Joshua the High Priest Given Clean GarmentsBible World
3:3Zechariah 3:3
Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel.
Joshua the high priest stands in his sacred office before the Angel of the Lord, who is Christ ministering as Mediator for His people. He represents God's people, the repentant believing sinner, standing before Christ clothed in unrighteousness. His filthy garments are sin and guilt and shame, picturing human sinfulness and need for cleansing. Satan stands at his right hand to resist and accuse him from those sins, claiming him as his prey, but Christ rebukes Satan, defends those He has chosen, and orders the filthy garments taken away. He causes iniquity to pass and clothes them with clean raiment and His own righteousness, so their acceptance rests not on their worthiness but on His compassion, merits and death.
Joshua Before the Angel
Joshua stands in his sacred office as high priest before the Angel of the Lord, and the Angel is Christ the Mediator ministering for His people as on the day of atonement, interceding for Joshua and his afflicted people before the Father just as He now intercedes for His people. The filthy garments are identified in the following verses with iniquity, which God removes before clothing Joshua in clean garments. The church and its people are on trial in a position of repentance unto obedience while the Lord comes to their relief.
The scene is a controversy in the heavenly courts, with Satan standing at Joshua's right hand to resist him and accuse him, and the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem defending Joshua as a brand plucked out of the fire and rebuking Satan. Satan accuses backsliding Israel and points to unprincipled proceedings and backsliding, and after leading men into wrong positions he stands as their adversary to resist every effort to save those purchased by the blood of the Lamb, accusing the brethren day and night before God as his special work. The same position is now taken toward every church and toward ministers of the gospel in their official work in the ministry of the Word, to resist the Lord's working in behalf of His people, while the Lord comes to the relief of His afflicted people in answer to intercession and in pity toward them. Sinners are placed by their sins where Joshua stood before the angel, with Satan present in person beside them accusing them, and the court of heaven is repeated on earth when Satan links himself with professed believers to bring in deception and evil working through them so they cannot hear aright.
Joshua represents God's people as they stand before Christ clothed in unrighteousness, picturing their sin and defects and their need of divine help rather than their own defense. He represents the church, Israel and Jerusalem, whose filthy garments picture its dishonor through yielding to temptation and disobeying God's commandments. He represents God's repentant and believing people standing before the angel in garments that picture sin under condemnation, with Satan accusing them and making their case appear desperate and pressing guilt and discouragement upon them, while Christ removes their guilt, forgives them, and clothes the repentant and believing with His righteousness. The people so represented have confessed their sins with sorrow and put them away, and Jesus has written pardon against their names, while those who continue in sin without repenting and seeking pardon are not in this company. Satan claims those clothed in filthy garments as his property.
The vision belongs to Israel's return from Babylonian captivity, when Satan sought to prevent the remnant from being restored to God's favor. It was given among the symbolic visions when the returned Jews faced uncertainty about whether they could continue rebuilding, revealing God's compassion and love to sustain and encourage His people as they advanced His work. It served as a personal testimony of encouragement to Joshua and to God's people.
As representative Joshua bears the sins of Israel symbolized by the filthy garments, confessing the people's guilt rather than claiming innocence or freedom from fault. He stands in repentance and humility, pointing to their repentance and humility, seeking God's mercy on their behalf, relying on the mercy of the sin-pardoning Redeemer and claiming God's promises by faith. He pleads with the Angel for his afflicted people while Satan accuses them, showing the need for Christ their Mediator to overcome the accuser. His sinful condition leaves him exposed to Satan's accusation and claim that he should be destroyed, but his penitence and humiliation place him in need of the Saviour's compassion. His confession models the humility and repentance God calls for as people prepare for judgment, while Satan points to that sinfulness in accusing them.
Filthy Garments Mean Sin
The filthy garments are sin and iniquity and guilt and shame and impurity and transgression and pollution, picturing human sinfulness and the need for cleansing. They show a sinner standing before the angel while under condemnation, with the case appearing desperate as guilt and discouragement press in. They picture religious lives that are faulty, overcome by temptation, defective in character, and unworthy of divine favor. They represent the sin and shame of those whom temptation has overcome, whose defects give grounds for accusation.
They are past sins and defects that Satan himself tempted them to commit and then charges against them, clothing their characters from his own reckoning, with nothing lost in his count. That black robe woven on his hellish loom is not a true representation once they have repented and been pardoned. Though the sins were real, pardon has been recorded for those who feel their sin, are humbled and ashamed, believe and trust in righteousness, and are rescued as brands plucked from the fire. Christ looks on such repentant and believing ones with compassion, ready to pardon rather than condemn those who come for forgiveness.
They signify defective character and rebellion and failure to conform to God's kingdom. They picture dishonor through yielding to temptation and disobeying the commandments, imperfections of character and disregard for the commandments, and sins and defects joined to weakness and unworthiness. The condition includes folly and ingratitude and unlikeness to Christ, with selfishness and self-sufficiency and laboring in human strength leaving the sinner unable to trust in personal worth. In the final trial this consciousness of sinfulness and weakness leaves mercy and prayer through the Advocate as the only hope and defense.
