Chapter 13

At the end of chapter 12 we had the reference to the fact that the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon the believers in the Millennium. We now have an extension from the standpoint of the unbeliever in the Millennium. In the Church Age Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Therefore He is absent from the earth. God the Holy Spirit indwells every believer; we are commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The filling of the Spirit occurs through the rebound technique, or simply using 1 John 1:9. But the filling of the Spirit is not an emotional or an ecstatic experience. Any positive emotional response that you have as a believer, any ecstatic experience that you have as a believer, is not a spiritual experience. It may be the result of a spiritual experience, it may be the result of a carnal experience, it can be the result of almost anything that cranks up your emotion. You may get cranked up emotionally about a lot of things, spiritual or carnal or otherwise, but that in itself is not a spiritual phenomenon. The filling of the Spirit is designed in the Church Age to produce the character of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is not designed to give you emotional “kicks” .The filling of the Spirit is not an emotional or ecstatic experience. You can feel depressed and be filled with the Spirit; you can feel fine and be filled with the Spirit. Be sure you understand that emotion or ecstatics is not the filling of the Spirit. However, in the Millennium the filling of the Holy Spirit will be characterised by emotion, it will produce emotion. It is designed for appreciation of Christ. Why? Christ comes back to the earth in the Millennium. The filling of the Spirit produces appreciation of Christ and it does include emotion.

In the Millennium people still have free will. You have to remember that when Jesus Christ rules the world in the Millennium there will be no religion. It is religion that destroys and stifles freedom; it is religion that puts a ban on human volition. But in the Millennium there will be no religion. The demons are all removed; Satan is removed; Jesus Christ is here ruling the earth under perfect environment, but there is one thing that isn’t gone: people still have an old sin nature. And what can they do with these old sin natures? One of the things that Zechariah chapter 13 emphasises is that they are going to get religious. There is nothing like perfect environment to crank up self-righteousness in the old sin nature. And with perfect environment and not accepting Christ as saviour there is going to be the creation of a vacuum in the soul which will fill up with religion. And when it fills up with religion these people are going to start a new religion based on ecstatics. The holy-roller revival! But there is a law against being a holy-roller in the Millennium. Why? Because holy-rollers are disrupters, they are disorganised as individuals and collectively, and they are antagonistic in thought and in principle to the perfect environment which Jesus Christ is providing.

Verse 1 — “In that day,” reference to after the second advent, the Millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ; “there shall be a fountain” [evangelism in the Millennium] remember that people are born in the Millennium, they are born under perfect environment. The Millennium starts out with believers only. They will have children, and children’s children, etc., and there will be a population explosion. In this population explosion there will be a tremendous mass of people coming up into adulthood, making decisions. A lot of them are going to go on negative volition toward the gospel. The gospel is here declared as a fountain; “opened” — the fountain is a reference to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross and is the gospel message. “Fountain” is also used in this way in Jeremiah 2:13; 17:13. The word “opened” is a niphel participle — shall receive opening. This fulfils the concept in Isaiah 11 — “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters that cover the sea.” There will be maximum saturation of the gospel at all times. The gospel will be presented in two ways: from the Word of God and through the animal sacrifices in the Millennial temple — Isaiah chapters 40-48.

Now the fountain is opened, and the niphel stem indicates that it receives opening, and this is very important. While the fountain is opened you have to come to the fountain and drink. Drinking is a picture of believing in Christ and this requires the operation of the individual’s free will. And some will, and some will not. And as the Millennium continues you are going to have literally hundreds of thousands of people who are not born again, who are unbelievers. There are eventually going to be in the Millennium believers and unbelievers under perfect environment — “to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem” — in other words, this is a reference to evangelism in southern Palestine. The house of David refers to the southern kingdom; the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom. So by interpretation this is specifically for the Jews. The principle is true for other parts of the world but it just so happens that Zechariah is dealing with the southern kingdom and with Jerusalem.

