Zechariah 3:1-5 poster

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him…And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” Zechariah 3:1–5 In this passage we see Joshua the high priest standing in filthy garments before the angel of Yahweh (who is/represents Yahweh Himself and is, I believe, God the Son). The high priest was supposed to be the holy representative of the people, so if he was filthy in God's sight, that didn't bode well for the rest of Israel. And of course, Satan is there to bring a seemingly airtight case against the priest. Joshua is filthy and everyone can see it, the angel of Yahweh is holy—a consuming fire. There would seem to be no hope. But then we see the angel of Yahweh remove Joshua's filthy garments and clothe him in pure vestments. This is an awesome foreshadowing of Christ! Jesus Christ, the angel of Yahweh in our midst, will be the one to remove the garments of our sin and clothe us in the vestments of His righteousness, and HE will accomplish it “in a single day” (Zechariah 3:9) at the cross. So, in this picture you see the angel of Yahweh with his hand on Joshua's shoulder, having just silenced the accuser and clothed the priest in pure garments. However, I also wanted to show what that act would “cost” Yahweh—what He would do in order to enable it—namely, the death (and resurrection) of Christ. As God the Son purifies Joshua, it is on the merits of His own death and resurrection that He is acting. I added the filthy garments to the cross to show that the record of our iniquities (and, indeed, our iniquities themselves) were set aside and nailed to the cross at Christ's death (Colossians 2:14). The halo around the angel of Yahweh's head is cruciform to point forward to the cross as well as to note his deity. And lastly, the serpent/accuser lies silenced under the heel of the pre-incarnate Christ because his silencing in heaven before Joshua foreshadowed the final, head-crushing silencing that Christ would deal him at the cross.