Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, the hosts methodically show how Scripture is one cohesive story. Critical Thinking with a little bit of theology and apologetics and you have what this podcast is about. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity today must address woke, deconstruction, and progressive Christianity, all topics that are addressed if we go purposefully through the Bible. Join Glenn and Steve weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S11 || The Future Messianic Temple || Zechariah 6:9-15 || Session 11 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
What if a crown symbolized more than just royalty? Join us as we unravel the profound symbolism of priestly kingship in Zechariah 6:9-15, exploring the prophetic message intricately woven into God's instructions to the prophet Zechariah. We dissect the act of crafting an ornate crown for Joshua, the high priest, and how this gesture transcends time to foretell the coming Messiah, the "Branch." The journey doesn't stop at symbolism; we venture into the fascinating realm of biblical temples, questioning whether these sacred spaces are physical or spiritual. By dissecting prophecy, historical contexts, and allegorical interpretations found in Zechariah, Galatians, and Hebrews, we engage in a thoughtful exploration of the future Messianic temple and kingship. Are these prophecies hinting at a tangible house of the Lord, or a metaphorical reign from David's throne? Join us for this enlightening episode and continue discovering the depths of biblical prophecy.
Welcome to another session of Reasoning Through the Bible where we do very careful exegetical study of the Word of God. We are in the Old Testament, book of Zechariah. We're in chapter 6. You have your copy of the Word of God open there. I'm going to start reading in Zechariah 6-9, because the visions here are now over and they were all very clear. They're kind of fantastic, but they're clear. Now we turn a corner a little bit in the book and the Lord starts giving the prophet more traditional messages to communicate to the people of Israel. So we're going to hear God's message here, starting in Zechariah 6.9.
Speaker 1:The word of the Lord also came to me saying Take an offering from the exiles from Heldaia, tobijah, jedaiah, and you go the same day and enter the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah, where they have arrived from Babylon. Take silver and gold, make an ornate crown and set it on the head of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, then say to him Thus says the Lord of hosts Behold a man whose name is Branch, for he will branch out from where he is and he will build the temple of the Lord. Yes, it is he who will build the temple of the Lord and he who will bear the honor and sit and rule on his throne. Thus he will be a priest on his throne and the council of peace will be between the two offices. Now the crown will become a reminder in the temple of the Lord to Helam, tobijah, jedaiah and Hen, the son of Zephaniah.
Speaker 1:Those who are far off will come and build the temple of the Lord. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you, and it will take place if you completely obey the Lord, your God. Steve, this seems to be a strong message, but let's go through it and kind of unpack what he's saying here. What did he tell the prophet Zephaniah?
Speaker 2:to do. Well, a summary is that he says take some offerings from some of the exiles that are coming back, make a crown, take this crown, put it on Joshua. As he's talking about that, he has a little bit of a parenthetical statement there, glenn, I think, in a couple of verses talking about the branch, and we settled on what the branch was, that it was the Messiah. We had that back in chapter 3 and some other cross references from some of the other prophets that that branch was going to build a temple. Then he comes back from that parenthetical part and he says take that crown, put it in the temple that's being built and it's going to serve as a reminder and if you do all the ordinances that you're supposed to do, then the temple will be built and you'll know that God has sent me Zechariah to you for these words. We have a little bit of mixture here of things that are going to happen in Zechariah's time frame and something that's going to happen, I think, in the future. What do you think?
Speaker 1:Oh, I think so exactly, and I think it becomes more clear as we go through this. This is going to be one of these sections where we have to kind of look at okay, where's this present, future or past? Let's go ahead and walk through what's happening here. God speaks to Zechariah and he mentions the names of three or four specific people and says go to them and get gold and silver. Now, remember, these people had been in Babylon for 70 years and now they've come back to the land. They must have brought back some wealth with them, because God knew who it was that had the wealth to send Zechariah to.
