judgments will come upon Jerusalem, for she will receive of Jehovah’s hand double for all her sins, but a Spared remnant will flee into a great valley opened up to them as a way of escape; Zechariah 14: 5. Fearful judgments are about to fall upon Christendom, but a spared remnant — including [p. 141] all true believers — will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air before those judgments fall in their full intensity; 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
But we are called at this point to contemplate Christ in a way which will, most of all, endear Him to our hearts, though it may, for a time, cause deep sorrow. It will certainly effect a stupendous change in our view of things if we take in the divine import of it. “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, even against the man that is my fellow, saith Jehovah of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will turn my hand upon the little ones”, verse 7. A great and solemn change in the position of Jehovah’s Shepherd took place when Jehovah called on the sword to awake against Him, and we know when that change came about. For it was in the night in which He was delivered up that He said, “All ye shall be offended in me during this night. For it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after that I shall be risen, I will go before you to Galilee”, Matthew 26:31,32. His disciples would be offended, or stumbled, because they were expecting Him to take the kingdom. That Jehovah should bid the sword awake against Him was the complete reversal of all that was in their minds. Yet so it must needs be, according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. But it was a terrible thing for the disciples, who were His true sheep, and who had been attracted to Him in the days of His flesh, to learn that He was to be smitten, and they were to be scattered. The whole ground of their association with Him was to be changed. He had been, as with them, the divine Centre of gathering as the Christ according to flesh, the true Shepherd of Israel. But the very Centre of gathering, as according to flesh, was to be smitten, and the little flock of sheep which had been gathered to Him was to be scattered. This was the complete setting aside of that order of things of which Christ according to flesh was the central figure. As to that order of things He had to Say, “For the things concerning me have an end”, Luke 22: 37.
The fact was that none of the disciples really understood what was due to them, as according to the flesh, until they learned it by seeing it come upon Christ. They thought He could redeem Israel without death. All of us think that some change is needed, but if nothing short of death will meet the case that is the end of us altogether. Christ had to go that way; there was divine necessity for it. “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these [p. 142] things and to enter into his glory?” Luke 24: 26. All the Scriptures had spoken of it. “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from among the dead the third day”, Luke 24: 46. One having died for all, all were proved to be dead. Apart from what Christ is to us, and what we have in Him risen from among the dead, we are all dead. One blessed Man has been in death for us, and He is risen, and we are only out of death as we live in Him. Christ after the flesh was in that condition that He might die, and if He had not died there would have been no way out of death for us. But, having died, “he presented himself living, after he had suffered, with many proofs; being seen by them during forty days, and speaking of the things which concern the kingdom of God”, Acts 1: 3. The kingdom of God was the sphere in which eternal life would be enjoyed, and they entered into it spiritually in the company of the risen One. We do not now know Christ according to flesh, nor do we know ourselves according to flesh, for we were ended in His death. “So if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new: and all things are of the God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ”, 2 Corinthians 5:16-18.
It is well that we should understand that, though there is deeply important instruction in it for us all, the smiting of the Shepherd has special reference to God’s ways with Israel. As Jehovah’s Shepherd He was not sent to the Gentiles, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. “Jesus Christ became a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises of the fathers”, Romans 15: 8. If any people could have been blessed according to the flesh it was Israel, for they had every advantage that God could confer, even to the point of having Christ, but their state was such that not even Christ after the flesh could meet it. They were under death and the curse. Hence there could be no permanent gathering of the sheep to Christ after the flesh; in that character He must be smitten, and His sheep attracted to Him in Israel must be scattered. His smiting was the end of that kind of association between the Shepherd and the sheep, and it will never be resumed. Israel will never again have the opportunity of knowing Him according to the flesh. I believe Scripture distinguishes between the smiting of the Shepherd and His atoning work, though both took place at the cross. His smiting was the bringing to an end in death of His shepherd service in Israel in the days of His flesh. He was no longer to be known “according to flesh”. The state which necessitated smiting was in Israel, not in the Shepherd, but He had in grace identified Himself with that state, and was smitten on account of it. He was cut off and had nothing; Daniel 9:26. He had the deep sorrow of this, as having served Israel in love, and been Jehovah’s Shepherd amongst them. Instead of getting Israel for Jehovah the Shepherd was smitten, and the little flock He had gathered was scattered. This was the sorrowful end of His service in Israel, but He has been recompensed in resurrection, and in having the assembly, and He will yet have a remnant from Israel when they have learned that His smiting was on account of their state, with which, in grace, He had identified Himself. Instead of having His place and glory as the Messiah He was smitten, but in this view of His taking up a new and more glorious place as risen.
