Zechariah 6:12

The Bible says in Zechariah 6:12-13, “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.” These two verses are a great Messianic passage. Interesting that the first thing that is said about the Messiah here is: “Behold the man.” Jesus came as a man: the greatest human being who ever lived. That is why He is called “the Branch.” His human lineage was from the nation of Israel. He branched out from Israel. Today there are approximately 195 nations in the world, but they all were rejected except for Israel. God did not choose the United States of America, He did not choose Russia, He did not choose China, He did not choose India, He did not choose Saudi Arabia, etc. God chose Israel as the country from whom the Messiah would come, and the Messiah, the Son of God, came as a man.

“Behold the man.” His name is Jesus. He was the Son of God, but in every way He was a man, except with out sin. Concerning Jesus taking upon Himself the life of a man, the Bible says in Philippians 2:6-10, “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;”

Let’s look at Jesus as a man, and see some of the things that He accomplished. Jesus was an obedient man. Jesus came to the earth to do the will of the Father. The Messiah is quoted in Psalm 40;7-8, and He says, “Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” As a man Jesus was obedient to the Father, but this obedience did not start in adulthood. Of course, it started in childhood. The best way to become a servant of God when you are an adult is to serve Him from your earliest days. That is why one of the Ten Commandments is written to children, and it says in Exodus 20:12, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” The same commandment is quoted in Ephesians 6:1-3 that says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.” Paul wrote to Timothy in Second Timothy 3:14-15, “But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” From a human standpoint Jesus became the man that He should have been because He was the child that He should have been. It says about the development of Jesus from a child in Luke 2:40, “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.” Zechariah 6:12 makes an emphasis on this growth that would take place within the Messiah the man. It says, “and he shall grow up out of his place.”

In every way that you can think of Jesus was a human being, except that He never sinned. Jesus was the perfect human being. The life of Jesus shows us how every life could have been and should have been. We should have served God from our earliest years. We should have always had the goal to be God’s servant. We should have grown spiritually all of our lives until we became adults, and then we would have been perfectly prepared to also serve Him from our earliest adult years. We should have never sinned. But we did. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, as it says in Romans 3:23. Of course, that is why we rely upon Jesus not only as our example, but more importantly as our Savior. He died for us, and now we owe Him everything.

It says in Zechariah 6:12, “Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH.” It would have been very comforting for the Israelites to hear that the Messiah was called “The BRANCH.” This would be a great reminder to them that God was not finished with them. They had a wonderful future as a nation for one reason because the Messiah would come forth from them: the Messiah would branch out of them. You can be assured that God also has a wonderful future for your life. God was not finished with the children of Israel, and He is not finished with you either. If God was displeased with you such that He was finished with you, then you would not be here. It says in First John 5:16, “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.”

Notice the following phrase that is repeated twice about the Messiah in Zechariah 6:12 and Zechariah 6:13, “he shall build the temple of the LORD.” There have been three temples in Jerusalem so far: one built by Solomon, one built after the captivity when the Israelites were restored from Babylon as recorded here in the book of Zechariah, and a temple built by King Herod. All three of those temples were built by man and then destroyed by man. It appears that there will be at least one more temple built before Jesus comes back: and that is the temple that will exist during the time of the Great Tribulation. One of the events described for us that will take place during the Great Tribulation is the desecration of the Holy of Holies as described in Matthew 24:15. Jesus said, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand.)”

Jesus was referring to what Daniel wrote in Daniel 9:27 and Daniel 12:11. It says in Daniel 9:27, “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determine shall be poured upon the desolate.” It says in Daniel 12:11, “And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.” The “he” of Daniel 9:27 is the antichrist. The “one week” refers to a week of years, and thus a seven year period. And so we see the timeline of what will happen in the last days: there will be a seven year period of Great Tribulation during which the antichrist will be in power. In the middle of the seven year period the antichrist will be known by the fact that he will commit this act of desecration with the holiest place in the temple. Thus, there must be a temple that exists at the mid-point of the Great Tribulation. Perhaps that temple will be built before the Great Tribulation starts or perhaps that temple will be built after the Great Tribulation starts.

Probably after Jesus returns at His Second Coming, one final temple will be built that will be used during the millennium, the one-thousand year reign of Christ on the earth. It says in Revelation 20:6, “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” Because the prophecy in Zechariah 6:12 is so clear that the Messiah would build the temple, it was common knowledge among Jewish students of the Old Testament that the Messiah would build a temple. It says in Zechariah 6:13, “Even he shall build the temple of the LORD.” Compare this great prophesy to what took place in John 2:13-21, “And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body.” Notice the following that was said when Jesus was unjustly condemned in Matthew 26:60-63, “But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses, And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee? But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.” They knew the prophecy of Zechariah. They knew that the Messiah was going to build the final temple, and the greatest of all temples. This talk about Jesus building the temple had them greatly concerned. Was Jesus the Messiah or was He not? They were afraid. One of the evidences that Jesus was the Messiah was His connection with the temple.

The temple was symbolic of the presence of God and the closest possible presence of God in the inner sanctuary that is called the holy of holies. That is why the glory of God came upon the temple in the days of Moses: to demonstrate the fact that God’s presence was there. It is interesting that Jesus turned the talk of the temple into talk about Jesus’ own body. In the New Testament the word “temple” does not refer to a building at all, but refers to a body. It says in First Corinthians 6:19, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” Jesus turned the conversation to His own body when He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” It is no wonder that Jesus compared Himself to the temple. The temple symbolizes the presence of God, and Jesus is the presence of God. In the Old Testament at least symbolically you became closer to God by being involved with the temple and the activities at the temple. When the priest entered into the holy of holies inside the temple, the priest was entering into the presence of God. Whoever enters into a relationship with Jesus Christ is entering into a relationship with God Almighty. How close you are to Jesus will determine how close you are to God. If you want to know God, then you must come to know Jesus. Bow before Jesus today and confess your sins and trust in Him as your Savior.

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