Zechariah 4:11 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Zechariah 4:11

Comments

What are these two olive trees upon the right and upon the left of the lampstand? Again Zechariah asks what these are, and again he is asked whether he does not already know, and again he says he does not. So Zechariah is told their meaning, and we read the answer and perhaps feel that it seems to us still a mystery. But it isn't such a mystery. ‘Then said he, These are the two anointed ones’ – ‘sons of oil’ is the Hebrew – ‘that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.’ The guesses concerning what these represent are numerous, and sometimes quite amusing, and mainly impossible. But from the passage, it is not so hard, because what is the passage all about? Chapter 3 is about the lesson of the temple symbolism: reconciliation and atonement, the word being taught constantly. And what else is in the passage, particularly chapter 4? It is about the power of the Spirit behind Zerubbabel. They are the two things in the two chapters: the word and the Spirit. So there is no need to guess other things. ‘Oh,’ say some, ‘the two anointed ones would represent the Old Testament and the New Testament’, and there are many other guesses too. But that is not in the passage. The two elements in the passage are the word and the Spirit, the word for Joshua, the Spirit for Zerubbabel, who between them represents the church, and the coming Christ and his church. ‘These are the two anointed ones that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.’ The passages have told us that this is all you need. Joshua is told, all you need is faithfulness to God's teaching, God's prescription, the word of God. Chapter 4 has told Zerubbabel, all you need is dependence upon the Spirit – the two sons of oil that feed the lamp. What is the lamp? The great lampstand was in the temple when it was built with seven lamps. What does it represent? Light, teaching, the teaching of the word of God given to the church. Where is the energy and the power? Again – same source – by the Holy Spirit: the word and the Spirit; both chapters say, that is all you need. But, in the Bible they are seen as being channelled through the church. We see again these two witnesses or sons of oil in Revelation 11: ‘I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.’ That is right out of Zechariah. ‘And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.' In other words, this is the church in the last age, proclaiming the gospel, and there are enemies, but the enemies cannot hurt them. They can put them in prison. They can silence them for a while, but others take over. Insofar as the two witnesses of the two sons of oil are exercised through the church, they cannot be silenced. There will always be the preaching of the gospel. If any man will hurt them he will be judged one day because of the harm and the antagonism he displayed towards the preaching of the gospel. He may even be converted by it, slain by it, and turn to Christ. ‘These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood’, tremendous power in the preaching of the gospel and the work of the Spirit secured through prayer. ‘And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth’ (Revelation 11:7-10). Whatever has happened? Well, the preaching of the gospel has been virtually silenced – it can never actually be fully silenced, because Scripture says otherwise: the gates of hell will never prevail against the church and the preaching of the gospel. But it has been virtually silenced by the hostility of unbelief.

Application

Is that the age we are entering into now, when the preaching of the gospel is reduced in so many places, even here in the United Kingdom, to next to nothing, where there are cities everywhere that don't have a gospel proclamation any more, where everything spiritual and high and holy is derided and scorned? Are the anointed ones – that is to say, the word and the Spirit through the church, announced and preached and proclaimed – all but dead? Is there much worse to come as increasingly laws press Christian believers out of the public square, and silence them, and turn even, ultimately, the preaching of the gospel into so-called hate speech? Is it a picture of what we are seeing moving? But it won't last. Verse 11, ‘And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.’ We very much like to think that there could be a last revival before the end. Verse 12: ‘And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them’ – that is the resurrection and the end. Then follows the great earthquake and the final woes and so on. That is the future history of the two witnesses, the two anointed ones, the two sons of oil. The word and the Spirit channelled through faithful churches.

You don't need in today's church, for example, entertainment. How many churches, even Bible believing churches, have gone over to entertainment? Their services of worship are mainly to amuse the people, not to address Almighty God. There is very little sense of God sometimes. What's more, what is borrowed for music, is so often borrowed right out of the world. It is the world's styles and forms of music. It is wall-to-wall music and song and entertainments, and so on. Sometimes the preachers play up to that massively. You could call the last sixty years the history of gimmicks in the Christian churches: new things, new ideas, new devices. These two chapters say, word and Spirit are all sufficient. Preach the gospel and throng the prayer meeting, and pray. You need nothing else.

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Zechariah 4:11 Commentary and Bible Study