Zechariah 12: The Pierced One

Intro:

Well we are headed into Easter week, the week that we typically honor and remember the events leading up to and surrounding the death, burial, and Resurrection of our Lord. It is fitting then that we would be in a book that points so strongly toward our Messiah and even more fitting that this morning as we press on into this last oracle of Zechariah that we will see held before us one who was pierced!

Lets not get too far ahead of ourselves though and lets take a moment to open in prayer and then we will start off into this last oracle of our prophet.

PRAY & READ

As we start off into this last oracle we need to remind ourselves again that we are walking through some very difficult passages of scripture. What I said at the start of our time in chapter 11 holds true here. I have approached this passage with the same hermetical framework and driving assumptions and will spend most of my time today sharing the view of the text that I have arrived at as a result of this study. There are plenty of faithful expositors of scripture who would disagree and one’s view of eschatology certainly makes a great deal of difference were you wind up with your final understanding of this text.

As I was thinking through my approach to the text I thought of an analogy that I hope will be helpful in describing what I believe is happening here as we view these OT prophetic texts about the messiah from our vantage point on this side of the cross of Christ.

Think of a puddle of water with a reflection in it, not your reflection but you can see that something is being reflected in it but you are unsure of what it is. To make matters worse there are ripples all over the puddle from a rock that was just dropped in. And so as you look you can see bits and pieces of this reflected image. Now there is naturally some distortion in these reflected bits and pieces as well because that's just the way that water works.

Now if you allow time to pass what happens is that water begins to settle and what you could only see as bits and pieces and then sometimes distorted looking bits and pieces begins to take a clearer form until at last when the water settles you can see the reflection clearly and you know what you are looking at.

This is similar to what I believe we see taking place across the OT. We see bits and pieces of the reflection of Christ in types, shadows, stories, and prophecies. Now sometimes these are just little fragments and at other times their historical situation almost seems to distort what they actually are meant to represent but at the end of the day as time goes on and we get closer and closer to the coming of Christ the picture becomes more and more clear until we are prone to ask ourselves “how in the world did they miss it when Christ finally arrived?”

Well we answered that question in chapter 11 as we saw that one of these bits of reflection that we can see was that for the most part his people were going to miss it when their Shepherd finally came to tend the flock.

However, we need to add one more piece to all of this. You see if you already know what is being reflected in the surface of the water. If you know for instance that your face is what is being reflected there, it doesn't really matter how small or distorted those reflected bits may appear, you are in a much better position to know what it is that you are looking at even while the water is yet rippling.

And so it is for those of us now on this side of the cross. We have held before us the clear and final revelation of Jesus Christ in the NT and it makes total sense that as we now look back across all of the scripture and history that was pointing His people towards him for thousands of years that we would be able to make out the parts of the image more clearly and easily that if we didn't have this revelation.

This is why it makes no sense at all when people in certain interpretative camps say that we can not use the NT to interpret the OT! Absolutely no sense! In the NT we have clearly revealed the very thing for which the OT on a whole was written, the revelation of God’s Son, the long promised servant Shepherd come to deliver His people from bondage to sin and death through an atoning and propitiatory sacrifice that would cleanse them from their sins and save perfectly and for all time those who would come by Faith through Him to the Father. This must then be the lens that we use to look back across the rest of scripture and if we fail to do so we will be so stunted in our ability to see the glory and wonder of these things brought to their completion in our Lord and Christ!

Now we still must be careful to apply this hermeneutic rightly and we also still need to as ourselves the primary question of how it was that the text was recieved by the original audience and what it was intended to mean for them before we seek to take the text and apply it to our lives but we can do all of these things and still realize that our ability to see fully the weight and meaning of a text far exceeds that of even the prophet that delivered the message of old.

We learn this much in Luke 10:24 where Jesus says:

Luke 10:24 ESV

For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

and 1 Peter 1:10-12

1 Peter 1:10–12 ESV

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

and then in 1 Peter 1:20-21

1 Peter 1:20–21 ESV

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

And so we must press the same hermetical beliefs that the very apostles used as they examined the scriptures and saw how clearly these things pointed to Christ and told of all that He had at long last come and accomplished!

Other Helpful Info

It is also helpful for us to see some big picture stuff before we jump directly into the text today as well.

As I have mentioned this is the last oracle of Zechariah and while, like the last, we have no way of knowing when exactly it was given it is very likely that these were given much later on than the original night visions at the start of the book after the work on the temple had been fulfilled.

