Jesus and Joshua word study continued from last week
Recap:
• Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8 prove that Jesus and Joshua’s name in the original Greek are the same.
• The OT Hebrew name Joshua and the NT Greek name Jesus mean the same thing: “Jehovah (or “Yahweh”) is salvation”
• There are 2 (of 4) very significant characters in the OT that share the name “Joshua.”
— One was the famous Joshua of the conquest of Canaan — successor of Moses and a man of great faith, who brought God’s people into the “Promised Land” and “rest.”
— The second was a high priest in the time of the rebuilding of the temple, after the return of God’s people from Babylonian exile.
Both of these men foreshadow the Messiah (Jesus) in certain respects. Jesus is our High Priest (Heb. 8:1) who brings God’s people into rest from dead works (Heb. 4:8-10) and into the ultimate rest of heaven.
Foreshadowing(Wikipedia): is a technique used by authors to provide clues for the reader to be able to predict what might occur later in the story. In other words, it is a literary device in which an author drops hints about the plot and what may come in the near future or, in other words, the plot developments to come later in the story.
Q. What can we learn from shadows?
Shadows: can give us a lot of info about the thing that is casting it — it’s size, shape, and with quite a bit of detail. You can determine if a shadow is a person, place or thing. And if you know a person well enough, you can tell them by their shadow, right? But shadows are NOT the real thing — they only point to the reality of the real thing.So at this point, you might ask, well — what’s the point?
Doing word studies and paying attention to how God connects the OT with the NT gives us greater opportunity to understand God’s word better. This is a little like looking under the hood of a magnificent car. You don’t have to look under the hood to drive the car, but if you want to have mastery of the car, it helps to know the inner workings.
Let’s take a look at some interesting connections related to Joshua in
Zechariah 3 & 6
Background:
Written about 500 years before Christ, this book was written by the prophet Zechariah. The Israelites who had been exiled in Babylon, were released by Cyrus to go back to their homeland and rebuild the temple of the Lord. The people were apathetic and disheartened in their pursuit to finish the Lord’s temple and basically disobedient to the Lord. So God prophesies through Zechariah a message of repentance and consolation. God wants them to know that their work on the temple has a plan stretching into the future and connects with God’s plan to establish His kingdom through the coming Messiah. Zechariah’s prophesies of the Messiah are probably the most extensive of all the Minor Prophets.
Because significant portions of the book are embedded with symbolism, it can be difficult to understand. But “difficult” does not mean inaccessible. Careful study and a dependence on the Holy Spirit to teach us — unlocks the meaning.
Read Zech. 3:1-9 (from our homework)
• Most conservative scholars understand “The Angel of the Lord” as the pre-incarnate Christ — that is, Jesus the Christ BEFORE He became flesh. Zechariah is shown a vision of Joshua in filthy garments (representing sin), with Satan there to basically say, “See there God, I told You so! Look, look at all that sin! Look! Look!”
• JOSHUA seems to represent Israel (God’s people) in her sin, and how God will cleanse her from it. This also represents how Christ took our sin and our shame on Himself and was punished in our stead on the cross— after which we freely receive His cleansing and are clothed with His righteousness.
• Catch this: Joshua (remember same name as Jesus) is standing there before the preincarnate Jesus Christ. Kind of an interesting picture, right?
Vs8-9
“THE BRANCH”
• Joshua and companions are a wonderful (prophetic) sign. One way is the prophetic priesthood of “The Branch”. From your homework, what is “The Branch”?
— Read Jeremiah 23:5-6
— Isaiah 53
They point to God’s “servant” “The Branch” which is another symbolic way of referring to the Messiah.
Joshua is a prophetic sign of the coming Messiah, Jesus.
The STONE with 7 eyes
Q. What is the “stone”?
(the “stone” is a messianic symbol throughout the Bible, it seems best to see this as a reference to Christ. (cf. Ps 118:22-23, Isa 8:13-15, Daniel 2:45; Mat 21:42, Eph. 2:20; 1Pe 2:7-8)
Iniquity will be removed from the land in one day.
When Christ died on the cross for the sins of all humanity, for all ages, that did what no animal sacrifice could ever do — once and for all FINISH the problem of man’s sins being forgiven. In one day it happened! It happened once and for all at the cross, 2000 years ago.
Zech. 6:9-15
• Zechariah is commanded to take gold and silver and make an elaborate crown for Joshua and place it on his head.
Now, this would seem strange because Joshua is a high priest, not a king — but God is showing a prophetic, symbolic thing here… what could it be?
• So far we have seen
— Joshua’s name is symbolic/prophetic of the coming Messiah, Jesus
— Joshua’s office of high priest is symbolic/prophetic of the Messiah, Jesus’ role
— Joshua’s clothes, “filthy garments,” symbolically/prophetically point to the saving work of Christ among mankind
— Joshua’s crown must mean he symbolically/prophetically points to a king and a kingdom. We know the Messiah has come as The King of Kings and to establish His forever kingdom.
Vs 12 Then Zechariah is commanded to speak to Joshua, as he places the crown on him saying, “Behold the Man whose name is The Branch!"
Zechariah symbolically crowns Joshua — why?
Because Joshua in all these ways symbolically represents the Messiah, who is The Branch.
Don’t miss the last part, “…whose name is The Branch,” because what God says here is absolutely profound.
He said right here in Zechariah 6:12 that, (My loose interpretation) “Hey world, the Messiah is coming, and I’m going to tell you His name 500 years ahead of time. His name is Yĕhowshuwa IN HEBREW.”
Same word as Iēsous in the Greek = The Messiah’s name is Jesus!
And all this 500 years before Christ was born.
The Jews do not believe that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. Now if anyone ever tells you that there was never a mention of Jesus being the Messiah in the OT, you can politely tell them, “That’s not true! Here let me show you.”
What did we learn?
Most people do not know that God “hid” Jesus the Messiah’s name in the pages of the OT.
Through careful word study and understanding the use of the Bible’s symbols, we have uncovered an amazing truth that is not easily seen in normal English translations of the Bible.
This is just one example of how going deeper in your Bible study can bless you.
Coming up in the next few weeks: Choosing a good Bible translation — there are so many translations out there, so it’s good to know which ones are good for which uses.
A “bird’s-eye-view” of the Bible: seeing the Bible as one grand story helps us to understand how individual books connect together and what are the main themes, people, events, etc.
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