GROWING THE CHURCH: ROOT, BRANCH, AND BRANCHES

KEY VERSES: Then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest; And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The Branch; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord: Even he shall build the temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both… And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord, and ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God. (Zech 6:11-13,15)

Now to identify the principles in the key verses: Jehozadak (shortened Josedech) is the tetragrammaton (YHWH) pronounced “Yahweh.”  In other words, Joshua’s father was symbolic of Father God. The name Joshua, of course, is the very name “Jesus” and means “Yah saves” Yah is an abbreviated from of YHWH, and thus Joshua means God as well! In those names, and is the same relationship of Jesus to Yahweh.

First off, since Joshua (the Greek form anglicized is Jesus), is JHWH, as is Josedech. The relationship is father and son, just as Yahweh is the Father and Jesus is the Son! Hence, the relationship between Joshua and Josedech represents the One True God and His manifestation as His Son. What is hidden between the lines in those passages is the Holy Trinity – the three in one homeostasis of the Godhead. Since the priest Joshua had a genealogy, unlike the priest Melchizedek, he is only representative of Jesus, whereas Melchizedek was surely the person who became Joshua, or Jesus.

Speaking those Words, were “the Word of the Lord” (Zech 6:9). It is pre-incarnate Jesus who is speaking, and as you shall see, he was referring to himself! He revealed to Zechariah that he was coming to build another different type of “temple.”

The foremost message is that “the man whose name is The Branch” will someday build the temple of the Lord. In my earlier commentaries, I wrote that temples of hewn (worked) material  are not satisfactory for temples for God. God chooses to live in “Tabernacles” made by His own Hand. When “the Hand of God” is written in the Old Testament, the context is the Messiah. Unknown to all but the righteous, was that the Messiah had been with them all the time… since the beginning! (John 1). Jesus showed himself to Zechariah as “the Angel of the Lord” (Zech 3:6), whereat Jesus foretold of his coming: “Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the Branch” (Zech 3:6).

“The Branch” is an important Person in scripture. Jesus refers to himself as the Main Branch when he said, “I am the vine, ye are the branches…” (John 15:5). Imagine a grape vine protruding from beneath the ground and emanating from the root. It is nourished with unseen water from below. Just as the Tree of Life represents the Holy Trinity, and the visible tree, Jesus, it is the same for the grapevine. Its root represents the Father, the main vine Jesus Christ, and the branches are representative of the members of the Church. Of course, the nourishing water is symbolic of the Holy Spirit, and the grapes, the fruits of the Spirit.

As the Second Temple was built, the “Root” was glorious, and was watered. Zechariah saw the “Branch” or the “Vine” before it could be seen by anyone except with the aid of peculiar vision. Zechariah was given bright eyes to see the unseen because he had a bright nature. Zechariah even saw the branches and the fruits of the Vine, in that, “they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord”. That has a double-meaning: the main “Temple” - the invisible Church - would be built by individual “temples” or “tabernacles”  coming from afar.

Just as blind Bartimaeus, saw “men as; trees walking,” I see that, but also see grapevines; as the Church growing!  Zechariah saw what I see – that God would build His own House with His own “Hand” when Jesus would become visible to everyone as is written:

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. (Eph 2:19-21).

One of the “prophets” in that passage is Zechariah. The Jews were building a House for God, but Zechariah was seeing God building a Sanctuary for His People.

Of course, the Cornerstone of the Church represents the Vine beginning to grow. The apostles and prophets, as the foundation, were the first branches, and each branch afterward were the saints. The grapevine is a simile of the Church as was the trees and vines in the Garden of Eden. God built a sanctuary for mankind in the beginning, and the Church is a type of sanctuary. Then in Revelation, John saw the sanctuary in Heaven coming down to its original foundation!

God never deviated from His Plan. From the beginning, Church is what He had in mind. Throughout the ages, the patriarchs attempted to build the Church that only God could build! That Church was “painted” blood red, and Jesus is the craftsman who built, painted, and superintended the Church! He was the only person who by the sweat of his face, did the hard work to build the Church. Jesus took on Adams penalty from Genesis 3:19. Adam did no work to save his seed, but Jesus did it all!

credit: evineyard