The sinful condition is real and leaves sinners exposed to accusation and deserving of condemnation. Yet it does not mean they are beyond mercy, for life is preserved by divine restraint of the powers of darkness to leave opportunity for forgiveness and acceptance. Those who have sincerely repented and humbled themselves are no longer to bear the shame of sins for which pardon has been given, even when Satan rejoices over the wrongdoing and seeks to shame them and unrepentant accusers join him. Divine patience thus preserves sinners for repentance but must not be presumed upon by continuing in sin.
No one can appear before God in those garments, for they must be exchanged for the garments of Christ's righteousness by walking humbly and depending wholly on the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour. Clinging to a defiled character of self-sufficiency rather than letting it go leaves a person unfit for heaven and costs an eternity of bliss. Because the work is great and the time short and the end near, this earnest humbling and clothing is needed now.
Satan the Accuser
Satan stands at Joshua's right hand to resist both Christ and God's people, and accusing the brethren day and night before God is his special work. He takes this same position toward every church and toward ministers in their official work of the ministry of the Word, to resist the Lord's working in behalf of His people. He seeks to prevent their restoration, determined to destroy them and to exercise cruel power over them, pointing to their filthy garments, sins, weakness and unworthiness as reason they should be destroyed and as grounds to make them despair of forgiveness.
He uses their sins, defects and failures as evidence and grounds for accusation, presenting their failures as an example against God's commandment-keeping people. The filthy garments represent the people's sins and the impurity, transgression and guilt of sin, and Joshua's condition shows them under condemnation with their case appearing desperate. He claims them as his property, his subjects, his own and his prey because they sinned and yielded to temptation, and demands they be given into his hands to destroy.
In the heavenly judgment he argues with exact knowledge of the very sins he tempted them to commit that by those sins they have forfeited divine protection and he has the right to destroy them. He charges that they deserve to be shut out from God's favor just as he is, disputes that they should take his place in heaven and the place of the angels who joined him, and argues that justice requires God to condemn them as He condemned him and his angels. He charges that they profess to obey God's law but have not kept its precepts, that they have been lovers of self more than lovers of God, putting their own interests above God's service and loving the things of the world, and that their lives are marked by selfishness, malice and hatred of one another.
He revives pardoned past sins, the filthy garments being his past sins and the past sins of God's people, to make him lose confidence in God and his hold on heaven and to place him in a false light before watchers seeking his defects and failures, even though he has repented and Christ has pardoned him. He clothes their characters from his own hellish loom with the sins he charges against them and instigated them to commit, with nothing lost in his reckoning, then steps between the repenting believing soul and Christ to cast his hellish shadow, dampen faith, eclipse Christ's love and pardon, make the words of God of none effect, and drive the soul to strive to prepare its own robe of righteousness to cover deformity and sin. He points to their sins and defective characters to press guilt and discouragement upon them, to frighten them that their case is hopeless and the stain will never be washed away, and to make them despair and abandon loyalty to God and yield to temptation and turn from allegiance.
The court of heaven is repeated on earth when Satan in person stands beside sinners where Joshua stood and links himself with men who profess to believe the truth, linking arms with them so they cannot hear aright, personifying himself among them without their understanding, and bringing in deception and evil working through them. There he accuses people who have sinned by displaying their errors in the most discouraging light and clothing them with filthy garments, presenting their shame, guilt and failures to turn others against them. When God's people accuse and condemn their brethren for faults and mistakes and polluted garments, they grieve Christ and take their stand with Satan as accusers, while Christ pleads the case of every tempted soul standing before God in polluted garments.
After he leads men into wrong positions he stands as their adversary to resist every effort made to save those purchased by the blood of the Lamb, persecuting those whom he has caused to sin. So he accused backsliding Israel in its sinful backsliding condition, and in the same way points to the unprincipled proceedings and backsliding of those placed at the head of the work in these last days who have made void the law by following wrong principles. He stands by God's church burdened with sin and past mistakes to resist, to rob God's people of their rights, to point to their unworthiness, and to make them believe they have separated themselves from God and their case is hopeless; and discerning the work God is about to do for His people through Messiah the coming Branch, he claims the church as his and stirs himself to resist the Lord Jesus so they will not be favored but will remain in affliction.
Christ Defends and Cleanses
Joshua in filthy garments stands before the Angel as a sinner before Christ, who is his Mediator, Advocate, Redeemer, Restorer and High Priest. Christ intercedes for the tempted and afflicted before the Father, pleading to bring the sinner to repentance and restoration and to defeat the accuser. He answers Satan not by Joshua's merits but by pointing to his rescue as a brand plucked from the fire, for the repentant who trust Him receive pardon and His righteousness through His obedience and death. Satan accuses because he stands to resist Christ and His work for His people, yet the vision shows the Mediator's power to overcome him.
He rebukes Satan, defends those whom the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem has chosen, and will not permit their destruction. He stands ready to resist Satan when Satan revives repented and pardoned past sins to make the soul lose confidence and to place it in false light before those watching for defects. He orders the filthy garments taken away, shines His light and righteousness into the heart, and commands that the sinner be clothed anew rather than left to prepare his own robe to cover deformity. That black robe with which Satan clothes the character from his own reckoning is not a true representation of the humbled, ashamed brand rescued from the fire, for Christ has pardoned and claims him as His own.
