Wait for Peace

I The Eight Symbolic Visions

C The Concluding Acts

2 The Message, Text: 6:12 and 13

Title: Wait for Peace

Introduction

Starting immediately after Saul, David was made king and only descendants of the house of David had a right to the throne. Only the tribe of Judah was the royal tribe. Levi had not right to the throne and the high priest had to be a descendant of Levi. The fact that this occurs in the presence of Zerubbabel who is a legitimate descendant of David is startling, but it is a fulfillment of prophecy because the crown was henceforth removed from David’s line until the Messiah should come. Zerubbabel is in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew and Luke showing that both he and Jesus of Nazareth were legitimate biological descendants of David. However, Jeremiah taught in 22:30 that the Davidic line from which Zerubbabel had sprung was ended, This is what the Lord says: “Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah.” Ezekiel had also declared in 21:25-27, You profane and wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come, whose time of punishment has reached its climax, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: Take off the turban, remove the crown. It will not be as it was: The lowly will be exalted and the exalted will be brought low. A ruin! A ruin! I will make it a ruin! The crown will not be restored until he to whom it rightfully belongs shall come; to him I will give it. Notice that the prophet not only declares the removal of the crown from David’s line, but also the restoration of the crown when a worthy successor is found. Zerubbabel is not crowned because even though he is the governor and a descendant of David, it would have been confusing; a seeming restoration of the kingdom, when it was not ready to be restored; and an encouragement of the temporal hopes, which were the bane of Israel. Instead they are directed to the future fulfillment of God’s plan and promises. That fulfillment, as always is in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. As Paul writes in II Corinthians 1:20, For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. We are looking at a person here in these verses and we see Him as the one who arrives, advances, ascends, and agrees.

I He Arrives

Thus we read in verse 12, Tell him this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place. Zechariah is to explain to Joshua, the high priest, the reason for this unusual ceremony so that he can understand that though he is crowned he is actually a stand-in for a future king who will come, and that King will be a priest. The words branch out are better translated spring up or sprout. It is to remind us of Isaiah’s picture of Messiah in 11:1-3 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. Jesse is David’s father. Isaiah mentions it again in 53:1 and 2, Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. That tender shoot is the mighty arm of the Lord extended for our salvation. The house of David had sunk to such a low condition that it was dry ground and yet it was not dead though it appeared to be, because in Bethlehem of Judah in the days of Herod the king, in the city of David there was born a baby who would change the world and change us, David’s greater son and the Son of God. And so the prophecy of Jeremiah 23:5 and 6 was fulfilled, “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness. Remarkably, even Jewish teachers in the early Christian centuries interpreted “the Branch” of the Messiah. In 200 AD Rabbi Berachiah said that, “God, blessed forever, saith to Israel, Ye say before Me, we are become orphans and have no father; the Redeemer too, whom I am about to make to stand from you, He shall have no father, as is said, Behold the Man whose name is the Branch, and he shall shoot (literally, from below him) from his place; and so saith Isaiah, And he grew up like a sucker before him.”

II He Advances

Not only does the branch spring forth from an unexpected origin, but He has a task which is to advance the religious vision of Israel. So we read in verses 12 and 13, He will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord. It is he who will build the temple of the Lord. Under Ezra and Nehemiah the people are engaged in the arduous task of rebuilding the city of Jerusalem and the temple of the Lord. But, in contrast, this temple is built by Messiah, not for him. It will render temples built by men obsolete. In John 4 the Samaritan woman brings up the location in which her people worshiped in contrast to the Jews worshiping in Jerusalem. Listen to Jesus comment in verses 21-24, “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” As Paul says in Athens on Mars Hill in Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. Jesus is building His temple now of living stones and Paul writes in Ephesians 2:19-22, Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. The Church of Jesus Christ is the new temple and it will remain, indestructible, until He comes again. It is a spiritual temple not made with human hands. The fact that you are here today is proof of that fact.

III He Ascends

We read further in verse 13, And he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. The Jewish people made a serious error which has been perpetuated in the dispensationalism of our own day. They believed the actual throne of David would be restored and that Messiah would sit on that throne in the literal city of Jerusalem. This error was more forgivable when made by the Jews of the first century who expected material kingdom. It is a more serious error for Christians today who should know better. Now the throne of David is no longer on earth for instead of being in a geographical location in the Middle East, it is located in heaven. Peter makes this clear on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:29-33 Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. Yes, Peter said that a descendant of David was sitting on his throne, but not here below, above at the right hand of God. In Acts 15:15-18 at the Apostolic Council James reminds us that the prophets of the Old Testament looked forward to this, The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written: “After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things,” things known from long ago. The house of David was rebuilt in Jesus Christ and his enthronement in heaven and Jesus is clothed with majesty, glory and honor.

IV He Agrees

Again in verse 13 we learn that there is a new harmony between the offices of King and Priest. The two have come into agreement, And he will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two. This combining of the priesthood and the kingship are most necessary in order to bring about peace in God’s created order. Until this occurs thee can be no true peace. It was prophesied in Psalm 110 which, according to the book of Hebrews, is about Jesus Christ. It says in verses 1, 2 and 4, The Lord says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying, “Rule in the midst of your enemies!”…The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” We have already learned that it is not Joshua but the one whom he typifies who will bear the glory and majesty. This is King Jesus who also has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek. There is therefore in Christ an harmonious union between the kingly and priestly offices. The peace or accord is the result of His purchasing it through His priesthood and maintaining it by His kingly rule. Through Him we have peace with God. That there is a counsel of peace between the branch and Jahweh implies that it is the plan of infinite wisdom that the conflicting claims of God’s justice as a King and His mercy as a Priest should meet in one person and be resolved there. So as a result Paul writes in Romans 5:1 and 2, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Through believing in Him as our great High Priest we gain peace, and through obedience to Him as King we experience that peace in our daily lives. This then is Zechariah’s message to Israel; peace is coming in a person; look for Him.