Scriptures: Zechariah 3, Leviticus 16, Colossians 2:12-15, Revelation 12:7-11
Zechariah 3 records a vision that gives us a window into the spiritual realm. “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. 2 The Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?’ 3 Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel.4 The angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Take off his filthy clothes.’ Then he said to Joshua, ’See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you’” (Zechariah 3:4).
The name Satan means adversary or accuser. We know from Job 1 and Revelation 12 that Satan is our adversary who accuses us before God day and night. Isaiah 6:4 tells us why Satan is allowed to accuse us. “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags” (NLT). Joshua the high priest, who should have been the most righteous man, was dressed in filthy clothes, a symbol of sin. But the Lord rebukes Satan and dresses Joshua in fine garments as a symbol of what is to come through Jesus, the Anointed Branch. “‘Listen, High Priest Joshua, you and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come: I am going to bring my servant, the Branch. 9 See, the stone I have set in front of Joshua! There are seven eyes on that one stone, and I will engrave an inscription on it,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day’” (Zechariah 3:8-9).
Why does the stone have seven eyes? In Revelation 5:6 Jesus appears as the Lamb who “had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” Jesus is the Branch of Isaiah 11 who is anointed with the sevenfold Spirit of God. He is also the Rock, God’s firm and established Word. Just as God’s covenant with Israel was written in stone, so God’s new covenant is written on Jesus. This stone is symbolically set in front of Joshua, who represents things to come – specifically God’s promise to remove sin in a single day and give us his Spirit. The Spirit is the one who engraves God’s instructions on our hearts. “’But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,’ says the LORD. ‘I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33).
The removal of sin in a single day points to Jesus as the fulfillment of Yom Kippur, which is described in Leviticus 16. Every year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would offer sacrifices to cleanse the people and the tabernacle of sin from the previous year. It was an annual sacrifice during which God forgave the sin of the nation. But in Zechariah 3 God says he will not just forgive but remove the sin of the land in a single day. Jesus fulfilled Yom Kippur and became the atoning sacrifice for Israel and for the whole world as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). In fulfillment of Psalm 103:12, “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west” (NLT). How does Jesus remove our sins? By fulfilling the scapegoat requirement of Yom Kippur.
On Yom Kippur, two identical goats were brought before the high priest. One goat was sacrificed to God as a sin offering and the other goat was driven into the wilderness as the scapegoat. The high priest laid his hands on the scapegoat, confessing all the sins of the people over it, transferring to it the sins of the people. In Jerusalem, the goat was driven out the eastern gate to the wilderness where it was pushed off a cliff to its death, thus carrying the peoples’ sins to the grave. The prophet Isaiah spoke of the coming scapegoat on whom God would transfer our sins, thus removing them from us. “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6).
Just as the high priest confessed the sins of the people while laying his hands on the goat to transfer them, God laid on Jesus every sin that would ever be confessed in a spirit of repentance. 1 John 1:9 promises, “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” When we confess our wrongdoing, God immediately transfers our sin to Jesus who removes it from us, cleansing us from all wickedness. Just like Joshua the high priest, our filthy clothes are removed and we are then clothed in righteousness as we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus removes all our sin in a single day, just like God promised to Zechariah.
How do we know we are made clean? The Jews recorded in the Mishnah a ritual of wrapping scarlet thread around the horns of the scapegoat and handles of the temple. When the goat reached the cliff, the thread was tied to a stake and the goat pushed off the cliff to its death. If the thread turned white, God had forgiven the sins of the people in fulfillment of Isaiah 1:18, “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.” Every year the scarlet thread on the temple turned white except the last 40 years of the temple because Jesus had fulfilled this sacrifice. When he said on the cross, “It is finished,” everything needed for our atonement and salvation was accomplished.
How are our sins removed? The scapegoat was driven off a cliff and descended to the desert below, just as Jesus descended to hell carrying all our sins. He took our sins to the grave so that our sins could be buried in the grave with him. When he rose from the grave he conquered death and removed the disgrace of our sin as prophesied in Isaiah 25. “On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; 8 he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. 9 In that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation'” (Isaiah 25:7-9). We are saved by trusting in the sacrifice of Jesus who removes our disgrace.
Through water baptism, we symbolically join him in death to sin as we go down under the water, washing away our impurity. “For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. 13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:12-14, NLT).
This brings us back to Zechariah 3, where God clothes Joshua the High Priest and rebukes Satan for accusing him. When Jesus entered heaven with his blood that was offered to God on our behalf, he cleansed God’s sanctuary in heaven just like the High Priest on Yom Kippur would sprinkle the blood on the atonement cover of the ark of the covenant, called the mercy seat. By removing our sin, Jesus has stripped Satan of all arguments against those who are in Christ. For God chose us in Christ “to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Ephesians 1:4). “Having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:14-15).
This changes how we live, for “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). When the accuser tries to shame us with our past, we worship Jesus and declare, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan. By the blood of Jesus I’m now clean.” As our testimony of the power of the blood of Jesus to wash away our sins spreads throughout the earth, the accuser eventually gets thrown out of the heavenly realm. “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. 11 They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death’” (Revelation 12:10-11). We have been crucified with Christ so we do not shrink from death. As we spread the good news of salvation by the blood of the Lamb, Jesus’ victory over the accuser becomes ours.
Response:
Thank you, Father, for providing a sacrifice to make me clean and for forgiving me. I transfer all my sins to Jesus. Thank you, Jesus, for removing my sins, rebuking my accuser, and setting me free from shame. Thank you for giving me a new beginning as a new creation in Christ. Clothe me in your righteousness that I may point others to you and spread the good news.
(The picture above is of an area outside of Jerusalem that the Bible refers to as the “wilderness,” according to our Jewish guide. The scapegoat was driven out into the wilderness to die and remove our sins from us.)