He causes iniquity to pass, removes guilt, forgives, regenerates the sinner, and writes pardon against his name. He takes away the garments picturing sin, defects, faulty religious life and unworthiness, and gives in their place change of raiment, a fair mitre, clean clothing and the robe of His own righteousness. God does not require sinners to make themselves righteous before coming; He receives those who confess and seek forgiveness through Christ's merits, rejects Satan's accusation, and continues His redeeming work in them as they trust. This cleansing leads on to walking in God's ways and to the coming of the Branch who removes iniquity in one day.
Acceptance rests not on personal worthiness but on the compassion, merits, obedience, death and resisting victory of the One who resisted the enemy. Israel, defiled by sins Satan had tempted them to commit, had repented and accepted Christ, and Christ looked on the punished, repenting people with pity and compassion. They cannot answer Satan themselves; trusting His perfection they stand justified and accepted despite imperfection, enabled by repentance and faith to obey and clothed in righteousness, sanctification and redemption, and His sacrifice silences the accuser. Though innocent and perfectly holy, Christ as Substitute and Surety took humanity's guilt and condemnation and was clothed in defiled garments so that believers may be clothed with His glorious righteousness, taking the sinner's sin and offering His righteousness so Satan shall not triumph.
His action shows God's marvelous love for fallen man and great care over His people, resisting Satan's power to afflict and destroy them. Nothing in the world is so dear to God as His church; with jealous care He guards those who seek Him and strive for victory over sin, is touched with human infirmity having been tempted yet without sin, hears intercession for the afflicted, and has not forsaken His people. Even when priest and people stand on trial in repentance unto obedience after dishonoring God by yielding to temptation and suffering depression, weakness and sorrow under transgression, He rebukes the resister who would rob them of their rights and hold their past unworthiness before them as hopeless. When He tests and sees true repentance and decided change from wrong principles without repetition of transgression, He says it is enough, pardons, clothes with change of raiment through the all-powerful Redeemer, and grants prosperity.
Prophecy for the Remnant
The filthy garments of Joshua standing before the Angel picture God's people in the closing events of the great day of atonement, fully conscious of the sinfulness of their lives and seeing their weakness and unworthiness until ready to despair. In that final severe trial under Satan's accusation the remnant church will have God's mercy as its only hope and prayer as its only defense. Like Joshua they will plead with brokenness of heart and unfaltering earnest faith for pardon and deliverance through Jesus their Advocate, unable to trust their own worth. Satan will point to their sins and defective characters to make them despair and abandon loyalty, claiming they have forfeited divine protection and deserve to be destroyed. That pleading belongs to a time when those true to God are menaced, denounced, proscribed, and betrayed by parents and brethren and kinsfolks and friends even unto death.
As Satan accused Jacob and influenced Esau to march against him, so in the time of trouble he will stir up the wicked to destroy God's people and urge his accusations against them. The Lord will permit him to try them to the uttermost, and their confidence in God, their faith and firmness, will be severely tested. As they review the past their hopes will sink, for in their whole lives they can see little good, and they remain fully conscious of weakness and unworthiness. Satan will endeavor to terrify them with the thought that their cases are hopeless and that the stain of defilement will never be washed away, hoping to destroy their faith so they will yield to his temptations and turn from allegiance to God.
He numbers the world as his subjects, but the little company who keep the commandments of God are resisting his supremacy, and if he could blot them from the earth his triumph would be complete. Holy angels guard them, and he infers that their sins have been pardoned, but he does not know that their cases have been decided in the sanctuary above. Having accurate knowledge of the sins he tempted them to commit, he presents these before God in the most exaggerated light, representing this people to be just as deserving as himself of exclusion from the favor of God. He declares that the Lord cannot in justice forgive their sins and yet destroy him and his angels, claiming them as his prey and demanding that they be given into his hands to destroy.
The chapter gives a faint description of the reality of the end, when evil shall spring forth and Satan is drilling his army to develop strong parties ready for the great battle of the last great conflict, and what it pictures shall become a living reality. It presents events soon to take place for which every soul needs to prepare, given as a warning to heed in view of the coming day of the Lord. It gives encouragement for all, showing Joshua the high priest as a brand plucked out of the fire whom the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem defends and rebukes Satan for, whose iniquity is caused to pass with the taking away of the filthy garments and the clothing with change of raiment and a fair mitre, leading to walking in God's ways and the coming of the Branch who removes iniquity in one day. Satan discerns the work God is about to do for His people through Messiah the coming Branch, and claims the church as his, stirring himself to resist the Lord Jesus so they will not be favored but will remain in affliction after dishonoring God by yielding to temptation and disobeying His commandments and suffering depression and sorrow and weakness and suffering because of transgression. Priest and people together have been put on test and trial and stand in repentance unto obedience, rescued from the fire, yet full glorification still waits for the time when obedience brings judgeship in God's house and a place among those standing by. Satan seeks to resist by reviving repented and pardoned past sins to make them lose confidence in God and hold on heaven and to place them in a false light before watchers seeking defects and failures, but Christ stands ready to resist Satan, rebukes him, and declares what He will do for all who like Joshua seek to stand justified before Him. If all who have known the way of the Lord take warning and decidedly change wrong principles of action and make thorough work according to God's measuring and weighing, avoiding repetition of transgression, their transgressions will be pardoned, and when God tests and sees true repentance He will say it is enough and grant prosperity.
