Was Jesus In the Old Testament?

     Do you know that Jesus appeared in the pages of the Old Testament? Do you know that God left no possible option for the Jews to not know who Jesus Christ was when He presented Himself to this world 2,000 years ago? Do you know that God has given you no such option either?

     More than just a fascinating study, Christ’s eternal Deity is really a very important thing to understand. Jesus Christ, the second member of the Holy Trinity that makes up our God, was not only predicted and foreshadowed in the Old Testament, but He was clearly seen there as well, being called the Angel of the Lord.

     I want to be clear, it is not an essential thing to agree with me that the Angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. However, it is most definitely an essential part of salvation to acknowledge that Jesus is our eternal God. Jesus repeatedly stated that He was in fact God in the flesh, and by rejecting that claim, you would be rejecting Jesus Himself. Moreover, if Jesus was a mere man, receiving God the Father’s wrath would have been justified because He would have been a sinner Himself! As Scripture clearly teaches, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 (NKJV). Only God in the flesh could avoid the original sin we are born into.

     Not everyone will dogmatically agree that the Angel of the Lord and Jesus Christ are one and the same person. However, as you read the passages of Scripture quoted throughout this commentary, I think you will agree that He can be no one else. The Angel of the Lord is clearly God, but He is not the Holy Spirit, and He cannot be God the Father. Think of this too, if Jesus is the eternal God as Scripture asserts, would we not expect to see His presence in the Old Testament?

     Well, He is there as plain as can be. Our problem as modern day Christians is that we are often too ignorant of so many Old Testament truths, such as the identity of the Angel of the Lord. Part of that lies in the fact that the word angel simply means messenger, and is therefore more often used of the other heavenly creatures that interact with mankind throughout Scripture. Nevertheless, the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ was called the Angel of the Lord, and was present and active in Scripture from the beginning of Creation. Jesus was not, as many people like to claim, a created person like you and me. Rather, He is the eternal and everlasting God!

     The Apostle John affirmed this when he wrote under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” John 1:1—3 (NKJV). One of the charges that led to His crucifixion in fact was Christ’s claim that although He was born into this world, He preexisted Abraham, the Father of the Jewish Nation, and was the very same God who spoke to Moses in the burning bush, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” John 8:58b (NKJV); see Exodus 3:14. The risen Christ further declared to John, “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,’ says the Lord, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’” Revelation 1:8 (NKJV).

     It should be clear from a New Testament perspective that we have no other option but to believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, and has thus always existed. As C.S. Lewis pointed out so well, Jesus did not give us the option to believe He was a good man but disbelieve that He was God in the flesh:

You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (all editions, Book 3, Chapter 3, The Shocking Alternative).

     The Old Testament really doesn’t give that option either. More than 700 years before the physical birth of Jesus, the Prophet Micah said that the Messiah, who would be born in Bethlehem, would be an eternal being:

      But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,

Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,

Yet out of you shall come forth to Me

The One to be Ruler in Israel,

Whose goings forth are from of old,

From everlasting.

Micah 5:2 (NKJV).

     The eternal nature of the Messiah should not have been so hard for the Jews to believe based on that statement alone! However, more incredible is the fact that Jesus has been interacting with mankind throughout all of our history. Unfortunately, far too many people are completely ignorant of this, and that has in part led to the very serious act of rejecting Christ’s claim to be God.

     My point in this commentary is to first show that Jesus was absolutely and unequivocally present in Scripture from the very beginning, thus adding to the proof that He was in fact the very God He claimed to be. My second point is to impress upon you that if you believe the evidence contained in Scripture about Christ, and you have not yet repented and put your faith in Christ alone for your way to Heaven, you need to make a personal decision about Him today. If you are convinced by what you see in Scripture that Jesus had to be God in the flesh, then you must respond to the Gospel message. Your eternity is far too important to just assume you will be fine. Scripture makes very clear that the only way we are saved from God’s anger over our sin is through repenting from sin, and turning to God through faith in Jesus Christ, that His sacrifice on the cross is the substitute for what you and me deserve due to our individual sins.

     The first glimpse that Scripture gives us of God’s complexity is in the first chapter of Genesis when we see that God has at least one other part to Him called the Spirit of God. Scripture starts with, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Genesis 1:1, 2 (NKJV) (underlined emphasis added). Then we hear God affirming the Fellowship within Himself when He said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Genesis 1:26b (NKJV).

