Did God reject the Jews?
The Jews misunderstood why the need for the Messiah to come to earth. In self-pride, they concluded that the Messiah would be the final and enduring liberator of the Jewish Nation. A succession of foreign powers occupied Judah, so the Jews felt oppressed. However, the Temple in Jerusalem stood during most of the time that foreign powers were in Judah. The priestly services and rituals were not impeded for most of the six centuries after the Babylonian exile. They had a clear message about what God planned to do. “Listen now, Joshua the high priest, both you and your colleagues who are sitting before you, all of you are a symbol that I am about to introduce my servant, the Branch.” Zechariah 3:8, NET. The Branch is the Messiah whom God is about to introduce. The high priest Joshua and the Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, worked together to restore the Temple in Jerusalem. Temple was the sanctuary where God resided among his people.
The Messiah was coming to restore a proper sanctuary where God would dwell among his people forever. The sanctuary is the body of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. God is with us forever, in the body of Jesus Christ. God explained to the high priest how he would dwell among his people forever. “As for the stone I have set before Joshua – on the one stone there are seven eyes. I am about to engrave an inscription on it, says the LORD who rules over all, to the effect that I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.” Zechariah 3: 8 – 9, NET. The “one stone” represents the One Messiah. The seven eyes are symbolic of divine omniscience and presence.
God told the Jews, without ambiguity, why he was bringing the Messiah. God was bringing the Messiah to remove the iniquity, or sin, from all peoples so he could restore them to him as his children, in the Messiah. “For he will execute his sentence on the earth completely and quickly.” Romans 9:28, NET. What sentence will be executed? The judgment for the sin of humankind. “Now is the judgment on this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John 12:31 – 32, NET. God accomplished the removal of sin from humankind through the body of Jesus Christ on the cross at Golgotha. This was the mission of the Messiah. It was not to liberate the Jewish Nation, as they thought, but the whole of humankind. Jesus Christ remained faithful to his mission, and humankind stands justified and saved from the guilt and punishment for sin by his faithfulness.
Continued in the next blog.