Repentance and Daily Application
Only those who have made right use of probationary time are pictured in Joshua, those who have confessed sins with contrite sorrow, put them away, vexed their souls over abounding corruption and iniquity, sighed and cried over abominations without mixing in them, and washed their robes of character white in the blood of the Lamb, for whom pardon stands written against their names. Those who continue in sin without repentance, without seeking pardon, who refuse to turn from iniquity and leave sins unconfessed and unforsaken, are not in this company and cannot develop the pure holy character able to stand in the judgment. When sinners do confess, repent and forsake their sins, guilt is removed as the filthy garments are taken away, and cleansing, forgiveness, change of raiment and a fair mitre upon the head are given.
The garments are never stripped away by force, for the sinner must desire to be rid of sin, seek separation from it, and rely on the merits of Christ and His blood. God does not demand that sinners make themselves righteous before coming, but invites them to come just as they are in repentance, without waiting until they are better, asking to be cleansed. Those who so come have guilt removed, are clothed with a changed life and Christ's righteousness, and may trust divine protection in the day of affliction and at last walk with angels in the city of God.
The sight of God's acknowledged people standing in filthy garments calls every professed believer to humility, honest self-examination and confession in preparation for judgment. Beholding Christ's spotless character exposes lack of purity, increases humility in those who purify the soul by obeying truth, and deepens desire to become like Him. Hope lies not in personal merit but in Christ alone as righteousness, sanctification and redemption, who alone answers Satan's accusations on the strength of His own merits; repentance and faith remove the filthy garments, replace them with His robe of righteousness, and enable obedience to the commandments and acceptance before God, with all glory given to Him for salvation.
To accuse and condemn brethren for faults, mistakes and polluted garments is to grieve Christ and take the side of Satan the accuser, while Christ mercifully intercedes and pleads for every tempted, sinful soul standing burdened and exposed. Believers are not to join Satan in condemning those who have sinned nor to justify themselves while neglecting their own need for forgiveness, but are to face their own defects, seek God's forgiveness, show compassion, and help the lost and erring. Those criticized and condemned are not to be discouraged, for they belong to Christ by creation and by redemption and He claims them as His own, and iniquity removed is replaced with clean clothing, the robe of His righteousness.
Joshua in filthy garments portrays ministers and the churches under their care clothed with sin, selfishness and laboring in human strength in their own spirit, way and will, a sinful condition and defect Satan uses as ground for accusation while complaining that he is prevented from destroying them. They are to humble their hearts before God, fast and pray for pardon, seek the atoning sacrifice with sincere repentance, and look to revival, reform and sanctification by the Holy Spirit, relying on Christ's merits and atonement, forgiven and pardoned as they repent and continue serving. Understanding the chapter leads to work for those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, to whom Christ's righteousness is imputed, to opening the heart to Jesus, shutting out Satan, seeking growing light and strength to stand in His righteousness, emptying the heart of selfishness in preparation for the latter rain, and desiring evidence of acceptance, the garments of His righteousness, and the endowment and baptism of the Holy Spirit.
The same imagery warns against Satan clothing the church with filthy garments and reproach by misusing God's reproofs and corrections, urging believers into false positions and turning conviction into accusation, denunciation and condemnation. Those who spend means on works not appointed and hurl thunderbolts against the militant church instead of restoring the erring and winning unconverted souls to Jesus help Satan rather than building Christ's kingdom. The warning forbids fastening filthy garments on faithful believers who sleep in Jesus by exposing and misrepresenting their mistakes as stained by error and fanaticism and thus furnishing opponents with material against truth, forbids censuring as filthy one like Edson while the censurers themselves act wrongly in selfishness, greed and suspicion, forbids burdening servants with false unproved charges which must be cleared by establishing facts, and exposes adultery whose words and deeds stand recorded in heaven as leaving the guilty open to accusation, shame and misery.
The chapter's experience is repeated whenever those claiming to be clean refuse to humble themselves and confess, indulging a harsh, critical, unforgiving spirit of self and treating sin lightly, while unrepentant accusers join Satan in shaming those already repented, pardoned and regarded by Jesus with compassion, cleansing and new garments. One whose sin and disloyalty leaves him exposed and deserving condemnation is yet preserved by God's restraint of the powers of darkness, giving opportunity for forgiveness and acceptance, a reminder that divine patience preserves life for repentance and must not be presumed upon by continuing in sin. Turning from God to serve Satan darkens the view of God, heaven and eternal realities beyond which lies prepared glory, whereas God honors, makes resplendent and glorifies those who do justice, judgment and obedience; against blinded misstating, misinterpreting and misrepresenting accusers who claim to be Christ's children while standing like Judas on the accusing side, betraying sacred trust, the chapter sets God's love, for nothing is so dear to Him as His church.
