Morning Light – – January 9th, 2018 Zecheriah 13: The Coming of Christ, the End of the Prophets

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Today: [Zecheriah 13] The Coming of Christ, the End of the Prophets. Chapter 13 of Zecheriah speaks of a time when the Jewish people on the earth will finally accept Jesus, when He stands before their nation in physical form. At this time, that Jesus comes to set up His kingdom, with His rule at Jerusalem, the office of the prophet will be done away with, as all is fulfilled by the hand of Jesus Himself, physically returned to earth.
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[Zec 13:1-9 KJV] 1 In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. 2 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, [that] I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land. 3 And it shall come to pass, [that] when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the LORD: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth. 4 And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he hath prophesied; neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive: 5 But he shall say, I [am] no prophet, I [am] an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth. 6 And [one] shall say unto him, What [are] these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, [Those] with which I was wounded [in] the house of my friends. 7 Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man [that is] my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. 8 And it shall come to pass, [that] in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off [and] die; but the third shall be left therein. 9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It [is] my people: and they shall say, The LORD [is] my God.
Chapter 13 opens with the words “in that day”, and then describes what will happen, specifically that the descendants of David (the Jews) will come the realization of the salvation afforded them in Christ. What day is being referenced here? Chapter 12:10 identifies “that day” as a day when the nation of Israel would actually and physically “look on Him whom they have pierced…” This then speaks of the transition time between that of human administration of the earth and the coming of the kingdom in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to set up His rule over all the earth in Jerusalem.
The question we can ask in reading this chapter, does it mean that salvation is not available to the Jews? That would not seem likely as my own family name indicates a strong possibility of Jewish extraction, originating in a Jewish sect that fled the Spanish inquisition and settled in Germany and changing their name from Ya’ar to Walden. What we do need to think about is what Paul called the veil of unbelief that rests upon the Jews:
[2Co 3:14-16 KJV] 14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which [vail] is done away in Christ. 15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. 16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
The vail spoken of is specifically linked to the practice of Moses putting a vail over his face so that the people could not see when the glory lifted from him that shone when he came out of the presence of the Lord to face the people. Because of this the Jewish people from Moses’ day until now think of Moses more highly than they ought, but in this day spoken of in chapter 13 of Zecheriah, there will be a tectonic shift in the Jewish faith to finally accept Jesus as their Messiah. What is it that prompts this? Zecheriah 12:10 tells, us – they will physically see Jesus, on the earth as a resurrected man with the nail scars in His hands and feet. Why would it require such great lengths for the Jews to believe? Because as Paul said in 1 Cor. 1:22 “the Jews seek a sign, the Greeks seek after wisdom…” The ultimate sign will be given them, of the opportunity to seek, handle and converse with the risen Christ, and as a result the entire Jewish ethnicity will shift en masse to belief in Christ.
Notice that verse 1 emphasizes that a fountain shall be opened to the Jews for cleansing from sin. Jesus was aware of this passage, when he spoke specifically of it to the woman at the well in John 4:14:
[Jhn 4:14 KJV] 14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
He made this reference in a conversation with this Samaritan woman about the adversity between the Samaritan and the Jewish people. He was specifically offering to someone outside of the Jewish faith that which He was destined to extend specifically to those of the Jewish faith. This was culminated in the conversion of Cornelius and his household in Acts chapter 10.
In verses 2-5 there is reference to the fact that at this time, when Jesus comes back to rule and reign over all the earth with Jerusalem as His personal capital, that the office of the prophet will be done away with. There is also an implied indication that there will be a resurgence of false prophets during this time that will be put down by the grass roots among the nation of Israel, which portends the breaking of the traditional agreement that has always existed between the prophetic and the people from the time of John the Baptist (see Mark 6:20). This underscores from us the lesson of the deferential prophet. John the Baptist declared “I must decrease that He may increase…” (John 3:30). The role of the prophet is not an end in itself. The office of the prophet is not perpetual in nature. Matthew 3:3 tells us that the role of the prophet is to prepare for the coming of the kingdom. When the kingdom comes, the role of the prophet is to defer to who God and and what God is doing in that unfolding of the kingdom relevant to the generation at hand. Most prophets do not get this. Because of this resistance to the deferential nature of the prophetic call – John the Baptist himself died prematurely, and in this day that Zecheriah 13 speaks of there will apparently be a resurgence of prophets that will be utterly, and violently rejected in the time that Jesus comes physically to set His kingdom upon the earth at Jerusalem.
In verse 6 as affirmed in ch. 12:10 we see again the assurance that the Jews will see, perhaps aided by technology to see it in their totality the wounds that they inflicted or caused to be inflicted upon Jesus when He was rejected by the elite in Jerusalem and subsequently crucified. When Mel Gibson wrote the “Passion of the Christ” there was much dissent among Jewish leaders to the seeming reference that the Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death on the cross. This is the one contradiction to scripture in that movie, in that Gibson redacted the cry of the Jews before Pilate “his blood be upon us and upon our children…” Zecheriah 13:6 however makes it abundantly clear from the perspective of the Messiah himself, the culpability for his execution was brought upon by His “friends” i.e. the Jews. The Romans were not His kinsmen. In this we see that the Jewish nation will finally, once and for all accept their culpability historically for their part in the death of Jesus.
Verses 7-9 seemingly portend what happened to the Jewish people after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, in that just a few years after, the temple was destroyed and the Jews deported by the Romans, along with the early Christians, and scattered throughout the known word. This further suggests that the persecution of Jews has yet to see its zenith, because the 2/3rd decimation of the Jewish people in the world has not yet happened, even under Stalin or Hitler, perhaps this being left to the time of the anti-Christ and his brutal regime. Nonetheless at the end of the matter, Jesus will come and will receive those of the Jews that will accept Him at that time as their Messiah, and He will hear them says that He is their God.