A high priest in filthy clothes, an accuser at his right hand, a robe he did not weave, and how a person who has been justified lives
Clean Garments
The series ends where it can be worn. Zechariah saw the high priest of the returned exiles standing in filthy garments with Satan beside him to accuse, and heard a voice order the garments taken off and rich clothing put on, because his iniquity had been made to pass from him. Isaiah said all our righteousness is a polluted garment and that God clothes us with the robe of righteousness. Paul asked who could bring a charge. This lesson is about the robe, and the walk a person takes in it.
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Lesson 12 of 12 · The robe
Zechariah’s vision is the ninth lesson drawn as a picture. Joshua the high priest stands before the angel of Yahweh in filthy garments, and Satan stands at his right hand to accuse him, and the accusation is not answered by anything Joshua says or does. Yahweh rebukes the accuser; the angel orders the filthy garments taken off; a voice says, I have caused your iniquity to pass from you, and I will clothe you with rich clothing; and a clean turban is set on his head. That is righteousness by faith as the Old Testament saw it, a robe given to a man who could not have washed the one he had. The New Testament says who the robe is: Christ, made to us righteousness, and in the same sentence sanctification, which is the walk that follows the robe and never replaces it. Paul asks who could bring a charge against God’s chosen, and answers that God justifies and Christ intercedes, which is Zechariah’s courtroom with the verdict read. John writes so that you may know. The series has followed a lamb from a mountain to a throne so that a reader could stand where Joshua stood, hear the accuser, and be dressed.
Take the filthy garments off him
Zechariah is shown a court, and the defendant is the highest religious officer in the land.
He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before Yahweh’s angel, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary. Yahweh said to Satan, “Yahweh rebuke you, Satan! Yes, Yahweh who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Isn’t this a burning stick plucked out of the fire?” Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the angel. He answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, “Take the filthy garments off him.” To him he said, “Behold, I have caused your iniquity to pass from you, and I will clothe you with rich clothing.” I said, “Let them set a clean turban on his head.” So they set a clean turban on his head, and clothed him; and Yahweh’s angel was standing by. — Zechariah 3:1–5 · WEB
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He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before Yahweh’s angel, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary. Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments. He said, take the filthy garments off him; and to him he said, behold, I have caused your iniquity to pass from you, and I will clothe you with rich clothing. Satan’s name means the accuser, and he has a case: the priest who is supposed to enter the Most Holy Place clean is standing in clothes the Hebrew describes with the word for excrement. Joshua does not argue. He does not wash. The rebuke of the accuser, the removal of the garments and the clean clothing are all done to him, by a word, and the word says why: your iniquity has been made to pass from you, the verb of the Passover. Isaiah had said that all our righteousness is a polluted garment, and Genesis 3 had said that the first clothing anyone wore was made by God for people who had failed. The vision is the two together.
δικαιοσύνη dikaiosýnē G1343
from δίκαιος; equity (of character or act); specially (Christian) justification:--righteousness.
Righteousness, justice, the state of being right — with God, before a court, in a relationship; and in Paul, the righteousness that God gives. The phrase "the righteousness of God" was the one Luther said he hated, because he read it as the righteousness by which God judges, until he saw in Romans 1:17 that it is the righteousness God gives to the one who believes, and, he wrote, the gates of paradise opened. The Old Testament word behind it is the tsedaqah of the second series, right dealing within a bond; Zechariah’s robe and Isaiah’s robe of righteousness are that word worn. Paul’s claim is that the robe has a name.
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Who could bring a charge?
Paul ends the argument of Romans with Zechariah’s courtroom, and puts the accuser’s question to the reader.
Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. — Romans 8:33–34 · WEB
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Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. The accuser is answered by two facts, not by the defendant’s record: the judge has given his verdict, and the one who died and rose is standing at the judge’s right hand speaking for the accused, which is the servant of the sixth lesson making intercession for the transgressors. Seven verses earlier Paul had said there is now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, and three verses later that nothing in creation will separate them from the love of God. Zechariah’s Joshua, standing in his new clothes while the accuser is rebuked, is where every believer stands in this chapter.
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Righteousness and sanctification
One sentence of Paul’s gives the robe and the walk in their order.
Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, — 1 Corinthians 1:30 · WEB
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Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption. Christ is made to the believer righteousness: not a righteousness like his, but his, credited, the robe. And in the same breath sanctification, the being made holy that follows, the walk of the tenth lesson, which is also him and not the believer’s own production. The order is the whole of Protestant theology in four nouns, and the Reformers were careful about it: justification is the verdict, sanctification the life that grows from it, and a person who reverses them will spend their life trying to earn a robe they were already given. The Adventist church spent a general conference in 1888 on the phrase righteousness by faith and has argued about that conference since, which is one measure of how easily the order slips.
“I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh! My soul will be joyful in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” Isaiah 61:10 · WEB
He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland: the robe, in the prophet, as a wedding garment given.
“For we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” Isaiah 64:6 · WEB
We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is like a polluted garment: what the believer was wearing before, in the same prophet.
“For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 · WEB
For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God: the exchange the Reformers called great, the lamb’s side and the believer’s side in one sentence.
“Therefore let’s also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1–2 · WEB
Let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who endured the cross: the walk, and where the eyes go while walking.
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That you may know
The last thing a justified person needs is to know it, and John wrote a letter so that they would.
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. — 1 John 5:13 · WEB
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These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. Not hope, not guess: know. Assurance was the Reformation’s other great word, and it follows from everything the series has said. If the robe were woven by the wearer, no one could be sure it was finished; since it was given, the wearer can be as sure as the giver’s word. Hebrews puts the same thing as a posture: draw near with boldness to the throne of grace. The household behind the Passover door could not see the blood and did not need to; they had been told, and they ate their meal.
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What the series asks
Twelve lessons, and one animal. A lamb God provides on a mountain, so that a son lives. A lamb whose blood on a door turns a judgment aside from a family who did nothing but trust it was there. A lamb every morning and evening, and a goat once a year behind a veil, so that a nation could be told it was forgiven and clean. A servant led like a lamb, bearing what the we had done. A pierced one, looked on. The hour of the lambs, and a witness who saw the blood. Then the question the lamb was always asking, and Paul’s answer: credited, freely, to the one who believes, and never alone. Then the throne, with the wound still showing, and a robe. The series asks what the Baptist asked at the Jordan and what Zechariah’s angel did for Joshua: behold the Lamb, and be dressed. Everything else a Christian does is done in that robe, and none of it is done to earn it.
Read Zechariah 3:1-5 and Romans 8:31-39. Write down who accuses, who answers, and what Joshua does in the vision. Then write, in your own words, the sentence you would say to the accuser, and check it against Romans 8:33-34 to see whether it rests on you or on the Lamb.
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