Then [the guiding angel] showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at Joshua’s right hand to be his adversary and to accuse him. – Zechariah 3:1, Amplified Bible (AMP)

Imagine that you are six years old, and the heavy rain you’ve been watching from the window just stopped. Without your parents’ knowledge, you sneak out the back door and start doing something you’ve always dreamed of: making mud pies in the back yard. After you’ve assembled a nice stash of handsome pies, you hear your mother scream out your name in anger as she tells you to, “Get inside this instant!” After your mother gives you a good talking to (or worse) for being covered from head to toe in mud, your least favorite sibling adds insult to injury by pointing out to your mother that you decided to go mud-diving in your Sunday church clothes! Of course, your sibling pointed out the church clothes in hopes that you’d get into even more trouble. But, rather than responding to your sibling by heaping more coals of fire on your head, your mother rebukes your sibling, helps you change clothes, and gets you ready for dinner. You have been speedily forgiven, and your fellowship with your parents has been restored.

We find a similar, yet much more serious, scenario in Zechariah Chapter 3. In a vision, the prophet Zechariah sees Joshua the high priest standing before Almighty God at the end of the Babylonian captivity. Wearing soiled clothes symbolic of the sins which led to Israel’s demise, Joshua (as I imagine it) held his head low in penitent humility before the throne. Already weighed down by the guilt of his nation’s sin, Joshua’s situation was compounded by the fact that Satan himself stood alongside him, reviling Joshua (as Israel’s representative) and reminding God of His children’s self-centered wickedness.

Without a doubt, Joshua was deserving of the accusations, and God’s wrath, which had been administered upon Israel for 70 years, deserved to continue. But instead of listening to Satan and doing what was deserved, God chose to ignore Satan and do what was merciful. In effect, God told Satan to shut up and take a hike! Then, God replaced Joshua’s soiled clothes with fresh, clean ones, thus wiping away Israel’s sins and restoring fellowship with His children.

What a beautiful picture of God’s grace and mercy! Indeed, we all deserve to receive God’s everlasting punishment, but for those of us who have accepted His free gift of salvation, God has exchanged our soiled garments for clean ones and has replaced our deserved perpetual punishment with everlasting life. We would do well to remember this when life gets us down and when the Enemy’s accusations make us hang our heads. When we do remember, we will feel the crushing weight of guilt lift from off of our shoulders as Christ replaces our yoke of sin with His own, light burden.

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