Bible Commentaries

THE HIGH PRIEST AND THE ADVERSARY

‘And He shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at His right hand to resist Him.’

Zechariah 3:1

The vision of Zechariah appears to us in its secondary and broader interpretation to be a solemn picture of what is now going on in the Church of Christ. We may trace its reality in the dispensation of the Gospel.

I. Our first illustration of the text will he taken from the manifestation of Christ to the Gentile world.—It is impossible to explain the perpetual strife between truth and error without seeing in fact that which Zechariah beheld in ecstatic trance: ‘Jesus the High Priest, and Satan standing at His right hand.’

II. In this prophetic vision Satan is depicted not as an open enemy of the high priest, but as standing at his right hand—not, that is, occupying the position of a confessed foe, but of a false friend.—And just similar has been the resistance of Satan to the Kingdom of Christ.

—Bishop Woodford.

Illustration

‘From the hour Satan was cast out of heaven, he has been the adversary of God, the antagonist of good, and the accuser of the brethren. He discovers the weak places in character, and thrusts at them; the secret defects of the saints, and proclaims them from the housetop; the least trace of disloyalty, inconsistency, or mixture of motive: and flaunts it before God’s angels. He is keen as steel, and cruel as hell. Ah, it is awful to think with what implacability he rages against us.’