Unbelievers will get bored with the perfect environment of the Millennium. When the old sin nature is controlling the life it is possible for a believer to be in perfect environment and be bored with it. But an unbeliever is definitely bored, he lives under the control of the old sin nature. When the old sin nature is in control life gets dull and so the unbelievers in the Millennium will try religion. But Satan, the father of religion, is not there and there are no demons in the Millennium, so they start a revolt against perfect environment through emotionalism. One old sin nature plus one ounce of emotionalism and they are off; there is a revival of holy-rollerism! In that day a “fountain” is opened, which means salvation is opened, so they have no excuse. There will be a tremendous amount of the teaching of the Word and there is no Satan to counterattack. The counterattack will come from negative volition plus the old sin nature; “for sin and for uncleanness” — sin refers to the unbeliever’s sin; uncleanness refers to the believer’s sin. In the Millennium when a believer commits a sin it is called uncleanness. When the unbeliever commits a sin it is called a sin. Why do we have two different Hebrew words here? The fountain is opened [the gospel is opened] for sin for unbelievers. And then we have the word “uncleanness.” It indicates that believers will sin and they will sin under perfect environment. So the fountain is opened for two purposes: so that the unbeliever can be saved; for the believer’s rebound. This takes us back to Ezekiel chapters 40-48, and people say: “Why are they going to have animal sacrifices in the millennium?” The answer: because these portray the sins of the unbeliever and the solution, believe in Christ; the sins of the believer and the solution — rebound. And in the Millennial temple there will be offered the burnt offering, the meal offering, and the peace offering. This is the fountain opened, this is the gospel preached. There will also be the sin and the trespass offering; these are rebound offerings.

One of the first things Jesus does when He returns is to remove religion. So when we come to verse two we must remember that this religion that comes up in the Millennium is not something left over. Satan is gone, the demons are gone, and the religion of the Millennium is strictly from the old sin nature of unbelievers. How do we know that? Because verse 2 tells us that religion is removed.

Verse 2 — “I will cut off” .This is a hiphil imperfect. The hiphil is causative and the imperfect means that He keeps on doing it until all religious systems are removed. He causes this to be done “the names of idols” — simply the systems of religion, this is an idiom; “and they shall no more be remembered” — so the point is: the systems of religion from the past, from the Tribulation, from the Church Age, when they are cut off they will not even be remembered. So when religion starts in the Millennium it starts from the old sin nature — human good and sinfulness — and it is not in any way related to the religions of the past when the devil ruled the world. In the Millennium religion is non-traceable. It doesn’t have its roots over in some other dispensation; it is a new religion; it is an emotional revolution against perfect environment. It is a type of religion that can exist in perfect environment. It is wrong, just as all religions are wrong, but it is one religion that is not sponsored by Satan and does not have demons behind it; it is a religion that is produced by the psychological activities of the soul; “and I will also cause the prophets” — false teachers, the religious leaders who make great pronouncements about social action, the social gospel crowd; “and the unclean spirit” — demons [which are cut off]. All of the religions of the past are cut off at the second advent; “pass out of the land” — they are going to be thrown off the world with Satan.

Verse 3 — this religious system, like all religious systems, has to have leadership. It has to have false teachers and they are described here as prophesying — “when any shall yet prophesy” — this religion pops up. The word for “prophesy” means to speak in ecstatics. Who is going to put down this religion? The parents of the person who does it. Remember, we are talking about perfect environment; “then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord” — that is the religion of the Millennium [speaking lies in the name of the Lord]. In other words, these people claimed that their ecstatic experience was a super spiritual experience that they were having in the name of the Lord, and they aren’t even saved; “shall thrust him through when he prophesieth” — in other words, the next time he does it. Of course we have a question here. The swords have been beaten into ploughshares and the spears into pruning hooks. The weapons of war have been removed; weapons in the hands of the law still exist. It is established that a person is engaged in spreading religion, and religion is contrary to perfect environment just as human good is contrary to the plan of God. So they make application of the sword and they make execution — after the trial.

Verse 4 — false teachers will be discredited by self-denunciation and by the removal of the hypocrisy. Verse 4 says: “Look, that is a terrible thing when a father has to kill his own son as a matter of public execution — capital punishment.” It is difficult for the people involved to carry out capital punishment but far more difficult for a father to have to kill his son. This is almost beyond imagination. But the father doesn’t kill his son the first time it happens. The execution is something that occurs at the end, after every chance has been given. What was the first chance? Verse 1, there is a fountain opened, the preaching of the gospel and the rejection of it. Then next there is the removal of all religion so they can’t go back and say we got it out of the book! So how does justice work? — “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of the vision which he hath prophesied.” “Shall be ashamed” means he recognises that he was out of line. Here is a person who is a believer recognising that getting involved in this pseudo ecstatic emotional religious activity was wrong. He is ashamed; “neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive” — here is something from the old sin nature. In perfect environment they torture themselves and call it spirituality. A rough garment is a hair shirt, the hair is on the inside. In other words, this is self-inflicted misery. Here is the asceticism of the old sin nature working into this religious system. Under perfect environment they are hurting themselves. This is a revolt against perfect environment; “to deceive” — in what way? In the sense of pseudo-spirituality.

