Date: September 2005 Series: - “I Want to be Left Behind” (XI) Title: Zechariah 14

       The May 16, 2004 Christian Standard ran David R. Reagan's defense of dispensationalism based on his experience with Restoration Movement ministers who had no idea of how to handle Zechariah 14.  After asserting "the plain sense rule" and then some good comments about the existence of symbolism and importance of context, I found myself at the end of the article and Reagan hadn't really given us much on Zechariah 14 except the following brief summary,

 It says that the Lord will return to this earth at a time when the Jews are back in the land of Israel and their capital city, Jerusalem, is under siege. Just as the city is about to fall, the Lord will descend from Heaven to the Mount of Olives.

     When His feet touch the ground, the mount will split in half. The remnant of Jews left in the city will take refuge in the cleavage of the mountain. The lord will then speak a supernatural word, and the armies surrounding Jerusalem will be destroyed in an instant. Verse 9 declares that on that day the lord will become king over all the earth. . . .

     It suddenly occurred to me that if Zechariah's first coming prophecies meant what they said, then his second coming prophesies must mean what they say.^[1]

        While Reagan asserts that Zechariah 14 is a "second coming" prophecy, I'm not able to find any clear indication of that.  Actually Zechariah 14 nowhere clearly asserts that the Lord "returns" or that the Lord "descends from heaven" to the Mount of Olives (Dave is doing a little eisegesis here).  Verse 4 does say that the Lord's "feet will stand on the Mt. Olives," but Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives when he warned His disciples about the approaching Roman siege of Jerusalem (70 A.D.) and the need to flee Judea (Matthew 24:3) - and Jewish Christians did flee that crisis by going east, over the Mt. of Olives, to Pella (Hmmm?)

       Reagan asserted that the Lord rescues Jerusalem "just as the city is about to fall," but that isn't what the passage says.  Verse 2 says that the city "will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city exiled" (NAS) - sounds to me like the city had fallen.

       "When" was Jerusalem captured, plundered, etc.?  Zechariah wrote these prophecies around 520 B.C.  After Israel returned to the land from Babylonian exile, there would be the sacking of Jerusalem by Antiochus IV (170-142 B.C), Rome's entrance into the city in 63 B.C., and also Rome's destruction of the city in 70 A.D.  Could any of these be what Zechariah was intending?  Nor did Reagan mention the earlier information that Zechariah offered about this "siege of Jerusalem" (12:2-9) and his association of the event with a time when the inhabitants of Jerusalem would (1) look upon the "pierced" Lord and mourn (12:10), (2) a fountain of forgiveness would be provided (13:1), and (3) the shepherd will be struck and the sheep will scatter (13:7-9).  I have trouble ignoring the obvious first coming focus of these images.

       Literal reading of Zechariah 14:3-5 indicates that a valley will open up to the East of Jerusalem and the city's inhabitants will escape that direction and then the Lord will come.  My first problem with taking this too materialistically (or "literally") is that New Testament descriptions never clearly portray Jesus' return as a period of relocation upon the earth - setting His feet on the Mount of Olives, etc.  Instead, the general suggestion of New Testament teaching is that He returns to gather (and change) His people to join Him (in the air) and depart for a different realm.^[2]

       Images of the 2^nd Coming?  Then Zechariah 14:6-11 tells us that "The Lord will come with His holy ones (v. 5), there will be an unusual day with darkness at mid-day (vv. 6-7), then living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, the Lord will be king over all the earth (v. 9), and the curse will be lifted (v. 11).

       Pardon my fascination with Jesus' first coming and the Apostles' doctrine, but the images presented in Zechariah 14 still make me think more of the first coming than the second.  The Lord did come (to Jerusalem) with His Apostles (John 12:12-19), and there soon followed a unique day with a strange darkness during the daylight hours (Matthew 27:45).  "Living water" is clearly a reference to the Holy Spirit^[3] and it did begin flowing out of Jerusalem in connection with the spread of the Gospel message (Acts 1:8).  Jesus claimed to have authority over all mankind at His first coming (John 17:1,2; Matthew 28:18) and John said that Jesus was NOW the "ruler of the kings of the earth" in the late first century A.D. (Revelation 1:5,6).  The Apostles' Doctrine was that Jesus had lifted the "curse" of the Law by His death (Galatians 3:10-14).

       Zechariah 14:16-19 forecasts punishment for anyone who does not go up to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of booths.  However, Jesus Himself announced the rapidly approaching end of the time when worship was geographically located in Jerusalem (John 4:20-24) and this same message is emphasized in Galatians 4:21-31 and Hebrews 11:10,13-16; 12:18-24; 13:12-14.  Paul certainly did not advocate that Gentile converts keep the Mosaic feasts (Galatians 4:9,10) and made them "optional" at best (Romans 14:5,6; Colossians 2:16,17).

       Zechariah 14 is one of the primary reasons that dispensationalists think that Jesus will return to re-establish a Jewish earthly kingdom, complete with Mosaic Law feasts and a temple (Ezekiel 40-42).  I would still be a dispensationalist myself were it not for the difficulties presented by believing the "plain sense" of so much of the teaching of the New Testament.  If the writer of Hebrews was correct, then the New Covenant inaugurated by Jesus was better than the Mosaic, which has grown obsolete and been replaced (Hebrews 8).  I don't think Zechariah 14 points to the 2^nd coming of Jesus at all.