Joshua the high priest stands in his sacred office before the Angel of the Lord, who is Christ ministering as Mediator for His people. He represents God's people, the repentant believing sinner, standing before Christ clothed in unrighteousness. His filthy garments are sin and guilt and shame, picturing human sinfulness and need for cleansing. Satan stands at his right hand to resist and accuse him from those sins, claiming him as his prey, but Christ rebukes Satan, defends those He has chosen, and orders the filthy garments taken away. He causes iniquity to pass and clothes them with clean raiment and His own righteousness, so their acceptance rests not on their worthiness but on His compassion, merits and death.
Joshua Before the Angel
Joshua stands in his sacred office as high priest before the Angel of the Lord, and the Angel is Christ the Mediator ministering for His people as on the day of atonement, interceding for Joshua and his afflicted people before the Father just as He now intercedes for His people. The filthy garments are identified in the following verses with iniquity, which God removes before clothing Joshua in clean garments. The church and its people are on trial in a position of repentance unto obedience while the Lord comes to their relief.
The scene is a controversy in the heavenly courts, with Satan standing at Joshua's right hand to resist him and accuse him, and the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem defending Joshua as a brand plucked out of the fire and rebuking Satan. Satan accuses backsliding Israel and points to unprincipled proceedings and backsliding, and after leading men into wrong positions he stands as their adversary to resist every effort to save those purchased by the blood of the Lamb, accusing the brethren day and night before God as his special work. The same position is now taken toward every church and toward ministers of the gospel in their official work in the ministry of the Word, to resist the Lord's working in behalf of His people, while the Lord comes to the relief of His afflicted people in answer to intercession and in pity toward them. Sinners are placed by their sins where Joshua stood before the angel, with Satan present in person beside them accusing them, and the court of heaven is repeated on earth when Satan links himself with professed believers to bring in deception and evil working through them so they cannot hear aright.
Joshua represents God's people as they stand before Christ clothed in unrighteousness, picturing their sin and defects and their need of divine help rather than their own defense. He represents the church, Israel and Jerusalem, whose filthy garments picture its dishonor through yielding to temptation and disobeying God's commandments. He represents God's repentant and believing people standing before the angel in garments that picture sin under condemnation, with Satan accusing them and making their case appear desperate and pressing guilt and discouragement upon them, while Christ removes their guilt, forgives them, and clothes the repentant and believing with His righteousness. The people so represented have confessed their sins with sorrow and put them away, and Jesus has written pardon against their names, while those who continue in sin without repenting and seeking pardon are not in this company. Satan claims those clothed in filthy garments as his property.
The vision belongs to Israel's return from Babylonian captivity, when Satan sought to prevent the remnant from being restored to God's favor. It was given among the symbolic visions when the returned Jews faced uncertainty about whether they could continue rebuilding, revealing God's compassion and love to sustain and encourage His people as they advanced His work. It served as a personal testimony of encouragement to Joshua and to God's people.
As representative Joshua bears the sins of Israel symbolized by the filthy garments, confessing the people's guilt rather than claiming innocence or freedom from fault. He stands in repentance and humility, pointing to their repentance and humility, seeking God's mercy on their behalf, relying on the mercy of the sin-pardoning Redeemer and claiming God's promises by faith. He pleads with the Angel for his afflicted people while Satan accuses them, showing the need for Christ their Mediator to overcome the accuser. His sinful condition leaves him exposed to Satan's accusation and claim that he should be destroyed, but his penitence and humiliation place him in need of the Saviour's compassion. His confession models the humility and repentance God calls for as people prepare for judgment, while Satan points to that sinfulness in accusing them.
Filthy Garments Mean Sin
The filthy garments are sin and iniquity and guilt and shame and impurity and transgression and pollution, picturing human sinfulness and the need for cleansing. They show a sinner standing before the angel while under condemnation, with the case appearing desperate as guilt and discouragement press in. They picture religious lives that are faulty, overcome by temptation, defective in character, and unworthy of divine favor. They represent the sin and shame of those whom temptation has overcome, whose defects give grounds for accusation.
They are past sins and defects that Satan himself tempted them to commit and then charges against them, clothing their characters from his own reckoning, with nothing lost in his count. That black robe woven on his hellish loom is not a true representation once they have repented and been pardoned. Though the sins were real, pardon has been recorded for those who feel their sin, are humbled and ashamed, believe and trust in righteousness, and are rescued as brands plucked from the fire. Christ looks on such repentant and believing ones with compassion, ready to pardon rather than condemn those who come for forgiveness.
They signify defective character and rebellion and failure to conform to God's kingdom. They picture dishonor through yielding to temptation and disobeying the commandments, imperfections of character and disregard for the commandments, and sins and defects joined to weakness and unworthiness. The condition includes folly and ingratitude and unlikeness to Christ, with selfishness and self-sufficiency and laboring in human strength leaving the sinner unable to trust in personal worth. In the final trial this consciousness of sinfulness and weakness leaves mercy and prayer through the Advocate as the only hope and defense.