     These passages should make it clear to us that although there is only one God, He is far more complex than for us to deny the Deity of Jesus Christ based on the fact that there is only one God. Jesus gave us so much evidence that He was God in the flesh, and even died because He claimed it openly. He controlled nature, healed the sick, made food appear out of nowhere, and even picked Himself up out of the grave and walked out in far better condition than when He went in! Those are the actions of the same God who spoke all of creation into existence, not that of a madman or a liar.

     I think one problem many people have is that they cannot believe God could ever be in a physical form. Even Jesus said, “God is spirit.” John 4:24a (NKJV). Of course that is true, but there is a third glimpse of God’s complexity also found in the early pages of Genesis that begins to focus on God having physical attributes too.

     Following Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God’s authority, Genesis tells us that our ancestors were overcome with shame from the knowledge of their own wickedness, and tried covering their shame by hiding and covering their nakedness with fig leaves. Then when “[] they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, [] Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” Genesis 3:8 (NKJV).

     The Apostle John wrote, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” John 1:18 (NKJV). Now on its face, it would appear that this presents a very difficult contradiction. The argument against Christ’s Deity is that if no one has ever seen God, and as Jesus said in the quote above that God is spirit, but people did in fact see Jesus, then there is no way that Jesus could be God. Well that is an apparent contradiction, however this is explained by an understanding of the Trinity.

     Jesus clearly taught that He was one and the same as God, “the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” John 10:38b (NKJV). Jesus further said, “And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me.” John 12:45 (NKJV). And again, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” John 14:9b (NKJV).

     So this contradiction is really no contradiction at all when we understand that the three persons of God, the Trinity, are three separate persons within God. I’m not talking about three separate gods, or some schizophrenic being, but one very complex God with three separate persons that make up His identity.

     No one has ever seen God the Father. But many people have seen God the Son, and all believers since Pentecost are indwelt with God the Spirit. As really a conclusive proof of the existence of all three Persons of God, we see the presence of all three during Christ’s baptism:

When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”

Luke 3:21, 22 (NKJV).

     Based on this Scriptural proof, we know not only that Jesus came as God in the flesh, but also that He is part of a Triune God. One God, not three gods, but a God made up of three distinct and separate persons, as He clearly revealed Himself at that incredible moment in time. Now I fully admit that this is a complexity way beyond our understanding, however it is an essential understanding. Think of it this way though, if our God was completely understandable to our human minds, would our God truly be that amazing? What really makes our God so incredibly awesome is that we cannot comprehend His complexity.

     Now that I have established the basics of the Trinity, let’s get back to this God whom Adam and Eve heard walking in the Garden. God walking in the Garden had to be none other than the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ! No one has ever seen God the Father, but it seems very likely that Adam and Eve saw God in the Garden, otherwise they would not have been hiding. Furthermore, although we can see the effects of God the Spirit, and John the Baptist saw some sort of image of the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, no one could hear a spirit walking.

     I believe Scripture makes it clear that Adam and Eve heard and saw Jesus Christ in the flesh! I further believe that up until their banishment, they had extremely personal fellowship with God through the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. This should not surprise us though because the Apostle John tells us very plainly that it was through Christ Himself that the world came into existence. See John 1:1—3.

     Amazingly, it is at the worst moment in mankind’s history that God gives us the most incredible promise we could ever have hoped for. He promised that although our race was to be banished from direct physical fellowship with our Creator because of Adam and Eve’s rebellion, our Creator would one day come to us as the child of a miraculous virgin birth, and deliver us from our enemy Satan and from our sin:

And I will put enmity

     between you and the woman,

     and between your offspring and hers;

     [H]e will crush your head,

     and you will strike [H]is heel.

Genesis 3:15 (NIV); see also Isaiah 7:14 (prophesying the virgin birth of Christ).

     Now we have been born with the benefit of the full canon of Scripture, so we know that this Savior referred to as the woman’s offspring, or Seed in other translations, is none other than Jesus Christ, who was miraculously born of a virgin. But Jesus appeared so many times throughout Scripture that the Jews who saw Jesus teach and perform miracles should have recognized Him even if they were unaware of His miraculous birth.