One of the major themes that you will note fills these last three chapters is the idea of “in that day.” We will read that phrase over and over again and as we have mentioned before it is my conviction that when we read that language in the OT it is primarily intended to drive us forward to the coming of the messiah and the arrival of the Messianic Kingdom. Importantly then when it says “Day” it does not mean a literal 24 hours it means the time period ushered in by the arrival of the long promised Messiah and the subsequent outworking of that event.

Additionally, we as have seen in John’s Apocalypse, it is imperative to understand that what is typically presented for us in this type of prophetic literature is often not given to set before us a time line of what is going to happen as if we can set the events we read of in an order based on when we read them in the text. Rather what we find is sections of tests that describe various realities of the coming day of the messiah.

A quick glance at the text shows us that this is the case. In 12 we will see the pierced messiah and then in 13 we see the struck shepherd and yet when we get to the NT we find that the imagery of chapter 13 happens in time before the piercing of chapter 12. So then we must not assume that these events we read about are chronological in nature but rather are intended to teach us about various aspects of the person and work of the messiah and His kingdom.

Section 1: The Victorious People of God

Whew, that was a lot of intro but lets now take all of that and jump into the first section of this oracle. Verses 1-9. These verses describe the protection and ultimate victorious nature of the people of God under the reign of the Messiah during the Messianic age. Now there is a lot here in these first 9 verses and we wont cover each and every detail but I am going to try and cover enough that with the overarching understanding of the text that I have just given you will be able to maybe piece some of these thing sin on your own. So again: These verses describe the protection and ultimate victorious nature of the people of God under the reign of the Messiah during the Messianic age.

Now we see these things couched introduced first be describing God in creation language that we have seen in our study on Thursdays. In short (to borrow the NT language) it is the God who wielded the power of creation that has the power to effect these realities that are going to take part now in this new creation.

We see here two groups of the people of God. We see Jerusalem and we see Judah. Now this is the most tentative of my views here so I wont be overly dogmatic about it but I believe that was we read these texts that Jerusalem speaks of the church, the people of God gathered to Him through Christ. Similarly to what we have seen in other prophets like Micah, Jerusalem in the NT comes to represent, as the city in which God had chosen to dwell, the people in whom God has chosen to dwell and so when we see the New Jerusalem in Revelation it is the church that we are being shown in all of her magnificence and beauty.

I think then that Judah represents the ethnic people of God, the Jews, Israel, those who had been made God’s people through the old covenant. I will explain as we go through why I think that this may well be the case.

We see first that Jerusalem is besieged or surrounded by her enemies but that God is going to make her a cup of staggering to her enemies and that she will be like a heavy stone injuring all who try and lift her. Ultimately we see God striking those who come against Jerusalem and giving strength to His people in Jerusalem.

What is represented in these first 5 verses is nothing other than the reality that though the world press against the church to destroy her yet in the end those who seek to destroy the church will find that they themselves have been brought to ruin in their quest!

A cup of staggering speaks of the madness of drunkeness, taking a big gulp of the desire to destroy God’s people, filled with rage and malice they set themselves to destroy her only to find they are driven mad like drunkards.

I have been watching some of the Abolition Rising videos and have seen other videos of various street preachers and abortion mill protesters doing their thing and you see the drunken madness of a world that though it tries to stand against the truth of God’s word and His people that bear this truth yet in the end they look like staggering drunken fools.

She, that is the Church, is a heavy stone injuring those who try and lift her. How many nations have been destroyed who have set themselves against God’s people and sough to destroy them. Communism still and certainly in the last century sought to stamp out the Christian faith and yet where its hatred burned the hottest yet in those very places God’s people grew the strongest and most beautiful they have ever been.

It is also here in the end of verse 2 that I think we get our first hint at the division of Jerusalem and Judah into the categories that I mentioned. The language here is difficult but it seems that the best way to understand

English Standard Version Chapter 12

The siege of Jerusalem will also be against Judah.

is not to understand the adversaries of Jerusalem also being adversaries of Judah but rather that for a time Judah participates in the seige against Jerusalem. Yet we see in verse 5 that:

English Standard Version Chapter 12

5 Then the clans of Judah shall say to themselves, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem have strength through the LORD of hosts, their God.’

And that when Judah realizes that God is with Jerusalem they repent and are taken up and wielded by God in the very next verse.

We know that the people of Israel were certainly set against the early church and yet we also know that that early church was comprised mostly of Jews who had come to faith in the Messiah, Jesus!

