And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of Jehovah, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.
The vision is a courtroom scene. A priest stands in God's presence, and an accuser stands beside him. The question is not whether the charges are true. It is who will speak when the accused cannot.
Everything in the vision turns on who is standing there.
There are three parties in this striking scene — Joshua, the angel of the Lord, and Satan. Joshua the high priest, as already said, stands for the people. He is clothed in filthy garments (v. 3), and they show the guilty condition of the people before God. The angel of the Lord is really Jehovah — Jehovah as He had revealed Himself among Israel... Satan means the adversary: the adversary to God and to man... Satan, then, had grounds for resisting Joshua and for opposing God's purposes of grace towards His people. They were guilty, and Joshua's garments proved it. So the problem was this: how could God righteously bless His people while they were in this condition?
The priest's job in this scene is not the one you might expect.
Joshua, the high priest, represents the people. He is not interceding for them here; he is answering for them. He stands before the presence of Jehovah — before "the angel of his presence," that is, before God as He showed Himself in Israel after they left Mount Horeb. Satan, the adversary to the blessing of God's people, stands there to resist him. Who could answer this? Joshua could not. He was clothed in filthy garments.
One commentator points to where else the high priest acted in this way.
The high priest acts here as the people's representative. He is not going inside the veil. He is much more like the same high priest when he confessed the sins of Israel over the head of the goat chosen for the people — the live goat sent away into the land of forgetfulness. Remember that the high priest had two roles. He represented the people outside the veil, and he interceded for them inside it.
The title given to the one Joshua faces needs explaining.
The "angel of Jehovah" is a very unusual title. The angel of Jehovah is the way the Old Testament often speaks of the Lord Jesus — not the only way, but a very common one. Again and again the angel of Jehovah turns out to be Jehovah Himself.
Satan stands there for a reason. His target is the mercy God shows.
Not only was Joshua in the divine presence; Satan was there also, "standing at his right hand to resist him." It was the great adversary objecting to God showing mercy. He denounces men before God with energy. He stresses their sin and guilt, and protests against showing favour to anyone. No one presses the claims of righteousness harder than Satan, when it suits him to play that part.
Even his name tells you what he is doing.
Satan, the accuser — that is what his name means — is no doubt resisting with the accusations he can bring because of Israel's sins.
The vision does not present Satan as lying. That is what makes the moment so serious.
What answer could he make to the accusations of Satan? The garments were proof against him, and he could not deny it. The enemy did not need to invent a charge to make conviction more likely. Most likely everything Satan said was true. There was no reason to exaggerate even one offence. No one lies or exaggerates when the charge is too plain to be answered. Joshua's garments were enough. If everything depended on his own defence, he was certain to be convicted.
The accused never speaks. Someone else answers for him.
Joshua clothed in filthy garments, and Satan at his right hand. What could Joshua say? Nothing! But Jehovah answered for him, and Satan was defeated. He tried to accuse God's work, and could not. If God was for Joshua, that settled the whole thing.
The same two figures still stand in the same places today.
As accuser of the saints the enemy still has access to God. But the Lord has taken up the defence of His people. Today's believers, God's people now, also have an accuser at their right hand — one who gained rights over man through sin.
- Three stand there. A guilty representative, an accuser at his right hand, and the Angel of the LORD who is Jehovah Himself.
- The accuser is right. The filthy garments are real evidence. Satan needs no lie, and Joshua cannot answer the charge.
- The accused is silent. Joshua offers no defence and no excuse. Everything depends on someone else speaking for him.
- The Lord answers. The One Joshua stands before takes up the case for him, and Satan loses without a word from the accused.
- The scene repeats. Commentators apply it to Israel's future cleansing and to believers now. The accuser still stands at the right hand — and still loses.
And Jehovah said unto Satan, Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan! Yea, Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee! Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?