     Keep these points in mind as you read the sections of Scripture that follow. When men throughout Scripture would encounter regular angels, the men would be scolded for bowing down before them. When the Apostle John did this, the angel told him, “[] See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.” Revelation 22:9 (NKJV). On the other hand, the Angel of the Lord deserves our praise and worship, and thus never tells man to stop bowing down in reverence. The Angel of the Lord also speaks with power and authority that derives from Himself, and not that which was given to Him by another.

     When Hagar, the maidservant of Abraham’s wife Sarah, ran away with the child Ishmael, whom she bore to Abraham, the Angel of the Lord met her on the road and gave her this message of comfort, “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.” Genesis 16:10b (NKJV). Furthermore, Hagar recognized the Angel of the Lord as being God saying, “Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, ‘Have I also here seen Him who sees me?’” Genesis 16:13 (NKJV).

     Although He was not called the “Angel of the Lord,” Abraham saw the Lord in the flesh, accompanied by two angels, when Abraham was warned about what would happen to Sodom and Gomorrah in this incredible dialogue between mortal man and the Lord. For the reasons already mentioned, this physical appearance had to be none other than the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ Himself:

     Then the LORD appeared to [Abraham] by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. So he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground, and said, “My Lord, if I have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant.”

…

     Then they said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?”

So he said, “Here, in the tent.”

     And He said, “I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.” (Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.) Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?”

     And the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”

     But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid.

And He said, “No, but you did laugh!”

     Then the men rose from there and looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to send them on the way. And the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.” And the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”

     Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the LORD. And Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

     So the LORD said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”

     Then Abraham answered and said, “Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose there were five less than the fifty righteous; would You destroy all of the city for lack of five?”

So He said, “If I find there forty-five, I will not destroy it.”

     And he spoke to Him yet again and said, “Suppose there should be forty found there?”

So He said, “I will not do it for the sake of forty.”

     Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Suppose thirty should be found there?”

So He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

     And he said, “Indeed now, I have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose twenty should be found there?”

So He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.”

     Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?”

And He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.” So the LORD went His way as soon as He had finished speaking with Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.

Genesis 18: (NKJV) (underlined emphasis added).

     We see this Angel of the Lord again when Abraham is about to sacrifice his son Isaac as the Lord instructed him to do. The Angel of the Lord stops Abraham, acknowledges that it was only a test of Abraham’s fidelity, and gives the greatest blessing the world has seen:

    But the Angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”

So he said, “Here I am.”

     And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

     Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place, The-LORD-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”

     Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.

Genesis 22:11—19 (NKJV) (underlined emphasis added).

     Amazingly, it was on that very same mountain that God the Father did in fact provide a sacrifice — God the Son!  This is the very spot where the Angel of the Lord, Jesus Christ, willingly became the sacrifice that Abraham had predicted the Lord would provide.  

     The Angel of the Lord revealed Himself to Moses in the famous burning bush, “And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.” Exodus 3:2 (NKJV). We know that this was the Lord Himself because of the dialogue that ensued. Furthermore, we know that this was Jesus Christ in the bush because it is here that God disclosed His Holy name, which Jesus acknowledged being His own, “And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.”’” Exodus 3:14 (NKJV). As mentioned above, Jesus said, “before Abraham was, I AM,” acknowledging that He was the One who spoke to Moses. John 8:58b (NKJV).

     The Angel of the Lord spoke to the wicked Balaam with authority of One to be worshiped and obeyed, “And the Angel of the LORD said to him, ‘… Behold, I have come out to stand against you, because your way is perverse before Me.’” Numbers 22:32 (NKJV). Would a mere angel, a created being, have the audacity to state that anybody’s actions are perverse before Me? Absolutely not! Angels have always acknowledged that it is God alone to be worshiped, and God alone to be obeyed.

     During the time of Joshua’s leadership, the Angel of the Lord appeared and addressed the entire nation of Israel, taking credit for being their protector, deliverer and punisher:

     Then the Angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said: “I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you. And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this? Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they shall be thorns in your side, and their gods shall be a snare to you.’” So it was, when the Angel of the LORD spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voices and wept.

 Judges 2:1—4 (NKJV).

     The Angel of the Lord also appeared to Gideon, to instruct him about defeating the Midianites:

     Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

     Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”

     Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”

     So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”

     And the LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.”