We see in verse 6 that indeed this happens and as those in Judah, aka Israel, come to faith God uses them to devour those around them. Now, REMEMBER we have seen this type of language before and we must know that conquering and devouring in the Messianic age most often is associated with the victory of the gospel in the souls of lost men and women that takes them out of their earthly kingdoms and nations and makes them citizens of the Kingdom of God, this is the way that the gospel plunders the nations and this started in Jerusalem and Judea and spread out to the ends of the earth.

Then iv verse 7 - 9 we see this promise that the gospel then of the Kingdom will take what is weak and despised in the world and make them strong. This salvation we read starts with Judah and the NT bears this out that salvation was proclaimed first to the Jew and then to the Greek!

The feeblest among them shall be like David, the weak made like Israels most powerful king and we also see the house of David, in imagery that may speak to the divine nature of the messiah, the house of David, the messianic line culminates in one who is like God, like the angle of the Lord leading His people to victory over the nations.

Calvin said it well when he commented on these verses:

Zechariah An Oracle regarding Israel

We see how Satan raises up great forces, we see how the whole world conspires against the Church, to prevent the increase or progress of the kingdom of Christ … [so that] we are ready to faint and to become wholly dejected. Let us remember … however boldly may multiplied adversaries resist Christ in the work of building a spiritual temple to God the Father, yet all their efforts will be in vain.

How comforting it is for God’s people to consider the magnitude of these promises and for us just to consider a couple of contemporary examples of this working out in our world today. No weapon formed against us will prevail, even if death be our end yet as it has been noted the blood of the martyrs always becomes the seed of the church. Where Satan presses hardest to wipe us out there we will become a rock that injures and a cup of staggering to those who oppose us. However, we must also keep in mind the nature of our victory here in this world. We fight with the weapons of the gospel and our victory is the salvation of souls and the plundering of the worldly kingdoms of their most cherished treasure, Satan’s children made God’s through the power of the gospel. What ever else God sees fit to bring about downstream from these victories must never take priority over our pressing the battle in this way.

Section 2: The Pierced One

The next section of our oracle as we have noted doesn’t necessarily follow sequentially from the previous one but describes another reality of the coming day of the Messiah. The reality taken up by this section is the great individual repentance caused by a vision of one who was pierced resulting from the outpouring of God’s Spirit.

Now there are those who argue that this is not a reference to Christ but rather a contemporary to Zechariah! We aren't even going to go there John himself picks up this passage and ties it directly to christ referencing the piercing of Jesus side after his death:

English Standard Version Chapter 19

34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. 35 He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. 36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.” 37 And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”

Yes, this passage is a reference to the coming messiah who will be pierced by the people. This only adds to the imagery of piercing where Isaiah had declared that the Messianic servant of the Lord would be pierced for the people and so we find that this figure is both pierced for the people and pierced by the people.

This passage is about salvation though. We read that in this Messianic day God is going to:

English Standard Version Chapter 12

pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy,

We read in Joel 2:28

Joel 2:28 (ESV)

“And it shall come to pass afterward,

that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;

This idea of the outpouring of God’s Spirit is one that marks the day of the Messiah. Here specifically due to the relationship with salvation this is noted to be a Spirit of grace.

Salvation as Charles Spurgeon said is all of grace.

We see this gracious nature of salvation in the second phrase, pleas for mercy. One commentator noted that the Hebrew here literally means to plead with God for grace. And so it is that the outpouring of grace from God through His Spirit results in a pleading for grace and we see that this is then tied into the central verse here in this section:

English Standard Version Chapter 12

so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. 11

And so we see that these people look on this pierced one and this leads to mourning. Mourning that is compared to the mourning for Josiah the last good king of Israel when he died foolishly in battle with the northern 10 tribes, a story we read about in II Chronicles 35.

Now as I have said this pierced One has caused all sorts of consternation for commentators who do not follow the hermeneutical method that I have outlined earlier. When we do not allow the NT to interpret the OT and we do not use what we know of Christ to help us see more of Him in the OT then we might struggle here. After all it must have been confusing for those who heard Zechariah talk about the pierced one this way. He literally says “when they look on ME, the one whom they have pierced” The ME here clearly references God and commentators struggle with how it is that those in Zechariah’s day could have understood piercing God.

I would argue that they didn't, sure they might have tried to figure out what Zechariah ment but as we said there was a mystery about what was coming that was only made clear when the God Man, Jesus Christ, was born in the flesh and then when He died on that cross and rose again. For those in Zechariah’s day this would have been a promise that there was coming a great day of redemption and cleansing for the people that was going to involve a repentant mourning and weeping over evil that they had done. That is a message full of great promise and one that is not unintelligible for those who hear Zechariah’s words before the coming of Christ.

