God’s Word for You
Zechariah 14:12-15 God Preserves our Fellowship
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, September 20, 2022
12 And this will be the plague that the Lord will strike with against all the nations that fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they are standing on their feet. Their eyes will rot in their sockets. Their tongues will rot in their mouths. 13 On that day a terrible panic will strike them. Each of them will seize another by the hand and they will attack each other.
Before we can understand this, we must ask the one important question: Who are the nations that fought against Jerusalem, that is, against the true Christian church? We begin with Rome, and Israel, and then the Greeks of Asia Minor and Greece, and then the Goths and Vandals and others. Luther brilliantly summarizes the gruesome “flesh will rot” lines in this way: “They will rot within themselves, lose their strength and power, even while they think they are still on their feet. Thus the Romans perished without one’s knowing how. They had flesh enough, that is, land and people enough, and were also standing well on their feet. Nor did they lack eyes, that is, intelligent, sensible rulers. Nor did they lack tongues, that is, teachers and wise counselors. Yet that did not help them” (LW 20:343). The Romans were attacked when they were still strong. The Jews were regaining some of their former military strength when they were wiped out in a single summer: they were never a power after that for two thousand years, not until the Balfour Declaration tried to give the Jews land that belonged to someone else. Now all of their military strength even today is sapped on that one problem. They are still strangers in a land not their own (Genesis 15:13).
It’s not hard to imagine that these nations will begin to turn on themselves after long. The Lord caused this to happen to the Midianites when he came to help Gideon the judge (Judges 7:22). And he continues to watch over his people from every side.
14 Judah will even fight against Jerusalem. The wealth of all the surrounding nations will be collected—a great abundance of gold, silver, and clothing. 15 Another plague like this one will fall on the horses and mules, the camels and donkeys, and whatever animals will be in those camps.
Is this insight about Judah another way of talking about the Jews who turned against the Christians? No. Judah and Jerusalem in this part of Zechariah are always references to the Christian Church. So the prophet is foreseeing the way that denominations sometimes fight against one another. Sometimes it is actual warfare, as when the Catholics under Emperor Ferdinand II waged bloody war against the Lutherans in the Thirty Years’ War. But Zechariah also means the doctrinal attacks, as when heretics attack one another and then turn on the true church as well. This results in physical treasure being plundered and robbed from people, such as whenever indulgences go out for sale to benefit Rome and pick the pockets of poor innocent Christians who are forced to think that the book of Hebrews is somehow wrong when it teaches that all sin was atoned for by Christ on the cross, and that we owe nothing for it (Hebrews 10:10, etc.).
Verse 15 describes every other treasure that the enemies of the church possess. Those things will be destroyed and devoured, too, and rot into nothingness. Whether they are horses or cars, mules or trains, camels or cargo ships, donkeys or banks, or whatever other wealth they have, will also disappear. God protects his people and his church: “The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy” (Psalm 145:20).
This protection God gives keeps us from harm and from evil, as he protected Daniel from the lions and Israel from the chariots of Pharaoh. He sometimes turns an evil intention to a good purpose, as he did with the wickedness of Joseph’s brothers. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20). He also protects us from false doctrine by faithful preachers and teachers, and by the Bible’s doctrine of fellowship. “Church fellowship is every expression of faith in which Christians join together because they are united by their acceptance and confession of all of the teachings of Scripture” (Brug, Church Fellowship, p. 20). Since we have no right to add or subtract anything from Scripture (Deuteronomy 4:2), our fellowship is based on all the doctrines of Scripture. Persistent rejection of even one teaching breaks fellowship between Christians. Our church body has stated: “The denial, alteration, or suppression of any word of God does not stem from faith but from unbelief.” We recognize fellowship with those who agree with the Bible’s doctrines. We withhold fellowship from those who do not. In this way our church’s doctrine is protected and preserved by the Holy Spirit. We pray for God to keep protecting us, watching over us, and preserving the fellowship with which he blesses us.
As Luther prayed about his lectures on this chapter, so we also pray today: “May Christ help and protect us in the singleness of his mind. Amen.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.