Zechariah 3 opens like a courtroom: a high priest stands before God in filthy clothes, and an accuser stands beside him with a case no one denies. The verse does not settle whether Joshua is guilty; it settles who speaks for him, and on what ground a holy God can silence the charge.
Only three figures stand in the scene. One writer names them, says what the man in the middle stands for, and explains the accuser's name.
There are three parties in this striking scene — Joshua, the angel of the Lord, and Satan. Joshua the high priest stands for the people, as already said. His filthy garments (v. 3) show their guilty condition before God. The angel of the Lord is really Jehovah — Jehovah as He had made Himself known among Israel. Satan is, as the margin gives it, the adversary — the adversary to God and to man. Satan has gained certain rights over man through man's sin. So he is spoken of as having had the power of death, which he wielded over man as God's just judgment against sin.
Satan is not lying here. That is what makes his defeat so striking.
Satan appealed to God's righteousness and His wrath against sin, in order to ruin Joshua and Jerusalem. But he did not know the divine love, and so he was put to shame. The grace that wants to save sinners is completely unknown to him. Satan came to declare that God's holiness could never tolerate a man in filthy garments in His presence. And he was right.
Notice who never speaks in the verse. Joshua has no defence, and God does not ask him for one.
Satan brings his accusations to God, and God answers for us. Faith takes up God's answer, as in Zechariah 3. Understanding this matters greatly for our peace, and for our holiness too. What could Joshua say about the filthy garments he was charged with? and ought we to have our filthy garments? Surely not; he has nothing to say, but God answers for him: This is a brand I have plucked out of the fire, and you want to put it in again.
The answer names a reason: the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem. Satan had read the law correctly and drawn the wrong conclusion.
Satan had read the law correctly — the law God had placed the people under. He had also understood his own power correctly, the power that came from that ministry of condemnation and death. But he missed the hints of grace scattered here and there through the books of Moses and the Prophets. Indeed his evil heart could not understand them. So he concluded that nothing could resist his claims. He was little prepared for the crushing answer, "The LORD rebuke you, O Satan!"
The guilt itself still had to be dealt with. One writer shows what makes the rebuke righteous, and not only kind.
Did not their guilt and defilement give Satan a claim against the high priest who represented them? It certainly did, and beyond remedy — if Messiah had not been stricken for the transgressions of the people, and bruised for their iniquities. So the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem can rebuke Satan righteously and say, "Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?" Righteously too He can take the iniquity away from their representative, clothe him in rich clothing, and set a clean turban on his head.
A brand is a stick already burning. The picture says two things: how great the danger was, and how worthless the stick was in itself.
Joshua was a brand plucked out of the fire. How that spoke of his danger — plucked out of the fire. How it spoke, too, of worthlessness in itself — a brand plucked out of the fire! Could a brand pluck itself out of the fire? Could it stop the flame spreading? No more could Joshua do anything to stop the judgment he deserved.
Commentators differ on how far the burning had gone. One writer reads the rescue as final.
That does not mean, as some claim, that he was taken out of the fire after the flames had half burned him. No — when the fire came near him, he was spared and set apart, never to be thrown into it again.
The vision points forward to a nation, and it also reaches the individual reading it now.
No matter how great the guilt and shame of the nation of Israel, nothing is too hard for the Lord. He is able to remove the guilt and stain of sin fully, and to do it righteously. The cross of Calvary already laid the basis for this. Today all who trust in the blessed Christ of God are cleansed from their sins by His great sacrifice.
- Charge. The accusation against Joshua was true. His filthy garments showed the real state of the people he stood for.
- Silence. Joshua offers no defence, because a brand cannot pull itself out of the fire.
- Answer. God Himself replies to the accuser. Faith rests in His answer instead of inventing one.
- Ground. The rebuke stands on God's choice of Jerusalem, a grace Satan never allowed for. It stands too on Messiah stricken for the people's transgressions, so the mercy is also righteous.
- Reach. The picture promised a nation its restoration. It shows the same path by which God cleanses any guilty person and sets him at ease in His presence.