Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/117



And the process which the prophet witnesses in the case of Joshua as the representative of the Jewish nation, answers also to the experience of each individual believer.

By nature, dear reader, " we are all " whether we be Jew or Gentile " as one that is unclean " in God's sight, and " all our righteousness " the very best moral outfit which we can manufacture for ourselves is, " as a polluted garment" (Isa. Ixiv. 6), not only of no avail, but, together with our sins, must be " taken away."

Man, in his own name, and on the ground of his own merits, has no approach and no standing in the presence of God he must find his moral fitness outside of himself if he desires to " ascend into the hill of the Lord, and to stand in His holy place."

There must first be a stripping of self. Like the great and blessed Apostle, we must each one be brought to say:

"What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for Whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteous ness which is of God through faith " (Phil. iii. 7-9).

From the very beginning of the history of redemption we have the same truth set forth under the same figure. Already in the garden of Eden, as soon as sin entered into the world, and man, losing the consciousness of God, became self-conscious, we read of the man and the woman that " they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons." These " aprons " or " girdles " which men continue to sew or " weave " for themselves (Isa. lix. 6) are of no avail to hide their shame or to cover their misery. But already then, God in His infinite compassion began to preach the gospel to man by direct promise, and to set it forth also by type. He not only announced the coming of " the Seed of the woman," who should bruise the serpent's head and destroy the devil and his works (Gen. iii. 15),