Zechariah 13:3 Commentary and Bible Study

There will be no place for those who teach their own doctrine in the church. The rule under the law of Moses was that anyone who sought to lead the people away from the true God would be subject to the death penalty. This must be implemented, even though the one teaching error is from your own family. ‘If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; ⁷ Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; ⁸ Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: ⁹ But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. ¹⁰ And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God’ (Deuteronomy’ 13:6-10). This may be what is in mind here. In other words they will be forced to reject him in what he believes and what he stands for. There will be discipline among the people of God. Not only will they be faithful to the Lord and not succumb to the false, but in the right spirit they will be exercising discipline to keep their coasts clear, and the false prophet will be ashamed, and that is what the rest of that chapter is about. Of course, in the church of Christ, no one is put to death physically, but they are to be put out of the church, which hands them over to the judgment of God.