Speaker 1:I'm reminded Steve of back in the book of Exodus, when God was bringing the people out of Egypt. Well, what did he do? He caused the people of Egypt to give Israel wealth. As they left Israel, left Egypt, they brought large amount of gold and very valuable things. They were quite wealthy when they left all those years of slavery in Egypt. Well, the same thing must have happened here. When they came back from Babylon, they must have had some degree of wealth, or these men wouldn't have had the gold and the silver. Two things here. First of all, god knows. He knows who has the wealth and who doesn't, to send them to? Secondly, steve, who controls the wealth of nations? God caused Egypt to give wealth to the Jews. Here it seems to have at least to some degree caused Babylon to give some wealth to the Jews. Who is it that controls the wealth of a nation?
Speaker 2:Well, god controls the wealth of the nations through the different areas of providence that he brings about. Yeah, I think there's no doubt that he has a way in order to do that, to bless different nations whenever they're honoring him and also to, like we said before, to bring about judgment.
Speaker 1:Then, if we look at verse 11, he tells Zechariah make this crown, make a very nice crown or an eight crown out of gold and silver and go and set it on whose?
Speaker 2:head. Who set it on? The high priest Joshua. That's the high priest that is there at the time of Zechariah.
Speaker 1:Now I think the name here communicates something in the sense of Joshua. Of course, this is a different Joshua than the Joshua earlier in the Bible from the book of Joshua. This is many, many years later. This is the high priest Joshua that was alive at the time of Zechariah. But the name Joshua is, I think, meaningful in the sense that it means deliverer. It means God is deliverer. The name Joshua, if we look at the Septuagint version, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, hebrew, it renders this word Jesus. Jesus' name was the New Testament language translation of the Old Testament language. Joshua. God is deliverer, is Jesus.
Speaker 1:The symbolism here keeps going and going. He's supposed to take this crown, go to the high priest, whose name is deliverer, and put a crown on his head. Now it says also in verse 13 that it speaks of this branch being a priest on his throne. We have the physical act of building a physical crown and placing it on the head of this high priest that was alive at the time. Then the message was this branch is going to come and he's going to be a priest on his throne. Well, that begs the question, steve, what was the Old Testament? Levitical rules about priests and kings, was there such a thing in the Mosaic law of a priest wearing a crown.
Speaker 2:Well, in the Mosaic law, the only ones that were to be priests were from the tribe of Levi, or Levi, and the high priests were supposed to be for the descendants of Aaron. They were to be separate and they were not to be any type of a king. They were the order that were to do all of the sacrifices and the work in the temple, and they were representatives between the people and God, representatives between the people and God. So no, there wasn't any type of area where the Levites were supposed to be in the kingly line.
Speaker 1:And on top of that, the kings were in the line of David and David was not of the tribal Levi. There's even specific instructions in the Mosaic law that the kings were not allowed to do the priestly duties. The kings were the kings and the priest was a priest, and there were two offices and they were not to meet. The priests were not to go and be a king, they were to stay and do priestly duties. The kings were not supposed to leave that office to go try to be a priest. Two different offices.
Speaker 1:In the Old Testament law that was quite clear. Here we have a very different message. He makes a crown, sets it on the head of the high priest and then gives a message there's going to be this branch, this Messiah that comes and he's going to sit on his throne. He has this message where he makes a physical crown as an object lesson to illustrate this and say there will be a time when the priest wears a crown, where the priest wears a kingly crown. Now, steve, who is it? There's a prominent person. I'll give you one guess that is both priest and king.
Speaker 2:Well, that is Jesus we see over. In Hebrews when it talks about Jesus being the high priest and that he is also, through him, can draw near to him. And in Hebrews it also says that Jesus is of the order of Melchizedek. Historically, melchizedek was the king and the priest of Salem. Abraham gave him one-tenth of the spoils as he came back. Hebrews equates Jesus with this order of Melchizedek, which was not of the same order of what you just mentioned of the Levites on the priestly line. It's very clear that there's a reference to Jesus being a king and a priest. Even in this verse here you mentioned rightly that it says the priest on his throne. Right before that it says he will bear honor and sit and rule on his throne. So it's very clear in this verse 13 that it's talking both about a king ruling and a priest on the throne.
