< Zechariah 3:1-5 >

"Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, "The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?" Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel. Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, "Take away the filthy garments from him." And to him He said, "See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes." And I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the Angel of the Lord stood by."

Warm greetings to all! Today`s Scripture passage is taken from Zechariah 3:1-5 as we`ve just read above. We see in Zechariah chapter 3 and verses 1-5 how Jehovah God clothes the High Priest Joshua shown standing in front of Zechariah with rich robes of righteousness thereby removing his filthy and muddy garments exposed by Satan as he tries to prod on his acts of the flesh. Like this, you and I can only be clothed with the righteousness of our Lord as the Devil tries to bring us to an open shame.

In a similar vein, what do you and I make of the sacrificial animal skin, that is, the tunics of skin provided by God compared to the sewed fig tree leaves worn by the first man Adam and his wife Eve, our forebears of faith, in the Garden of Eden? Well, those sewed fig tree leaves worn by Adam and Eve vividly remind me of the first fashion and clothing by man. On the other hand, the tunics of skin God clothes man with in the Garden of Eden in the Old Testament era represents the fact that our sins were transferred over onto an animal who died in our place for the remission of our sins and in the New Testament it was the will of God that His Son Jesus Christ, the heavenly High Priest in the order of Melchizedek, was baptized by being submerged about waist deep in the Jordan River when He turned thirty as His first work in His public ministry by the representative of mankind, the last prophet of the Old Testament and the earthly High Priest John the Baptist. And three years later at the age of 33 Jesus died on the Cross spilling out all His own blood and said, "It is finished!" Making a new and living way consecrated by His flesh and blood through absolving our sins passed on to Him during His baptism and the sacrifice of the Cross by shedding water and blood and remitted away completely once-off my sins as well as yours and that of the entire world. This is the gist of the Lord`s gospel consisting of the baptism and blood of Jesus Christ. Even though Adam and Eve were founding ancestors of faith in the first world before God exterminated the earth by the waters of the flood, Abraham became the greatest originator of faith in the second world after the destruction by the Deluge of the first world. Insofar as starting from Adam, this faith of the offering of the sacrificial animal was transferred to Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah and passed on to Abraham, the originator of our faith and the founding father of the nation of Israel, God`s chosen nation and the Promised Land, Canaan, which spiritually is Heaven, that God swore to give their forefathers among the seven nations conquered by the children of Israel in the Old Testament, "as an ox licks up the grass of the field." As such, both the Israelites and us the Gentiles (and the Muslims in comparison) look on to Abraham as their father of faith.

Even back in the Garden of Eden man`s futility in setting up his own righteousness through fig leaves, which when sewed and worn scatters along with the movement of the body, got replaced eventually with tunics of skin of an animal demonstrating the forever and eternally lasting righteousness of the Holy Triune God—God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament’s sacrificial system, when one transfers sins to an unblemished animal back in those days of the Old Testament by the laying on of hands and the animal bore those sins the animal does not become sin. First of all, by a representative principle Christ bore our sins during His baptism in the Jordan River by the laying on of hands by the last high priest of the Old Testament, the greatest man born of a woman and the representative of all mankind, John the Baptist, but remained without sin—that is to say, sinless. When one transferred sins to an unblemished animal back in those days of the Old Testament by the laying on of hands and the animal bore those sins the animal doesn`t become sin. We are altogether now settled on the fact here that Christ remains sinless through His two attributes of man and divinity. Even at that, the sacrificial animal in the Old Testament, with the laying on of hands, the sacrificial animal does not become sin in accordance with the detailed statutes of the 613 commandments of the Law. Do you now get the point? The animal only carried sin. That is why the animal was sacrificed for the sinner. Animals need to have what kinds of morals and ethics for them to be sinful? The conscience of the righteous man or an unbeliever is his deputy (Romans 2:15) but in the case of animals they cannot understand the Law since they don`t have a soul or consciousness. It was mainly substituted by God on behalf of the people of Israel. The animal was killed and died after laying on of their hands for the transference of the people`s sins. Sin is weightless and formless. It cannot be judged from the rationality of your senses (smell, taste, hearing, sight and touch) to have disappeared since people cannot feel it on their own. A sin doesn`t have smell, color and does not make sounds. Do not act out of and from your emotions to say that your sins have been blotted all out. Whereas being emotional changes, the absolutely indispensable standard of the Word of God does not change. The truth of Jesus Christ having carried our sins on His back during His baptism by the laying on of hands by John the Baptist in the Jordan and His shedding of all His blood on the Cross which washed away and pardoned you and me from our sins, as well as the sin of the whole world, from the beginning to the end of the universe, once and for all, and for forever, doesn`t change. The Bible says, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and... for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul" (Leviticus 17:11). If we read Leviticus 16:22 from the King James Version this Scripture passage says about the scapegoat which is "aza`zel" in Hebrew (meaning "she-goat to let go") "And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness." The animal just bore upon it all the yearly sins of Israel. In lieu of the sacrificial offering in the Old Testament is the gospel word of the water and the Spirit in the New Testament. Truly God`s special gift to mankind for the remission of all his or her lifelong sin is this very gospel word of the water and the Spirit through Jesus` righteous act of His baptism at the River Jordan, the death He died on the Cross by shedding blood and water where He said "It is finished!" as well as His resurrection from the dead on the third day thereby made Him become our perfect Lord and Savior without an iota of a doubt in contrast to the deities of this world. Hallelujah!

Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb! It`s only by meeting the Lord Jesus Christ through the wonderful gospel of the water and the Spirit and not from ourselves. It is by the love of God and His law of true salvation by the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus` baptism and His death on the Cross. God`s salvation from sin is possible only when we have the right faith that is the belief in the baptism of Jesus and the Cross. This faith and belief is to testify to His baptism at the River Jordan by John the Baptist, who is the representative of the world and the greatest man born of a woman, as well as His death and shedding of His blood on the Cross together as one Man`s sacrifice that is responsible for blotting out the sins of each one of us. Nonetheless, we have to hold on to the gospel of our salvation of the water, blood and Spirit lests we forget, after we are born again of water and the Spirit, and bravely face our martyrdom by not throwing this faith nor in capitulating before the untrue gospels and their adherents along with Satan the Devil. Now, who wants to cork the new footprints toward our salvation, the truth of the gospel of the water and the Spirit? "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink," says the Lord of all hosts. Hallelujah! To these persons who believe in the baptism of Jesus and His death on the Cross their faith rights them sinless. They do not have sin in their hearts. Nevertheless, they still commit sin out of their shortcomings and weaknesses of the flesh as they walk on their lusts away from God`s salvation. Further away from the true faith in Jesus Christ by the water, the blood, and the Spirit of the King of all kings and the Holy God as a result you are stripped of the righteousness of God, which is of God`s love, you lose becoming righteous and remain fronting your own righteousness. Rather be stripped off your own righteousness. ✉️