Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”
Zechariah 3:1-4 NIV
Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.”
Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.”
Joshua was the High Priest shortly after the return of some of the Jews from their Babylonian exile. The vision that Zechariah saw here concerning Joshua is, I believe, very illustrative of what happens to all of us as we come to faith. It is a picture of our own salvation.
Satan stands to accuse us of all the sin and evil of our past. But the Lord rebukes him because we belong to Jesus now. We are like a stick snatched from the fire. We were guilty and condemned to the flames. But, in his mercy and grace, God rescued us from the fate we deserved. He stripped us of the filthy rags that we wore and clothed us in clean garments.
I am in no way worthy or deserving of the gift of salvation that God has given me through his grace. But I am so grateful that he has snatched me from the fire and clothed me with new life in Christ.
I, too am so grateful that God gave me enough time to get it right. I was on this blog once and this man told me he felt so sorry for me trying to be righteous and live for the Lord. He said for what? To go into heaven and live forever? He say that sound so boring to me. Who wants to live forever? I replied, I feel just as sorry for you. Because what God has planned for us far outweighs the hell that sinners are going to.
Living forever in the life we have now would be unbearable, not matter how good it is. But, praise God, he has something much better planned for us.
Amen to that.