Zechariah 5:4 Commentary and Bible Study

Whereas God had in Old Testament times tolerated the mixed multitude and called Israel the nation to be his people even though they were a mixture of saints and sinners, the day is coming when that will change. The scroll representing God’s curse will go throughout the whole world and will no longer pass over the house of the thief or the one who swears falsely by God’s name. Only true character will be acceptable to the Lord, and all who belong to the church of Christ must have been born from above and be made new creatures in Christ. Using the imagery of the law, the vision describes the curse as entering the house of the thief and consuming its timbers (Leviticus 14:34-57), a picture of sin consuming the life of a man. God calls his people to holiness and what he winked at under the Old Testament dispensation will not be accepted under the new. So in his exposition of the law in Matthew 5, Christ calls his disciples back to God’s original standard and calls for sincerity, integrity, making God’s perfection the measure of life.So there is a judgment upon everyone, and it is interesting to note the particular sins that are selected here to be representative. They are not sins of murder or adultery. They are what you might call, in a sinful society, the more every-day sins: sins of theft and sins of excuse-making and denial and dishonesty. If what you might think of as the most serious sins were mentioned, you might be tempted to think it was restricted to those, but the more every-day sins of society are selected to show that God's justice is comprehensive. There will be no turning back from this. Zechariah tells us that when Messiah comes, many Jews will be set to one side and the period of Jewish privilege will be ended. Some are very upset by this? ‘What? Is there nothing special about the Jews? Do they have no special place anymore in the international Jewish-Gentile church?’ That is correct. The new covenant is based on grace, not race. But some teach, ‘No, at end God will switch back to the Jews and they will be the number one and the Gentiles will be number two.’ The apostle Paul however says otherwise: ‘For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby’ (Ephesians 2:14-16). All have the same Saviour, the same justification, the same eternal destiny, the same place in heaven.