The sinful condition is real and leaves sinners exposed to accusation and deserving of condemnation. Yet it does not mean they are beyond mercy, for life is preserved by divine restraint of the powers of darkness to leave opportunity for forgiveness and acceptance. Those who have sincerely repented and humbled themselves are no longer to bear the shame of sins for which pardon has been given, even when Satan rejoices over the wrongdoing and seeks to shame them and unrepentant accusers join him. Divine patience thus preserves sinners for repentance but must not be presumed upon by continuing in sin.
No one can appear before God in those garments, for they must be exchanged for the garments of Christ's righteousness by walking humbly and depending wholly on the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour. Clinging to a defiled character of self-sufficiency rather than letting it go leaves a person unfit for heaven and costs an eternity of bliss. Because the work is great and the time short and the end near, this earnest humbling and clothing is needed now.
Satan the Accuser
Satan stands at Joshua's right hand to resist both Christ and God's people, and accusing the brethren day and night before God is his special work. He takes this same position toward every church and toward ministers in their official work of the ministry of the Word, to resist the Lord's working in behalf of His people. He seeks to prevent their restoration, determined to destroy them and to exercise cruel power over them, pointing to their filthy garments, sins, weakness and unworthiness as reason they should be destroyed and as grounds to make them despair of forgiveness.
He uses their sins, defects and failures as evidence and grounds for accusation, presenting their failures as an example against God's commandment-keeping people. The filthy garments represent the people's sins and the impurity, transgression and guilt of sin, and Joshua's condition shows them under condemnation with their case appearing desperate. He claims them as his property, his subjects, his own and his prey because they sinned and yielded to temptation, and demands they be given into his hands to destroy.
In the heavenly judgment he argues with exact knowledge of the very sins he tempted them to commit that by those sins they have forfeited divine protection and he has the right to destroy them. He charges that they deserve to be shut out from God's favor just as he is, disputes that they should take his place in heaven and the place of the angels who joined him, and argues that justice requires God to condemn them as He condemned him and his angels. He charges that they profess to obey God's law but have not kept its precepts, that they have been lovers of self more than lovers of God, putting their own interests above God's service and loving the things of the world, and that their lives are marked by selfishness, malice and hatred of one another.
He revives pardoned past sins, the filthy garments being his past sins and the past sins of God's people, to make him lose confidence in God and his hold on heaven and to place him in a false light before watchers seeking his defects and failures, even though he has repented and Christ has pardoned him. He clothes their characters from his own hellish loom with the sins he charges against them and instigated them to commit, with nothing lost in his reckoning, then steps between the repenting believing soul and Christ to cast his hellish shadow, dampen faith, eclipse Christ's love and pardon, make the words of God of none effect, and drive the soul to strive to prepare its own robe of righteousness to cover deformity and sin. He points to their sins and defective characters to press guilt and discouragement upon them, to frighten them that their case is hopeless and the stain will never be washed away, and to make them despair and abandon loyalty to God and yield to temptation and turn from allegiance.
The court of heaven is repeated on earth when Satan in person stands beside sinners where Joshua stood and links himself with men who profess to believe the truth, linking arms with them so they cannot hear aright, personifying himself among them without their understanding, and bringing in deception and evil working through them. There he accuses people who have sinned by displaying their errors in the most discouraging light and clothing them with filthy garments, presenting their shame, guilt and failures to turn others against them. When God's people accuse and condemn their brethren for faults and mistakes and polluted garments, they grieve Christ and take their stand with Satan as accusers, while Christ pleads the case of every tempted soul standing before God in polluted garments.
After he leads men into wrong positions he stands as their adversary to resist every effort made to save those purchased by the blood of the Lamb, persecuting those whom he has caused to sin. So he accused backsliding Israel in its sinful backsliding condition, and in the same way points to the unprincipled proceedings and backsliding of those placed at the head of the work in these last days who have made void the law by following wrong principles. He stands by God's church burdened with sin and past mistakes to resist, to rob God's people of their rights, to point to their unworthiness, and to make them believe they have separated themselves from God and their case is hopeless; and discerning the work God is about to do for His people through Messiah the coming Branch, he claims the church as his and stirs himself to resist the Lord Jesus so they will not be favored but will remain in affliction.
Christ Defends and Cleanses
Joshua in filthy garments stands before the Angel as a sinner before Christ, who is his Mediator, Advocate, Redeemer, Restorer and High Priest. Christ intercedes for the tempted and afflicted before the Father, pleading to bring the sinner to repentance and restoration and to defeat the accuser. He answers Satan not by Joshua's merits but by pointing to his rescue as a brand plucked from the fire, for the repentant who trust Him receive pardon and His righteousness through His obedience and death. Satan accuses because he stands to resist Christ and His work for His people, yet the vision shows the Mediator's power to overcome him.
He rebukes Satan, defends those whom the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem has chosen, and will not permit their destruction. He stands ready to resist Satan when Satan revives repented and pardoned past sins to make the soul lose confidence and to place it in false light before those watching for defects. He orders the filthy garments taken away, shines His light and righteousness into the heart, and commands that the sinner be clothed anew rather than left to prepare his own robe to cover deformity. That black robe with which Satan clothes the character from his own reckoning is not a true representation of the humbled, ashamed brand rescued from the fire, for Christ has pardoned and claims him as His own.