     Then he said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who talk with me. Do not depart from here, I pray, until I come to You and bring out my offering and set it before You.”

And He said, “I will wait until you come back.”

     So Gideon went in and prepared a young goat, and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot; and he brought them out to Him under the terebinth tree and presented them. The Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so.

     Then the Angel of the LORD put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the LORD departed out of his sight.

     Now Gideon perceived that He was the Angel of the LORD. So Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord GOD! For I have seen the Angel of the LORD face to face.”

     Then the LORD said to him, “Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.”

Judges 6:11—23 (NKJV) (underlined emphasis added).

     One of the most interesting encounters with the Angel of the Lord happened to Samson’s parents, when the birth of Samson was foretold to them. Note in particular the mystery surrounding the Angel of the Lord’s name, which the Apostle John described as, “a name written that no one knew except Himself” (Revelation 19:12b (NKJV)):

And the Angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.

     Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean. For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”

     So the woman came and told her husband, saying, “A Man of God came to me, and His countenance was like the countenance of the Angel of God, very awesome; but I did not ask Him where He was from, and He did not tell me His name. And He said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. Now drink no wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’”

     Then Manoah prayed to the LORD, and said, “O my Lord, please let the Man of God whom You sent come to us again and teach us what we shall do for the child who will be born.”

     And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the Angel of God came to the woman again as she was sitting in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her. Then the woman ran in haste and told her husband, and said to him, “Look, the Man who came to me the other day has just now appeared to me!”

     So Manoah arose and followed his wife. When he came to the Man, he said to Him, “Are You the Man who spoke to this woman?”

And He said, “I am.”

     Manoah said, “Now let Your words come to pass! What will be the boy’s rule of life, and his work?”

     So the Angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful. She may not eat anything that comes from the vine, nor may she drink wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean. All that I commanded her let her observe.”

     Then Manoah said to the Angel of the LORD, “Please let us detain You, and we will prepare a young goat for You.”

     And the Angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “Though you detain Me, I will not eat your food. But if you offer a burnt offering, you must offer it to the LORD.” (For Manoah did not know He was the Angel of the LORD.)

     Then Manoah said to the Angel of the LORD, “What is Your name, that when Your words come to pass we may honor You?”

     And the Angel of the LORD said to him, “Why do you ask My name, seeing it is wonderful?”

     So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it upon the rock to the LORD. And He did a wondrous thing while Manoah and his wife looked on— it happened as the flame went up toward heaven from the altar—the Angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar! When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground. When the Angel of the LORD appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that He was the Angel of the LORD.

     And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God!”

     But his wife said to him, “If the LORD had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have told us such things as these at this time.”

Judges 13:3—23 (NKJV) (underlined emphasis added).

     Although neither Gideon nor Samson’s parents knew at first who they were speaking with, they certainly were aware of it by the end of the event. They never would have thought so significantly of their sinful unworthiness to the point that they would die for having seen the Lord, unless they actually saw the Lord! There is no doubt in my mind that Gideon and Samson’s parents saw the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ!

     By far the most incredible visions of the Angel of Lord came to the Prophet Zechariah. In the book named for him, Zechariah paints a very detailed picture of Christ in which we see that the Angel of the Lord is not only equal with God, and petitions God the Father on behalf of believers, but also that the Angel of the Lord would be the One to remove our sin!

     Speaking through Zechariah, God the Father describes the Messiah, who would be God’s equal! Who else could be an equal Companion of the one and only God unless it was God in the flesh! In this passage, God also tells us that when Jesus would be struck down, crucified, His followers would be scattered, and then God would execute judgment on the Jews, referred to as little ones, for rejecting their promised Messiah:

     “Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd,

Against the Man who is My Companion,”

Says the LORD of hosts.

     “Strike the Shepherd,

And the sheep will be scattered;

Then I will turn My hand against the little ones.”

Zechariah 13:7 (NKJV).

     We also see a regular angel interpreting for Zechariah what is happening as Zechariah sees the Angel of the Lord petitioning the Lord of Hosts, whom we now know to be God the Father, on behalf of Israel, and God the Father immediately answering that petition:

Then the Angel of the LORD answered and said, “O LORD of hosts, how long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which You were angry these seventy years?”

