3. It was not, however, his own personal transgressions alone of which Joshua bore the guilt. He appears here as the repre- sentative of a guilty people. The filthy garments with which he is clothed are the sins of the community ; and the charges urged
1 J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, i. 48.
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against him by Satan are its crimes and backslidings. The un- cleanness of Israel which infests their representative before God is not defined. Some hold that it includes the guilt of Israel's idolatry. But they have to go back to Ezekiel for this. Zechariah nowhere mentions or feels the presence of idols among his people. The vision itself supplies a better explanation. Joshua's filthy garments are replaced by festal and official robes. He is warned to walk in the whole law of the Lord, ruling the Temple and guarding Jehovah's court. The uncleanness was the opposite of all this. It was not ethical failure : covetousness, greed, im- morality. It was, as Haggai protested, the neglect of the Temple, and of the whole worship of Jehovah. If this be now removed, in all fidelity to the law, the high priest will have access to God, and the Messiah will come. The high priest himself will not be the Messiah — this dogma is left to a later age to frame. But before God he will be as one of the angels, and himself and his faithful priesthood omens of the Messiah. We need not linger on the significance of this for the place of the priesthood in later Judaism. Note how the high priest is already the religious representative of his people: their uncleanness is his; when he is pardoned and cleansed, the uncleanness of the land is purged away. In such a high priest Christian theology has seen the prototype of Christ.
^| Heaven is not a place of sacrifice, and our Lord is no longer a Sacrificing Priest. He has " offered one sacrifice for sins for ever." But His Presence in the Holiest is a perpetual and effective pre- sentation before God of the Sacrifice once offered, which is no less needful for our acceptance than the actual death upon the Cross. He has indeed " somewhat to offer " in His heavenly priesthood, for He offers Himself as representing to God man reconciled, and as claiming for man the right of access to the Divine Presence. He Himself, as He sits on the Throne, in the perfected and glorified Manhood which has been obedient unto death, is the living Pro- pitiation for our sins, and the standing guarantee of acceptance to all " that draw near unto God through him." x
1 H. B. Swete, The Ascended Christ, 48.
ZECHARIAH in. t, 2 417
II.
The Accuser.
"And Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary."
1. The role played in this scene by Satan is similar to that ascribed to him in the Book of Job, where he appears in the court of Heaven, to minimize the merits of good men and to place their shortcomings in the worst of lights. So here he is the accuser who, with the skill of an advocate, urges the offences of which the people of God have been guilty and endeavours to secure their condemnation and rejection.
It has been contended that in such passages we have a con- ception of Satan out of accordance with the later representations of Scripture. Satan, it is said, is not here a fallen angel and an enemy of God, whose abode is in hell, but one of the sons of God, enjoying free access to the Divine Presence, and fulfilling a necessary, though perhaps a disagreeable, function in the Divine administration.
This, however, is a shallow view ; because the part played by Satan both here and in Job is a thoroughly evil one. It is true that to expose sin may be praiseworthy work. It is the work of the prophet ; an Amos, a Malachi, and a John the Baptist had to make manifest the exceeding sinfulness of the public crimes of their day, and drag into the light the hidden vices. In all ages this is the duty of the preacher ; it was performed by a Chrysostom, a Savonarola, and an Andrewes; and in no country or city is it superfluous. The office of conscience itself is to accuse and condemn the sinner. Yet it does not follow that everyone is praiseworthy who undertakes the office of accuser. All depends on his motive. The prophets stigmatized sin because they were jealous for the honour of God ; the true-hearted preacher awakens the conscience in order to save the soul; but it is possible to expose sin merely for the purpose of gloating over it. The short- comings of good people may be held up to ridicule, not for the purpose of correcting them, but in order to prove that no such things as unselfishness and purity exist. There are those who are never so happy as when they have discovered something which jer.-mal. — 27
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seems to prove that a profession of religion or high principle is only the mask under which a hypocrite is concealing his misdeeds. When God's work is making progress and its leaders are perform- ing acts of heroism, such critics are silent ; but, when any good cause shows signs of decline or any good man takes a false step, they seize upon the fact with avidity and publish it to all the winds of heaven. This is the spirit of the devil, and it is the one attributed in this passage to Satan.