Verse 5 — “But he shall say, I am no prophet.” Here is a person who doesn’t change his mind after all the warnings. He is brought into court and he says: Not guilty. In other words, he is denying that he is involved in this false religion; “I am an husbandman [farmer]; for a man taught me to keep cattle from my youth” — I’m just a simple farmer! I’m no preacher.

Verse 6 — “And one shall say unto him, What are those wounds in thine hands?” He forgot about that. He had been having these ecstatic experiences and had been gouging himself. This was going to be a little difficult and he has to come up with an answer. And he does — “I was wounded in the house of my friends” — hophal stem [the passive voice of the hiphil], it is passive causative. And it is the perfect tense. In other words, this is something which happened yesterday or the day before or last week; “the house of my friends” can be one of two things: either a house of prostitution or the house where his paramour lives. So he says that he received these scratches from his mistress or the prostitute, not from the frenzied activity practiced by this revival holy-rollerism. This his excuse. And the narrative stops right there. Why does it stop right there? Because we have already had the fact that they took him out and killed him.

Verse 7 — We leave the Millennium entirely for a moment and we go back to the cross because the cross was designed to remove all religion. Religion is the great enemy of the cross. And they were executed with a sword. How do we know it? It doesn’t say so at the end of verse six for a very simple reason. It says so at the beginning of verse three. The sword is used for capital punishment. It is given to the parents and the parents execute their son. In the perfect environment of the Millennium one thing that is going to make it perfect is that the criminals aren’t going to be walking the streets. And religion has to go, you can never have perfect environment and have religion.

The sword at the beginning of verse three is a description of capital punishment. We have a similar description of capital punishment for the Church Age in Romans chapter 13:4, where it says, “he beareth not the sword in vain.” One of the responsibilities of government is capital punishment where necessary. We also have the sword in Zechariah 13:3 which is capital punishment in the Millennium. And now in verse seven we have the sword: Jesus Christ being punished for the world. There is no excuse for religion. The cross is the enemy of religion and the sword now refers to the fact that the sins of the entire world, including the sins of every sinner in the Millennium have all been poured out upon Christ and judged. So when we talk about swords in the Millennium we must remember that there is someone who took capital punishment for us. So in verse seven the subject of capital punishment in the Millennium and the subject of religion in the Millennium, both of them being brought together, must take us back inevitably to the cross, which tells us that everyone has a chance. The fact of the cross means that God is going to be fair in the administration of justice, whether it is temporal in the Millennium or eternal at the great white throne. So at this point we now come to the cross and we now have a verse that Jesus quoted to Peter and the other disciples in Matthew chapter 26 — “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd.” Awakening of the sword is the judgement of God the Father on God the Son on the cross. The sword is used for judgement, for punishment. And Jesus Christ, by bearing our sins, knows also what capital punishment is all about because He suffered it innocently. He was perfect; He was impeccable; and yet He bore our sins, He was judged in our place. So the sword here refers to the cross; “against my shepherd” — the Lord Jesus Christ, John 10:11, 14-16. As the good shepherd Jesus Christ took the sword for us — 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24; “against the man that is my fellow” — “my fellow” is literally, my equal. God the Father is equal with God the Son; God the Son is equal with God the Father. And so He says, “against my equal.” God the Father is saying that Jesus Christ is equal with Him in His deity, although He is different in His humanity. The sins of the world are poured out upon His humanity and judged but it is the God-Man who is hanging on the cross; “smite” — [hiphil imperative] cause to smite. “Cause to smite” means Jesus Christ taking our place. The shepherd is Jesus Christ; “and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad” — the scattering of the sheep has a twofold connotation. Just before the cross Jesus quotes this to Peter and the other disciples and it has to do with the scattering of the disciples at the time of the cross. But it also refers to 70 AD when the Jews came under the fifth cycle of discipline resulting in the full operation of the Church Age; “and” — literally, but — “but [in the future] I will return my hand upon the little ones.” The little ones are the saved Jews of the Tribulation and the fact that they are scattered under the fifth cycle of discipline but they are brought back under the restoration. “I will turn my hand upon” is literally, I will restore — hiphil stem again, I will cause to restore. The believers who are alive at the Tribulation are “my little ones"— the remnant. They will go into the Millennium, they will have children and populate the land.