He causes iniquity to pass, removes guilt, forgives, regenerates the sinner, and writes pardon against his name. He takes away the garments picturing sin, defects, faulty religious life and unworthiness, and gives in their place change of raiment, a fair mitre, clean clothing and the robe of His own righteousness. God does not require sinners to make themselves righteous before coming; He receives those who confess and seek forgiveness through Christ's merits, rejects Satan's accusation, and continues His redeeming work in them as they trust. This cleansing leads on to walking in God's ways and to the coming of the Branch who removes iniquity in one day.
Acceptance rests not on personal worthiness but on the compassion, merits, obedience, death and resisting victory of the One who resisted the enemy. Israel, defiled by sins Satan had tempted them to commit, had repented and accepted Christ, and Christ looked on the punished, repenting people with pity and compassion. They cannot answer Satan themselves; trusting His perfection they stand justified and accepted despite imperfection, enabled by repentance and faith to obey and clothed in righteousness, sanctification and redemption, and His sacrifice silences the accuser. Though innocent and perfectly holy, Christ as Substitute and Surety took humanity's guilt and condemnation and was clothed in defiled garments so that believers may be clothed with His glorious righteousness, taking the sinner's sin and offering His righteousness so Satan shall not triumph.
His action shows God's marvelous love for fallen man and great care over His people, resisting Satan's power to afflict and destroy them. Nothing in the world is so dear to God as His church; with jealous care He guards those who seek Him and strive for victory over sin, is touched with human infirmity having been tempted yet without sin, hears intercession for the afflicted, and has not forsaken His people. Even when priest and people stand on trial in repentance unto obedience after dishonoring God by yielding to temptation and suffering depression, weakness and sorrow under transgression, He rebukes the resister who would rob them of their rights and hold their past unworthiness before them as hopeless. When He tests and sees true repentance and decided change from wrong principles without repetition of transgression, He says it is enough, pardons, clothes with change of raiment through the all-powerful Redeemer, and grants prosperity.
Prophecy for the Remnant
The filthy garments of Joshua standing before the Angel picture God's people in the closing events of the great day of atonement, fully conscious of the sinfulness of their lives and seeing their weakness and unworthiness until ready to despair. In that final severe trial under Satan's accusation the remnant church will have God's mercy as its only hope and prayer as its only defense. Like Joshua they will plead with brokenness of heart and unfaltering earnest faith for pardon and deliverance through Jesus their Advocate, unable to trust their own worth. Satan will point to their sins and defective characters to make them despair and abandon loyalty, claiming they have forfeited divine protection and deserve to be destroyed. That pleading belongs to a time when those true to God are menaced, denounced, proscribed, and betrayed by parents and brethren and kinsfolks and friends even unto death.
As Satan accused Jacob and influenced Esau to march against him, so in the time of trouble he will stir up the wicked to destroy God's people and urge his accusations against them. The Lord will permit him to try them to the uttermost, and their confidence in God, their faith and firmness, will be severely tested. As they review the past their hopes will sink, for in their whole lives they can see little good, and they remain fully conscious of weakness and unworthiness. Satan will endeavor to terrify them with the thought that their cases are hopeless and that the stain of defilement will never be washed away, hoping to destroy their faith so they will yield to his temptations and turn from allegiance to God.
He numbers the world as his subjects, but the little company who keep the commandments of God are resisting his supremacy, and if he could blot them from the earth his triumph would be complete. Holy angels guard them, and he infers that their sins have been pardoned, but he does not know that their cases have been decided in the sanctuary above. Having accurate knowledge of the sins he tempted them to commit, he presents these before God in the most exaggerated light, representing this people to be just as deserving as himself of exclusion from the favor of God. He declares that the Lord cannot in justice forgive their sins and yet destroy him and his angels, claiming them as his prey and demanding that they be given into his hands to destroy.
The chapter gives a faint description of the reality of the end, when evil shall spring forth and Satan is drilling his army to develop strong parties ready for the great battle of the last great conflict, and what it pictures shall become a living reality. It presents events soon to take place for which every soul needs to prepare, given as a warning to heed in view of the coming day of the Lord. It gives encouragement for all, showing Joshua the high priest as a brand plucked out of the fire whom the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem defends and rebukes Satan for, whose iniquity is caused to pass with the taking away of the filthy garments and the clothing with change of raiment and a fair mitre, leading to walking in God's ways and the coming of the Branch who removes iniquity in one day. Satan discerns the work God is about to do for His people through Messiah the coming Branch, and claims the church as his, stirring himself to resist the Lord Jesus so they will not be favored but will remain in affliction after dishonoring God by yielding to temptation and disobeying His commandments and suffering depression and sorrow and weakness and suffering because of transgression. Priest and people together have been put on test and trial and stand in repentance unto obedience, rescued from the fire, yet full glorification still waits for the time when obedience brings judgeship in God's house and a place among those standing by. Satan seeks to resist by reviving repented and pardoned past sins to make them lose confidence in God and hold on heaven and to place them in a false light before watchers seeking defects and failures, but Christ stands ready to resist Satan, rebukes him, and declares what He will do for all who like Joshua seek to stand justified before Him. If all who have known the way of the Lord take warning and decidedly change wrong principles of action and make thorough work according to God's measuring and weighing, avoiding repetition of transgression, their transgressions will be pardoned, and when God tests and sees true repentance He will say it is enough and grant prosperity.