Speaker 1:Way back in Genesis, chapter 14, there's this man called Melchizedek and he walks onto the pages of scripture very briefly and then walks off and he has no origins. Remember all the genealogies in Genesis? Well, Melchizedek doesn't have one. He just walks onto the pages and it calls him King of Salem, which reminds us later of Yerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. King of Salem, priest of the Most High God. Then he moves off. Later, as you well pointed out, Hebrews chapters 5, 6, and 7 speak of Melchizedek and Jesus being a high priest. According to the order of Melchizedek, Jesus is both the descendant of David and heir to the throne and our high priest. So this message here in Zechariah God has him make a crown, put it on the head of God, the Deliverer Joshua, slash Jesus with the message that there's going to come a Messiah. There will come one who is both priest and king, so heir to the throne. Very, very powerful message here, Very clear he's speaking about the Messiah.
Speaker 2:This order of Melchizedek is not just in Hebrews in the New Testament, it's also mentioned in the Old Testament in Psalm 110. The first four verses there David writes the Lord says to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool, and that you will rule in the midst of those enemies. David points out there that you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. For those who just say, oh, that's only mentioned in the New Testament, no, this is also mentioned in the Old Testament by none other than David himself, in Psalm 110.
Speaker 1:Then, in verse 12, it talks about a man whose name is Branch. Well, remember, if you've been with us, that term has already arisen in the book of Zechariah, in chapter 3, verse 8, and in chapter 4, verse 12. And there were verses that we mentioned at that time, in previous prophets, that made it clear that when it says the Branch, he's talking about the Messiah. Look at verses 12 and 13,. What it says about the Messiah. Look at verses 12 and 13,. What it says about the Messiah. He is supposed to do what. He's supposed to build the temple. He's supposed to bear honor, he's supposed to sit on his throne and he's supposed to bring peace between the king and the priest. Jesus is the only one that can do this. Jesus is the only one that can bring peace between the two offices.
Speaker 1:The bronze mountains were the two offices of king and priest. So therefore, the message here is that the two offices are going to be reconciled in this one person who is both king and priest. This was very, very different than anybody that could have ever lived in the Old Testament, simply because, as we already said, the priests were priests and the kings were kings, and never the two shall meet. So it's talking very clearly, a messianic prophecy here, that there will come this branch, this root and branch of David that will be both king and priest and he can bring peace between the two offices. Steve, that's just a tremendous, tremendous lesson, tremendous prophecy here, that only Jesus could fulfill.
Speaker 2:Yes, and this is the same branch that was mentioned back in the vision in chapter 3. It's well established again, not only here but also in other prophets, chapter 3, it's well established again, not only here but also in other prophets, that this term, the branch, it says specifically that it's going to be from the root of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David. This term branch is used throughout the Old Testament that it's talking about the Messiah, the one who is going to sit once again on the Davidic throne.
Speaker 1:In these verses he very clearly is saying that the Messiah will come. He's going to be both king and priest. He's going to sit on his throne. He's going to have honor and is an object lesson. For that he makes a physical crown out of silver and gold, places it on the high priest head and then says afterwards this crown is to sit in the temple, the temple of Zerubbabel, as a reminder over time that this is going to happen. So he makes a crown that is supposed to be in the temple once it's built and it'll sit there and say well, why is there a crown in there? Ah, there's going to come a priest that's going to also be the king. This was a reminder of the Messianic prophecy that, again, only Jesus could fulfill. Why are there all those genealogies in Matthew, chapter 1? Because he is the offspring of David. He can wear the crown of David. Why does Hebrews go into so much detail talking about the Old Testament temple ceremonies? Well, because our high priest is qualified to be the priest also. Tremendous, tremendous lesson here, steve.