The rest of this passage deals primarily with the baptism of fire and one or two events related to it.

The doctrine of the baptism of fire

The baptism of fire is one of seven major judgements of scripture since the cross. The seven are:

1. The first of these is the cross itself — 1 Peter 2:24; 2 Corinthians 5:21. The sins of the world are poured out upon Christ on the cross and judged, and this is considered to be the first judgement and the most important. Christ was judged as a substitute for each member of the human race.

2. The second judgement is the rebound judgement which occurs in phase two — 1 John 1:9; 1 Corinthians 11:31. This judgement is the carnal believer judging his own sins.

3. The third major judgement has to do with the Rapture of the Church. After the Rapture we have the judgement seat of Christ — 2 Corinthians 5:10; 1 Corinthians 3:11-16. The purpose of this third judgement is the evaluation of the believer’s works in time — in the Church Age.

The fourth and fifth judgements refer to the baptism of fire. When Jesus Christ returns to the earth He is going to find two kinds of people: believers and unbelievers. These are divided again into two categories: Gentiles and Jews. All believers who are alive at the second advent will enter into the Millennial reign of Christ. All unbelievers are cast off the earth. This is called the baptism of fire.

4. The fourth judgement is the judgement of Tribulational Gentiles — Matthew 25:31-46.

5. The fifth judgement is the judgement of Tribulational Jews — Ezekiel 20:32-38.

6. The sixth major judgement — Matthew 25:41 — comes at the end of the Millennium. It is the judgement of the fallen angels. This concludes the angelic conflict. The fallen angels were condemned in eternity past; they are judged at the end of the Millennium.

7. The seventh judgement is the judgement of all unbelievers, the great white throne judgement, where all unbelievers since the beginning of time are resurrected and cast into the lake of fire.

The baptism of fire is one of seven baptisms found in the scripture. (Baptism simply means identification) There are seven baptisms: four are dry, three are wet; four are real, three are ritual. The first of these is the baptism of Moses — 1 Corinthians 10:1,2 — a dry baptism. In the baptism of Moses, Moses and the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea without getting wet. It is a New Testament passage describing an Old Testament experience. One thing is very clear: the baptism of Moses was not a spiritual baptism in any sense of the word. It simply meant that the people were identified with the cloud and they walked dry-shod through the Red Sea, that’s all. The second baptism is the baptism of the cross. It is unique. The baptism of the cross is Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, and during the last three hours the sins of the world were poured out on Him and judged. Christ is identified with our sins, that is the baptism of the cross or the baptism of the cup — Matthew 20:22ff. Jesus Christ is hanging on the cross. In this cup are all the sins of the world and Jesus Christ, as it were, drank these [was judged for them] on the cross. The third dry baptism is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, prophesied in Acts 1:5, declared mechanically in 1 Corinthians 12:13. In the baptism of the Spirit we have at the point of salvation God the Holy Spirit taking every believer and entering him into union with Christ, we are identified with Christ. This is accomplished by the Holy Spirit. This is the abused baptism, the devil doesn’t want believers to understand the baptism of the Spirit.

Note Ephesians 4:3ff — “Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” This passage is talking about unity and the next few verses tells us the seven things that all believers have in common. Verses 4,5, and 6 — “one body … one Spirit … one hope … one Lord … one faith … one baptism (God the Holy Spirit entered each one of us into union with Christ at the point of salvation) … one God, even the Father of all.” This is the unity of believers, and in unity there is only one baptism that unifies us.

The fourth baptism is the baptism of fire. That is unbelievers being identified with fire at the end of the post-diluvian civilization — which is the same as the second advent, which is the same as the beginning of the Millennium. Here at the second advent the unbelievers are going to be cast into fire — identification with fire.