The remnant in Israel in a coming day will see that it was on account of their state that Jehovah’s Shepherd was smitten. They will feel that they deserve the smiting of God, but their hearts will be deeply touched to learn that their Messiah has entered into, and felt, all that they are justly subject to; they will learn His love in this way. The sword must needs awake against the perversity of human will which refused and wounded the Shepherd who came in fulness of blessing, but the eternal wonder is that it awoke against the Shepherd Himself, who made their cause His own. Could anything move the heart more than this? He was Jehovah’s Fellow, which asserts His co-equality in Deity, but He is probably so spoken of here to indicate the perfect oneness of mind between Jehovah and His Shepherd. He could say, “I and the Father are one”, John 10: 30, that is, They are one in Their thoughts and purposes regarding the sheep. Jehovah’s love and faithfulness to His Israel did not break down, nor did the Messiah fail to go through all that was needed if Israel was to be blessed. In view of this the sword awoke against Him, and as the Shepherd He was smitten. This was because He had taken up Israel’s cause, and identified Himself in grace with what was due to them. We, like them, learn what is due to us by seeing it come upon One who bore it in love.
The disciples of Jesus were the true remnant of Israel when the Lord was here, and they were called to follow Christ and to be with Him in the days of His flesh. It was the most blessed association in which men could be found as after the flesh, but the smiting of the Shepherd and the scattering of the sheep [p. 144] brought it to an end. God intended that the remnant of Israel should pass over by way of the death of Christ into a new association with Him as risen from among the dead. This put them on ground where they could have part in God’s wondrous thoughts as to the assembly. As gathered to the Messiah come according to the flesh, and on Jewish ground, they were scattered, but this was to make room for greater and more wondrous thoughts of blessing. The assembly was to come in according to divine purpose and counsel. In the wondrous interval between His smiting and His return in glory, the assembly is being called and purified to be in association with Him as risen and glorified, and to be His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.
It was in view of all this that Jehovah said, “I will turn my hand upon the little ones”, verse 7. That refers to the divine dealing with the disciples during the period between Gethsemane and Pentecost. They had to go through deep soul-travail in seeing Him delivered up, condemned, crucified, and buried. They had to learn that He had, indeed, been smitten, and they had now no rallying point, they were scattered. But wondrously was the divine hand turned upon them. The light of Him as risen broke on one and another, and finally on them all. They found that He could be with them, and they could be with Him, in an altogether new association. Each one of the forty days during which He was seen of them added something to their knowledge of Him as “living”. And then they saw Him “taken up”, and they realised that they were entrusted with His interests here, and, finally, the Holy Spirit filled them to be their power for service and testimony.
The remnant in Israel will learn that in the smiting and cutting off of the Messiah there was an end of all hopes according to the flesh. They will see that neither promises nor covenants could be of avail to those under death. They will learn, under God’s solemn dealings with them, that they are under death, but they will learn it in a deeper way when they see that Christ has been smitten on their account. They will see that every blessing must come to them on the ground of His death and resurrection. They will bless themselves in Him, and they will enter into life eternal in the day spoken of in Zechariah 14, when living waters go out from Jerusalem as the city of the great King. But they will not reach this apart from the refining process which is described in the last verse of chapter 13.
Jehovah will take account of “all the land” (verse 8) in His [p. 145] latter-day dealings with Israel, and judgment will come upon those who continue in unbelief, and in the spirit found in those who wounded Christ. “Two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third part shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried”. Refining goes on because there is precious metal there, so that it only applies to those who have faith. Peter speaks of “the proving of your faith, much more precious than of gold which perishes, though it be proved by fire, be found to praise and glory and honour in the revelation of Jesus Christ”, 1 Peter 1:7. The refining in Zechariah 13: 9 is in view of the revelation of Jesus Christ as spoken of in chapter 14. Judicial dealings of God with unbelief, and a refining process where there is faith, are characteristic of the last days. I think we can very clearly see them going on today. God is dealing judicially with nations which have had Christian light but have not been faithful to it. We must not forget that there are judicial dealings with the assemblies as well as with Israel or the Jews. For example, the Lord says to Ephesus, “I am coming to thee, and I will remove thy lamp out of its place, except thou shalt repent”, Revelation 2: 5. To Pergamos He says, “Repent therefore; but if not, I come to thee quickly, and I will make war with them with the sword of my mouth”, Revelation 2: 16. To Thyatira He says of Jezebel, “Behold, I cast her into a bed, and those that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and her children will I kill with death; and all the assemblies shall know that I am he that searches the reins and the hearts; and I will give to you each according to your works”, Revelation 2: 22, 23. To Sardis He says, “If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come upon thee as a thief”, Revelation 3: 3. To Laodicea He says, “I am about to spue thee out of my mouth”, Revelation 3:16.
But while these judicial dealings are going on, and will go on, the divine refining is going on also wherever there is faith. The object of the refining is that confidence in God may be developed and purified. It is well to note that the refining does not result in anything very great in an outward way; no great exploits are done. “They shall call on my name, and I will answer them; I will say, It is my people; and they shall say, Jehovah is my God”, verse 9. The distinguishing mark of the faithful today is that they follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, but they do this as those who “call upon the Lord out of a pure heart”.
[p. 146] 2 Timothy 2: 22. They have no other resource, and they are owned and supported by Him.