Speaker 1:This also brings up, though the temple. He mentions the temple here several times. In verse 12, it says the branch Jesus will build the temple of the Lord. The next verse, verse 13,. Yes, it is he who will build the temple of the Lord. Then it says in verse 15, those who are far off will come and build the temple to the Lord. We have there two different people building the temple. Is that an issue?
Speaker 2:It's not an issue if you just go through the text and read it in its plain language.
Speaker 2:And, as I mentioned in the summary, verses 12 and 13 are a parenthetical statement between the other verses here.
Speaker 2:One way that we know that this is two different timeframes is that when, after verse 13, it switches back to verse 14, where it says and now this crown will become a reminder in the temple of the Lord to Helam and the other people, those that are far off, which you just mentioned, are going to build this temple. It also says in 15, then you'll know that me, zechariah, have been sent to you. And at the last part of 15, it says and it will take place if you completely obey the Lord, your God. Well, the Messiah being Jesus, there is no requirement for him to obey the Lord in order to operate in the temple. So if you just read through here, you'll see that there is two timeframes. It's the timeframe of Zechariah, that he is with the actual high priest at the time, joshua, then this parenthetical part that talks about, in the future, of the Messiah building a future temple that he's going to build at some other point in time.
Speaker 1:We said when we started Zechariah that we would, as we go through, slow down at different places and talk about some of these things, past, present or future. This is one of them, because different legitimate Bible teachers have interpreted this temple to be different things. Let's look at this passage in detail and we can unpack it, but first of all let's define some terms. The word temple in the Bible is used more than one sense. There's, of course, the physical buildings of the Temple of Solomon in the New Testament, the Temple of Herod. Those were physical buildings that we would think of as a building. That's a temple. It also speaks in the New Testament of our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 6.19. Our body is a temple in a New Testament sense. It also speaks in the New Testament of the church is built up as a temple. The church is a spiritual temple, ephesians 2.21. And then it also speaks in 1 Corinthians about the church as building stones. He says you are living stones being built up. The sense there is that you as people are these figurative stones. It talks about that in 1 Corinthians 3.9 and 1 Peter 2.5. With that rises the question is he talking about a physical building or is he talking about the church as a spiritual building? That's a legitimate question that I think we should answer, because here it's obviously talking about the Messiah and he's talking about building a temple and reigning on a throne. So exactly what does this mean? Is it physical, is it spiritual? Was it fulfilled in Zechariah's day? Is it future?
Speaker 1:Since Zechariah 6, 12 and 13 speak of Messiah and all these temple, then we have to answer this. First of all, was it historical? In Zechariah's day? We would say no, simply because, again, look at the text the Messiah is to build this temple in Zechariah 6. And the Messiah did not come. The priest king did not come and build that temple in Zerubbabel's day. Verse 14, the golden crown, which is a physical object, lesson crown, was to be put in Zerubbabel's temple as a reminder that the Messiah was going to come to build this future temple. This doesn't make sense to say it was Zerubbabel's temple. Simply because of that, messiah didn't return in Zerubbabel's day to build it. Simply because of that, messiah didn't return in Zerubbabel's day to build it. The object lesson was hey, look forward to a time when the priest king, the Messiah, is going to come and build a temple.
Speaker 2:Therefore, it could not have been a preterist view of Zerubbabel's temple. I was just going to say and Zerubbabel's temple was actually torn down in AD 7 by the Roman army.