There are also three wet baptisms. In each case of wet baptism the water always represents something. In the first of these we have the baptism of John and the water represented the regenerate kingdom of believers, the spiritual kingdom on earth. When John put a person into the water he was a believer and that believer was recognising identification with the kingdom of God which would exist forever. The second case is the baptism of Jesus. People talk about following the Lord in baptism. You can’t follow the Lord in baptism. This is a blasphemy. For a person to say this is to say: “I am perfect, I am also God (as well as perfect Man), I am going (or went) to the cross and dying for the sins of the world.” No believer follows the Lord in baptism. The baptism of Jesus Christ is unique; He is unique. His death is unique; His person is unique. When Jesus Christ was baptized the water represented the cross. And He was saying, before He began His public ministry: “I will go to the cross and I will die for the sins of the world.” In other words, “I will do the will of the Father.” This, by the way, is in Matthew 3:14-17, and the very next thing Satan did was to challenge this — to put the crown before the cross. The third baptism is the baptism of the believer in the Church Age. The water here represents identification with Christ as He died on the cross and identification with Christ as He is seated at the right hand of the Father. In other words, the water represents retroactive positional truth; coming up for the air represents current positional truth.

The baptism of fire: three scriptures, the documentation — Matthew 3:11,12; Luke 3:16,17; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9. These are passages which merely state the principle of the baptism of fire.

The analogy to the baptism of fire is found in Matthew chapter 24, verses 36-41, “as in the days of Noah … so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man.” Believers were on the earth, unbelievers were cast off. This coming is the second advent (not the Rapture). Believers will go into the Millennium; unbelievers will be cast off into fire. Matthew 24 is dealing with the second advent, not the Rapture.

There are also some parables on the baptism of fire — the wheat and the tares, the good and the bad fish, the good and the bad servant, the ten virgins, the talents.

Zechariah 13:7 — the sword is divine judgement judging the sins of the world. The Shepherd is Jesus Christ on the cross, bearing our sins, taking our place; “man” refers to the humanity of Christ; “my fellow” is literally, my equal. God the Father says: “Smite the shepherd.” The sword is the symbol of judgement; the shepherd is smitten at the cross. “sheep” refers to the nation Israel. Zechariah 13 is addressed to Israel; “scattered abroad” — after the cross, in 70 AD the sheep are scattered through the fifth cycle of discipline. This will be their condition until the second advent; “I will turn” — I will restore; “the little ones” — the born-again Jews living at the second advent, Jews who are saved in the Tribulation.

Verse 7 is quoted by Jesus Christ, with a little different inference — Matthew 26:30ff. He is not interpreting, He is illustrating. Here is something that is very important in Old Testament quotations. One of the principles in the quotation of scripture is that it illustrates something, it gives a frame of reference to the Jews. However, there is another type, e.g. Habakkuk 2:4, which when quoted in the New testament has the same concept — living by the faith-rest technique. So there we have a quotation which is not prophecy, and when it is not prophecy it is interpreted in the relationship to phase two in the day in which it is written; it is still pertinent to phase two in the day in which it is quoted in the New Testament. In Zechariah the scattering of the sheep refers to the 5th cycle of discipline; in Matthew 26 Jesus uses the sheep being scattered as an illustration of how the disciples would all run away. So there is interpretation and illustration.

In verses 8 and 9 we have the termination of the second dispersion. Verse 8 — this is at the second advent; “two parts” — refers to the religious crowd in the Tribulation; “and the third shall be left therein” — of all the Jews who are alive at the second advent two thirds are wiped out [baptism of fire]; one third go into the Millennium; “therein” — in it, the earth.

Verse 9 — “And I will bring the third part through the fire” — baptism of fire; “will refine them” — they are protected completely; “as silver is refined, and try them as gold is tried [tested].” What does that mean? Consider a rock which is one third gold. How are you going to take this rock and get the one third of the gold out of it? Fire. When you put the rock in the fire the heat is going to melt the gold. The gold will come out and what is left is called slag. The slag stays, the pure gold comes out — after the fire. After the baptism of fire you have gold, believing Jews in the Millennium. The slag is left behind; “they shall call on my name” — this simply means that they are believers. It should be translated: “they have called on my name” — Romans 10:13. During the Tribulation they have believed in Christ; “and I will hear them” — during the Tribulation He will respond and they will be saved; “I will say, My people: they shall say, The Lord is my God” — simply a very brief description of their salvation.