Robes of State

Zech. 3:4b "See I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes."

 

Here is the picture. Joshua the high priest is standing before God. And standing at Joshua's right is Satan. In legal situations back in that day the person who stood at the right hand of the person was his accuser. And that is exactly what was going on here. Satan stood there to oppose God's high priest. The Hebrew word for "oppose" is actually "satan". Satan's name actually means adversary, resist, oppose and that is what he was doing in this situation. He saw Joshua. He saw that he was standing before the God of the universe and he saw that Joshua was standing there in "filthy garments". Joshua, the high priest, was not clean. He knew it and Satan knew it and Satan was there to point this out to God and let Him know that Joshua was not worthy. He was dirty. He should not be standing in God's presence.

 

Enter God. God knew what Satan was up to and He had to do something to get rid of the accusation that was about to be leveled against Joshua, so He did the only thing that would remedy the situation. He gave him new clothes. He got rid of the dirty stuff and gave him new clean clothes. He instructed: "Take away the filthy garments from him…see I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes." God took away his dirt. God removed his iniquity. The word for iniquity is actually perversity, depravity, guilt, punishment. God took it all away. No more sin. No more guilt. No more punishment. It was gone. And He didn't leave it at that, He gave Joshua new clothes. Clean clothes. But not just clean clothes, but rich robes. The word for rich robes actually means the "robe of state". This was a royal robe. A robe of honor. A robe of authority. God took junk and made it royalty.

 

Things haven't changed. God still does this. We have the accuser standing at our right hand in front of God ready to level charges against us, and God says: "Take away the filthy garments. I have forgiven your sin. Put on the royal robe of righteousness." No more sin. No more punishment. No more guilt. No more accusation. Instead, God looks at us and sees royalty. Look at what is going to happen: Rev 3:5 "He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels." Total forgiveness and total purity declared by God the Son to God the Father. Why? Because of what Jesus did for us. The only way we get this forgiveness, the only way we get this robe of state is through Jesus death on the cross. It was there that He removed our iniquity. It was there that He defeated the accuser. It was there that my guilt and my punishment were eliminated. And now I am forgiven and I wear the robe of state, rich robes, royal robes in God's eyes.

 

Thank you Lord.