Zechariah’s Day of the Lord (2)
This is the sequence of events in the battle between the two earthly parties in Zechariah 14:1-15. First, all the nations are gathered together to fight against Jerusalem, with the tents of their camp, their beasts of burden and their war beasts (15). Then the battle proper commences and Jerusalem falls, with all the customary slaughter and pillage: the looting of houses, the taking of captives, the dividing of plunder, etc. (1-2).
After the opening words of the chapter, “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh” (1a), this is the textual order: “and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee” (1b)—what is stated first in the passage comes last in the battle—“For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle”—what is stated second in Zechariah 14 comes first chronologically—“and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city” (2).
This is a prophecy of terrible, outward defeat for God’s people at the hands of their (human) enemies. Jerusalem will be besieged, beaten and plundered (1-2, 15). This is emphasized by the plundering being mentioned first with such as are left alive of the people of Jehovah witnessing it: “thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee” (1).
Zechariah 14 describes what the Reformed faith calls the Great Tribulation. The phrase is taken from our Saviour’s Olivet discourse: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matt. 24:21). The Great Tribulation is the terrible persecution of all the church at the hands of the worldwide kingdom of the beast, just prior to our Lord’s return.
Christ speaks of the Great Tribulation at length in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21, under the type of the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in AD 70. Paul refers to the persecution of believers prior to Jesus’ second coming in various places in I and II Thessalonians. John elaborates upon this subject in the beast’s killing of the two witnesses (the church as she testifies to the truth of Christ) in Revelation 11 and the slaying of the saints who refuse the mark of the beast in chapter 13.
The Old Testament prophet Daniel also prophesies of the Great Tribulation, especially in chapters 8 and 11. The “little horn,” Antiochus Epiphanies IV, a type of the Antichrist, persecutes the church, such that “they that understand among the people [and] shall instruct many … shall fall [1] by the sword, and [2] by flame, [3] by captivity, and [4] by spoil, many days” (11:33).
Ezekiel 38-39 predicts the terrifying attack of Gog and Magog upon the people of God. Revelation 20 explains that Satan “shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them” (8-9). This is the fire that accompanies the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (II Thess. 1:8; II Pet. 3:7, 10-12).
Zechariah 12-14 comes with this heading: “The burden of the word of the Lord for [i.e., upon] Israel.” The “burden” or heavy weight of affliction that the righteous God places upon His beloved people in Jesus Christ in this life includes our mourning for sin (12:10-14), our battle with false prophets and false prophecy (13:2-6), our experiencing the refining fire of trials (9) and our being persecuted (12:2-9), as well as the Great Tribulation immediately prior to our Saviour’s bodily return (14:1-15).
The two millennial schools wrongly seek to lift this burden that our gracious and wise heavenly Father has placed upon His church. Postmillennialism maintains that Jesus will return to a Christianized world governed by godly believers. Scriptures that speak of the future persecution of the church are preterized (i.e., put into the past). Instead, Reconstructionist postmillennialists predict more and more outward victory for the people of God in this life until world domination is achieved. They reckon that our Saviour’s second coming is probably tens or hundreds of thousands of years away!
Premillennial dispensationalists get rid of the burden of the intense future persecution of the church by claiming that the Great Tribulation is only for ethnic Jews converted during the days of the Antichrist. After all, dispensationalism reckons that the church will be raptured so as to avoid the Great Tribulation for, surely, it reasons, God would never put His Gentile saints through such an ordeal!
We should also notice that Zechariah 14 teaches that not all the saints will be slain during the Great Tribulation: “the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city” (2). This also fits with the rest of Scripture’s teaching. Christ asked rhetorically, “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). He will not find much faith but He will find some believers! I Thessalonians 4:17 states that “we which are alive” at Christ’s return “shall be caught up … to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord,” who redeemed us by His blood.
Zechariah 14 clearly teaches the absolute sovereignty of God, even over the coming Great Tribulation. First, Jehovah predicts it (1-2), in accordance with His eternal decree (Eph. 1:11). Second, He controls and governs it all, even the movements of wicked men against His church, declaring, “I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle” (Zech. 14:2). Third, in the midst of the slaughter of His people, God will preserve a few from being killed for “the residue of the people shall not be cut off” (2), so that there will be some believers on the earth when Christ comes again (3, 5). Fourth, all of this will serve to magnify Jehovah’s glory, as the first verse literally states, “Behold, the day cometh to the Lord,” for Him to reveal His power in delivering the church when it is in its most helpless and desperate condition. At precisely that time, that day comes to the Lord for Him to magnify His own wonderful name! Rev. Stewart
The “World” for Which Christ Prayed
A Reformed believer forwarded me some objections by an Arminian: “In John 17:9, Jesus prays for His own but in that same chapter He also prays for the salvation of the world: ‘that the world may believe that thou has sent me’ (21). Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane for the cup of wrath to be taken from Him (Luke 22:42) is used as a refutation of our claim that the Father answered all of Jesus’ prayers. It is asserted that Christ asked for something that was not granted by the Father. Surely this allows for other unanswered prayers of Jesus, such as His praying ‘that the world may believe’ in Him?”
