March 17, 2014
Zechariah 3:8, 9; Luke 20:17
(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)
In Zechariah 3:8 and 3:9 from The Amplified Bible, the Messiah is seen as a stone with seven facets:
…behold, I will bring forth My servant the Branch….For behold, upon the
stone that I have set before Joshua, upon that one stone are seven eyes or
facets….Behold, I will carve upon it its inscription, says the LORD of hosts,
and I will remove the iniquity and guilt of this land in a single day….
In our last blog, we started to examine Luke 20:17 and 18 which shows the first three ways The Seven-Faceted Stone represents Jesus Christ. We only covered the first facet – “…the chief cornerstone….” Here is this Luken passage: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone…. Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”
1. Jesus is “…the chief cornerstone…” in that He is the most important and first laid stone in the living temple God is building in which He is dwelling. In Ephesians 2:19-22 Paul writes:
Now, therefore, you are…built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building,
being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also
are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
This is just a review, so let’s go on to the second facet:
2. Concerning Jesus, Luke 20:17 says, “Whoever falls on that stone will be broken….” No one can come to Jesus and accept Him into his or her heart and life without being broken! Saul of Tarsus was broken. Before Jesus met him and knocked him off his high horse on the Damascus Road (see Acts 9:1 through 6), he was a proud Pharisee, self-righteous, and zealous to a fault. He persecuted the followers of Jesus even unto death! But here is his later testimony from Philippians 3:5 through 8:
…circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal,
persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law,
blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for
Christ. But indeed I also count all things loss for the excellency of the know-
ledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things,
and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ….
You see, God wants to make you into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ (see Romans 8:29). The start of that is when we accept Him as our Savior and are born again (see John 3:3 through 5). But it is a life-long process, and we will not be totally transformed into His image until His return in glory – until “…we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (I John 3:2).
So there is the initial ‘breaking’ on the stone when we fall upon Him – depending, not on ourselves anymore, but totally by faith accepting His righteousness procured by His dying for us on the cross. But the breaking continues as He chips away at the old nature to expose increasingly His own divine nature in and through us.
Being so broken so we can grow more and more to be like the Lord is a good thing. But the act of being broken is not pleasant. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way in Hebrews 12:5 through 11:
“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when
you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges
every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you
as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?…He
[chastens us] for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no
chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but grievous; nevertheless after-
ward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.
So, dear Christian, hang in there! God is doing a great work in your life! It is far better to experience this facet of the stone than the next one – as we shall see in Wednesday’s blog!