Take note though of the whole picture that we have here, God pours forth this Spirit of Grace so that when these people look on the One whom they have pierced they will weep over the magnitude of their sin and the wickedness of what they have done and in that weeping they will turn in repentance and plead for mercy from God! That’s the gospel right there! The gospel according to Zechariah!

Now the main thing that we need to ask is who is being spoken of when it talks of those who look on him who was pierced? Is this passage related only to those first century Jewish followers of Christ? While I would argue that these first century believers certainly are a fulfilment of this passage I would also argue that we need not limit it to them alone.

You see this is the gospel according to Zechariah and as such it is for all men throughout this time of the Messiah! The call of the gospel is a call to look long and hard at the cross and see there the One who was so cruelly nailed there. There are two responses when presented with the reality of the cross and 1 Corinthians 1:18 outlines them both:

1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

When confronted with the suffering and murdered innocent Lamb of God there on the cross, the word of the cross, there are those who will think it a foolish thing, they mock the precious Lamb just as those gathered there at Calvary mocked and derided our Lord, even one crucified with Him mocked Him. They so love their sin and wickedness that they mock and scoff so that their hearts will not feel the urge to repent in dust and ashes at the sight of the crucified Christ and the louder the word is proclaimed the louder they must mock to suppress that which they know to be true. This is the sinners response to the cross, those who are perishing!

Praise God though there are two categories of people that hear the blessed word of the cross and for the second group as a result of the Spirit of Grace being poured out, that Spirit we read of in Zechariah 12, as a result of that Spirit they see not folly in the cross but rather they suddenly see, by grace, the beauty and loveliness of that Savior there mocked and marred and as they take in that sight with hearts that now beat with spiritual life they mourn for their sin and plead with God that in His grace He might save them from their sin and forgive them.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19

Closing:

Now the question we must ask as we close for today though is, is that true of you? Has the word of the cross reached your ears, have you beheld the pierced one, have you considered that it was your sin that held that spotless Lamb, the Son of God there on that cross. Have you considered that every single “little” sin, every single coddled sin, every single sin you make an excuse for, those long held habitual sins and even the ones you barely even notice that you commit every single one lead to unimaginable agony for the Son of God as He bore in His body on that cross the wrath that we justly deserved from Almighty God!

This ought to break us, when we behold this sight we must of necessity be truly and utterly undone! Bitter mourning is the only possible response to the sight of the agony of the cross and the knowledge that it was my sin that held Him there until all was accomplished!

I am afraid that many a Christian lacks this experience or at least this experience to the depths that it out to be experienced because or presentations of the gospel so often fall short of setting the sinner there before this awful sight and letting them take in the full import of what transpired there! This is not a scare you out of hell message, this is not a hey God loves you message, this is certainly not a “you were so valuable to God that He did this for you” message! NO! This is the crucified Christ who was stricken and so afflicted at the hands of wicked men that He was beyond even recognition as a man and this physical torment only typifies for us the much deeper and darker agony of what took place there spiritually as the Father in the great mystery that is the cross turned His back on His son!

Behold this sight and weep and then plead for mercy from the One who accomplished all of this for this very reason, that He might be freed from the demands of justice to do this very thing, to offer us mercy and as we will see in our next time together, wash us and cleanse us from all of our sin.

We need also to note that this act of repentance this turning toward the pierced on and turning from our sin is an individual act. This is what is signified by 12-14. There were times in Israel’s history where we read of the people gathering together and repenting as a people and turning back to God. What is spoken of by Zechariah though is something that must be experienced by yourself, no one can repent for you, no one can behold that sight and mourn for you, its is each and very individuals responsibility to come and behold and mourn for their own sin.

Lastly I will mention that this sight of the cross and being so moved ought not be a one time thing. There is for sure a first time that we come and behold with grace opened eyes the suffering Savior and it is true that it is at this first sight that we are cleansed and made righteous before God. However as followers of Christ we now have set before us week in and week out a blessed reminder of that same cross that we have seen this morning and we ought to often set our eyes before it and turn in repentance from the sin that will cling to us until that glorious day when we will finally and for all of eternity put off these bodies of death and be at long last made fully new in both spirit and body. Until that day we must turn often to this cross and mortify our sin with this blessed and awful sight!

Now hopefully our time with our prophet this morning has helped to maybe make our hearts a little more ready for this week when we remember, as we ought to often any ways, the death of our Lord on that cross and the wonderful truth that death could not hold Him there and could not keep Him in the grave but that three days after the pierced one was laid to rest in a rich man’s tomb He arose and because He arose we will rise one day and live forever with Him if indeed we have beheld with weeping the awful sight of the cross!