Beginning with Augustine and on through the Reformed fathers, it has been shown time and time again that the term “world” has various meanings in God’s Word but it never means every individual. The noble and illustrious company of saints throughout the ages, who knew the Scriptures and defended them even unto death in some cases, never gave a moment’s hesitation before pointing out that the term “world” never means every one head for head.
Our Lord would not and did not pray for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who sought Israel’s destruction. He was a wicked pagan who lived in the old dispensation, when the saved were largely limited to the nation of Israel. Was Christ praying for him, a man already in hell? And for Stalin, the butcher of the Ukraine?
Listen to what Jesus Himself says, “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak” (John 12:48-50). How can men say, in the light of these words of our Lord, that He prayed for things contrary to the will of God? The appeal to Luke 22:42 in the question is also vain because Jesus prayed, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”
Let those who argue against the very words of the Scriptures read Christ’s words explaining that the reason some do not believe is that they “could not believe,” so that the prophecy of Isaiah 6:9-10 would be fulfilled (John 12:37-41).
There is in all this a positive truth that we must not overlook. John uses the word “world” freely when he is speaking of salvation. He does this in his gospel narrative and in his letters. There is good reason for this. Whenever the Scriptures speak of the “world” as the object of salvation, it refers to the entire earthly creation, including everything in it and the elect of God in Christ. But it does not include the reprobate for, even in John 3:16, the text most appealed to by Arminians, only believers are saved: “whosoever believeth in me shall not perish.”
Let me take that a step further, in accordance with John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:14-20. In eternity, God determined to glorify Himself through His own Son, Jesus Christ. Before the world was formed, God chose to glorify Himself and reveal the riches of His grace by saving an organism that includes the whole of the elect who belong to Christ and are His body, the entire earthly creation with all it contains and the entire heavenly creation. In other words, God purposed to glorify Himself through Christ’s redemption of a church, a new earthly creation and a new heavenly creation, all purchased by Christ’s suffering and dying on the cross. To that end, God determined to form a heavenly creation and an earthly creation, which fell under the curse through the apostasy of their heads: Adam and Satan.
The world of which John so often speaks is the world from the viewpoint of its redemption in Christ and its recreation at the Lord’s appearing on the last day of history. The theme of John’s gospel is stated in John 20:31, that is, that Christ is the eternal Son of God come in our flesh to save and redeem those who believe in Him, and thus the two creations, the heavenly and the earthly, and all that is in them.
There are in this world elect and reprobate. The former are those who, though born in Adam, are redeemed in Christ and are the people of the new heavens and the new earth. They are redeemed because they are eternally chosen in Christ and, as His body, are one organism with Him. There are also elect angels who, when Satan fell, remained faithful to God by the power of His grace (Belgic Confession 12).
There are also reprobate who will not believe in Christ and who are eternally ordained as such (I Pet. 2:7-8). Christ explicitly states that He does not pray for the reprobate world, in words that the Arminian objector seeks to evade: “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine” (John 17:9). The reprobate exist to reveal God’s justice and holiness in their eternal punishment for their sins (Prov. 16:4; Rom. 9:22), with Satan and his malignant demons.
The whole world of God’s saving work in Christ is John’s theme. It is the true world of God’s eternal purpose. John carries us in startling vision to high realms, giving us a glimpse of Christ’s divinity and His work. He is the Head of that world in its entirely, for He redeemed it by His blood. It is a world He loves; it is world that is far, far more glorious than anything we can imagine. It is a world that derives all its glory from the exalted Christ who saved it; it is the world of the Triune God’s sovereign purpose.
If you want the tawdry trinkets of a god who cannot help it when men do not believe, then you lose what is the most beautiful glory of Scripture: the God who is so great and glorious that eternity will not be too long to praise Him. Read the Canons of Dordt, now 400 years old, in which all of Reformed Europe condemned the unbiblical and wicked heresy of Arminianism. The elect look for and long for the day when Christ will take them with all the church into the dazzling glory of the new heaven and the new earth, united in Christ, where God Himself will be praised forever and ever. Prof. Hanko