Speaker 1:The next question arises is this speaking of the church as a temple and Jesus building the church as a temple? Because that illustration is used. We just quoted that a minute ago. Let's walk through that option. The amillennialists will say that because the New Testament speaks of a spiritual temple, then there's not going to be a real physical temple in the future, say a messianic temple or a millennial temple. The New Testament uses allegory like that in more than one place and we have to look at the New Testament's use of figurative language in order to make a conclusion about this temple. For example, in Galatians 4.21 and following, we have the Apostle Paul mentioning Abraham, sarah, hagar and Mount Sinai, and he even uses the word allegory in there. He takes in Galatians 4,. These Old Testament stories't conclude. Therefore there were no physical Mount Sinai and that Abraham and Sarah and Hagar were figurative people that never existed. That's not a legitimate way of interpreting the scriptures. No, no, it's the other way around. Abraham, sarah, hagar, mount Sinai were real, physical things that Paul used in an allegorical sense. The physical logically precedes the allegorical application. This doesn't stop there. The New Testament keeps going with this.
Speaker 1:Hebrews 9.9 speaks of the tabernacle ceremony as quote symbolic of the present time. Unquote is what it says there In Hebrews. It's taking the Old Testament tabernacle ceremonies and explaining them and walking them through, showing how this represents Jesus Christ. Well, we don't conclude that because Hebrews 9 and following use these things in a figurative spiritual sense. Therefore, there was no real, no real actual physical ceremony that the priest went through in the tabernacle. Again, it's the other way around, because there was a real physical temple ceremony. Therefore, hebrews can use it in an allegorical sense Further.
Speaker 1:1 Corinthians 12.21,. Paul speaks of Christians and the church as a body, speaks of them as having eyes, hands, feet. He said the eye can't talk to the feet and separate out. He's explaining the church in this allegorical sense of a body with eyes and hands and feet. We don't then conclude there is no real physical body with no eyes, hands and feet. We have multiple times where the New Testament uses figurative spiritual applications, allegories, to draw physical conclusions about things in a spiritual sense in the New Testament. But these were real physical things, actual historical things from the Old Testament. It's that way multiple times. Therefore, it is illegitimate to take when he talks about the church being built up as a spiritual temple and us as living stones. It's illegitimate to take that and then therefore say well, that shows that there is no messianic physical temple that will be built someday. See, that's the first line of conclusion. Is it's just not a logical conclusion to take the allegorical application and use it to destroy actual, physical historical prophecy?
Speaker 2:Also, this is not the only reference that talks about a future temple or the temple or house that the Messiah is going to build and dwell in. It's not just here in Zechariah, it's also in other prophets in the Old Testament. Now, in Zechariah's time, I do want to mention that the expectation was set that there was going to be a Messiah that was going to come and do this In Zechariah's day. It could have been to him the next day, the next week, the next year, 10 years. I do think that they set forth a little bit of apprehension of imminency for the Messiah to come through this vision that Zechariah has.
Speaker 2:We know that the Messiah came and manifested himself in Jesus and we have reasons for that. We're looking back and able to determine that the Messiah is Jesus himself, but here it's physical. Something is happening. Nothing happened as far as a Messiah that came and that was a king and also a priest, physically in a temple or house of the Lord. There was a time of the Maccabees that were there, but they rebuilt and repurposed Zerubbabel's temple. It wasn't a brand new temple and, as I mentioned just a while ago, Zerubbabel's Temple was torn down in AD 70. So I think, from a practical standpoint, we also can see that this is still something that has yet to take place and is something that is still in the future.
Speaker 1:Point number two in our decision-making and trying to decide whether Zechariah 6 is real messianic temple or not. In verse 13, he speaks of this king-priest sitting on his throne or reigning from his throne. Well, the throne there is the throne of David, king of Israel. Jesus today is not sitting on the throne of Israel. He's sitting at the right hand of the Father. The throne there is the throne of David. It's the throne of Israel. He's not on that throne today because he's not reigning over Israel in that sense. So that's probably more. We could do with that on a future date, but that's the answer here.