Repentance and Daily Application
Only those who have made right use of probationary time are pictured in Joshua, those who have confessed sins with contrite sorrow, put them away, vexed their souls over abounding corruption and iniquity, sighed and cried over abominations without mixing in them, and washed their robes of character white in the blood of the Lamb, for whom pardon stands written against their names. Those who continue in sin without repentance, without seeking pardon, who refuse to turn from iniquity and leave sins unconfessed and unforsaken, are not in this company and cannot develop the pure holy character able to stand in the judgment. When sinners do confess, repent and forsake their sins, guilt is removed as the filthy garments are taken away, and cleansing, forgiveness, change of raiment and a fair mitre upon the head are given.
The garments are never stripped away by force, for the sinner must desire to be rid of sin, seek separation from it, and rely on the merits of Christ and His blood. God does not demand that sinners make themselves righteous before coming, but invites them to come just as they are in repentance, without waiting until they are better, asking to be cleansed. Those who so come have guilt removed, are clothed with a changed life and Christ's righteousness, and may trust divine protection in the day of affliction and at last walk with angels in the city of God.
The sight of God's acknowledged people standing in filthy garments calls every professed believer to humility, honest self-examination and confession in preparation for judgment. Beholding Christ's spotless character exposes lack of purity, increases humility in those who purify the soul by obeying truth, and deepens desire to become like Him. Hope lies not in personal merit but in Christ alone as righteousness, sanctification and redemption, who alone answers Satan's accusations on the strength of His own merits; repentance and faith remove the filthy garments, replace them with His robe of righteousness, and enable obedience to the commandments and acceptance before God, with all glory given to Him for salvation.
To accuse and condemn brethren for faults, mistakes and polluted garments is to grieve Christ and take the side of Satan the accuser, while Christ mercifully intercedes and pleads for every tempted, sinful soul standing burdened and exposed. Believers are not to join Satan in condemning those who have sinned nor to justify themselves while neglecting their own need for forgiveness, but are to face their own defects, seek God's forgiveness, show compassion, and help the lost and erring. Those criticized and condemned are not to be discouraged, for they belong to Christ by creation and by redemption and He claims them as His own, and iniquity removed is replaced with clean clothing, the robe of His righteousness.
Joshua in filthy garments portrays ministers and the churches under their care clothed with sin, selfishness and laboring in human strength in their own spirit, way and will, a sinful condition and defect Satan uses as ground for accusation while complaining that he is prevented from destroying them. They are to humble their hearts before God, fast and pray for pardon, seek the atoning sacrifice with sincere repentance, and look to revival, reform and sanctification by the Holy Spirit, relying on Christ's merits and atonement, forgiven and pardoned as they repent and continue serving. Understanding the chapter leads to work for those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, to whom Christ's righteousness is imputed, to opening the heart to Jesus, shutting out Satan, seeking growing light and strength to stand in His righteousness, emptying the heart of selfishness in preparation for the latter rain, and desiring evidence of acceptance, the garments of His righteousness, and the endowment and baptism of the Holy Spirit.
The same imagery warns against Satan clothing the church with filthy garments and reproach by misusing God's reproofs and corrections, urging believers into false positions and turning conviction into accusation, denunciation and condemnation. Those who spend means on works not appointed and hurl thunderbolts against the militant church instead of restoring the erring and winning unconverted souls to Jesus help Satan rather than building Christ's kingdom. The warning forbids fastening filthy garments on faithful believers who sleep in Jesus by exposing and misrepresenting their mistakes as stained by error and fanaticism and thus furnishing opponents with material against truth, forbids censuring as filthy one like Edson while the censurers themselves act wrongly in selfishness, greed and suspicion, forbids burdening servants with false unproved charges which must be cleared by establishing facts, and exposes adultery whose words and deeds stand recorded in heaven as leaving the guilty open to accusation, shame and misery.
The chapter's experience is repeated whenever those claiming to be clean refuse to humble themselves and confess, indulging a harsh, critical, unforgiving spirit of self and treating sin lightly, while unrepentant accusers join Satan in shaming those already repented, pardoned and regarded by Jesus with compassion, cleansing and new garments. One whose sin and disloyalty leaves him exposed and deserving condemnation is yet preserved by God's restraint of the powers of darkness, giving opportunity for forgiveness and acceptance, a reminder that divine patience preserves life for repentance and must not be presumed upon by continuing in sin. Turning from God to serve Satan darkens the view of God, heaven and eternal realities beyond which lies prepared glory, whereas God honors, makes resplendent and glorifies those who do justice, judgment and obedience; against blinded misstating, misinterpreting and misrepresenting accusers who claim to be Christ's children while standing like Judas on the accusing side, betraying sacred trust, the chapter sets God's love, for nothing is so dear to Him as His church.