And the LORD answered the angel who talked to me, with good and comforting words. So the angel who spoke with me said to me, “Proclaim, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts:

          “I am zealous for Jerusalem

     And for Zion with great zeal.
          I am exceedingly angry with the nations at ease;

     For I was a little angry,

     And they helped—but with evil intent.”

‘Therefore thus says the LORD:

          “I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy;
     My house shall be built in it,” says the LORD of hosts,

          “And a surveyor’s line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem.”’

“Again proclaim, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts:

          “My cities shall again spread out through prosperity;

     The LORD will again comfort Zion,

     And will again choose Jerusalem.”’”

Zechariah 1:12—17 (NKJV).

     This is such an awesome picture, because it shows us that Jesus knows exactly what to petition God the Father on our behalf, and knows exactly when to ask it. Moreover, when Jesus asks on our behalf, God the Father grants His petition! This is not only for Old Testament believers, but for all those who have repented from sin and put their trust in Christ alone.

     There can be so much said about how Jesus is revealed in the Book of Zechariah, but possibly the most incredible vision was that of the Angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ, removing the sin of those who would follow Him:

     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.”

Zechariah 3:1—4 (NKJV) (underlined emphasis added).

     This last passage from Zechariah sums up the entire reason I have written this commentary. We have seen that the One who spoke the world into existence, formed man in His own image, and had personal fellowship with the first man and woman before they rebelled, is the same Angel of the Lord who is seen in Zechariah personally removing the sin of the faithful. The high priest Joshua represents all those who repent from their rebellion and put their faith for salvation in Christ alone. The notion of grace is in no way unique to the New Testament. Now that we have the New Testament however, we see exactly how He removed our sin – through His own blood.

     Because we were born into sin, and every one of us has “sinned and fall[en] short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23b (NKJV)), we cannot now regain direct fellowship with our Creator by anything we do. The Prophet Isaiah said that even the best that we do is looked at as filth by our Creator because we are so tarnished by our sin:

     But we are all like an unclean thing,

And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;

We all fade as a leaf,

And our iniquities, like the wind,

Have taken us away.

Isaiah 64:6 (NKJV).

     Because of that sin, the Bible unequivocally states that we deserve death, the punishment for breaking God’s law in rebellion against our Creator, “For the wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23a (NKJV). But fortunately for us, the rest of that verse reads, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23b (NKJV).

     The very same Angel of the Lord we have just seen all throughout the Old Testament, became a Man for the express purpose of bringing a message of the full revelation of God to humanity, and being the sacrifice that was foreshadowed by the image of Abraham sacrificing his only son. The Lord of Hosts, God the Father, punished His Son, Jesus Christ, the Angel of the Lord, to pay the price that we deserve to pay due to our sins.

     Paul wrote that we “were alienated and enemies” of God because of our sin. Colossians 1:21b (NKJV). This began when our oldest ancestors rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden, and continued when we committed our own rebellion by breaking God’s laws. But because God loves His creation so much, God the Father sent God the Son to be our substitute, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 (NKJV).

     What is so hard to understand, because it’s so contrary to human nature, is that God came into the world not to save good people, but to save sinners, people who lived in rebellion against Him! See Matthew 9:12, 13. In one of the most amazing explanations of God’s love for us, Paul wrote, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (NKJV).

     Scripture teaches us that we can convert from being God’s enemy to being his friend, if we only surrender our rebellion against Him and simply trust in His way, the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. Paul also wrote, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9 (NKJV). If you admit that Jesus is your Lord and you are not, by turning from your sin in repentance, and truly believe in your heart through faith that Jesus died for you, you will indeed be saved! God gives all mankind the possibility of being saved if they desire it, “For ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’” Romans 10:13 (NKJV).

     If you do this, you will no longer be an enemy of God, but will “have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:1b (NKJV). Don’t waste another minute. You don’t know how much longer you have until God takes you out of this life. Call out to your Creator through faith, repent from your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ alone, the Angel of the Lord, who took the penalty of God the Father’s wrath that you and I deserve because of our sin. If you do this, you will have peace with God and will be saved from His anger over your sin!

     Listen to the writer of Hebrews, who implored, “Today, if you will hear His voice, [d]o not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” Hebrews 3:15, 4:7b (NKJV) (see also Psalm 95:7—8). If you hear His voice, do as Jesus commanded, “Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:15b (NKJV).