Speaker 1:Next, I'd like to talk about something that I think is quite important, because our covenant theology friends and our amillennial friends have an issue with the idea of a future messianic temple, an actual physical building being built with temple ceremonies that would be God-honoring. The accusation from our amillennial and covenant theology friends is that this would blaspheme the work of Jesus Christ, the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The general idea and the accusation they make is that if we set up a millennial temple, a messianic temple, then it would say that Jesus' death on the cross was not sufficient. The idea is that Jesus' death on the cross was a sufficient fulfillment of the Old Testament temple ceremony of the blood sacrifice. So that's a serious accusation and a serious concern. So it needs some attention. Now's as good a time as any To say that was a heretical application of being a future temple. First of all, we have to look at in the Old Testament there was more than one temple and more than one ceremony. The one that Moses got on Mount Sinai was a pattern of, and we're told that in Exodus 25.9 and Hebrews 8.2. So there's one in heaven, that's one that God has created, that we would presume still exists. There's no reason to believe that wouldn't. Again, hebrews 8.2 talks about it in present tense. There's then the tabernacle that lasted from Moses to David. They then took the tabernacle, which is basically a tent, and built a temple. In Solomon's day that temple was destroyed. Then Zerubbabel's temple was mentioned as built. As you mentioned, steve, that's at least four. Then Herod rebuilt it. It wasn't completely destroyed, but it was ravaged. They added on to it and kept building on it in Herod's day when it had been left in ruins.
Speaker 1:We have at least three or four if not five, depending on how you count them temples that were already in place at different points in time and may still be existing in the sense of the heavenly one, none of these took away sin. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. Close quote we're told in Hebrews None of the Old Testament temple ceremonies took away sin. Only Jesus took away sin. We've talked about that when we went through the Old Testament, exodus and things. But when it went through the tabernacle and what was there? Nobody could keep it. It didn't take away sin.
Speaker 1:Therefore, since there have been four temples already and none of them took away sin, god is sovereign. If he wanted to reinstate another temple ceremony, if he wills, then he has the freedom to do that. It would not be blaspheming of Jesus' finished work, no more than the old ones were. On top of that. Even more importantly, I don't know anyone there may be somebody out there but we are certainly not claiming that if there is a Messianic millennial temple that it would be effective to take away sin, we're not even claiming it would have a blood sacrifice.
Speaker 1:Just because there's a temple doesn't mean there's a blood sacrifice or a particular day of atonement sacrifice. It could be that God set up a temple in the millennium and changed the ceremony or at least modified it, which there's enough clues in the New Testament to come to that conclusion. But one there's no one claiming that it would be efficacious as a washing of sin. And two none of the old ones were efficacious to wash away sin. Number three God is sovereign. He can do what he wants. Thank you very much. Even changing or adapting the temple ceremony, all of that, I think, steve, there's no good reason to believe that Zechariah 6 and the other passages in Zechariah aren't talking about exactly what they say. They're talking about, which is a temple that Messiah will build and sit on his throne there and rule from Jerusalem.
Speaker 2:There's also three redemptions that are spoken about in Scripture. You have the redemption of man, you also have the redemption of creation and you have the redemption of the nations themselves. One of the reasons that God created the nation of Israel was to be an example to all the other nations and for the Messiah, the anointed one on David's throne that was going to last forever, promised to David to rule all the other nations. You have that narrative and that part of the redemption stories that are also there.
Speaker 2:This idea that a future temple or house where God will dwell in the form of Jesus the Messiah being an insult to his sacrifice, I think is something that is just read from the theological position back into Scripture, versus taking all of the actual texts and Scripture that says that there is going to be an actual temple, there's actually going to be a Messiah that is going to rule on David's throne, and it's an actuality that all the other nations are going to be ruled by this Messiah on David's throne. Again, there's so much other scripture. I think that really leads to an actual physical temple, slash, house of the Lord, occupied by the Messiah, who is Jesus, ruling from there for all the other nations.
Speaker 1:We're going to see that as we get into the rest of the book of Zechariah, but today we've come to the end of chapter 6 and the end of our time for today. We'll be back next time in chapter 7, where he goes into still more of the teachings that he would have for us that we can apply to our lives today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
