"And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of The LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And The LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even The LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" [Zech 3:1-2]

In the Book of Revelation, Satan is named as “the accuser of our brethren…which accused them before our God day and night.” [Rev 12:10] To accuse means, “to charge with, or declare to have committed a crime…”  [Webster] While those good angels “rest not day and night, saying, ‘holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come,’” [Rev 4:8] Satan, that wicked cherub whose “heart was lifted up because of [his] beauty” and who “said in [his] heart, ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…I will be like the Most High,’” [Ezek 28:17, Isa 14:13, 14] rests not day and night accusing the brethren, that is, of the saints of God. There has not been one day of human existence where that miserable enemy of all that is good has not laid charge against one of God’s elect children; for he “accused them before our God day and night” – he has been hard at work charging God’s people with wrongdoing since the dawn of man upon the earth. We see it too, in the passage for today, where “Satan [was] standing at [Joshua’s] right hand to resist him.”Truly, this is a grievous thing, that we should be accused and reviled by our enemy day and night. But, I think, if we would stay here a moment longer, we should see that even here too there is beauty for us to behold.

Let us first remember what our Lord said about our adversary who “cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy,” [Jn 10:10] that “there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” [Jn 8:44] Therefore, good brother, good sister, take heart, for Jesus, “who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth,” and of whom it is written, “God is not a man, that He should lie,” [1 Pe 2:22, Num 23:19] has said “he is a liar.” Now Jesus, who “sitteth on the right hand of God,” [Col 3:1] and who does not lie, (for He “cannot lie,” [Titus 1:2]), who does always “present [us] holy and unblameable and unreproveable in [The Father’s] sight,” [Col 1:22] we being “before Him in love,” [Eph 1:4] says lovingly and dearly, “thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.” [Songs 4:7] Our God, who is “a God of truth and without iniquity,” [Deut 32:4] declares that we are spotless and pure, beloved of Him; and the Devil, who again, is “a liar,” accuses and brings to remembrance our sins, no doubt seeking to diminish our good standing and favor with God. Shall we believe the father of lies, wicked Lucifer, or shall we cling fast to what our Lord has said? For Paul exhorts us and assures us that we stand as the 144,000, of whom it says, “they are without fault before the throne of God.” [Rev 14:5] And again, that “as [Jesus] is, so are we in this world.” [1 Jn 4:17] If there is a pleasant and good trait of Jesus, so too of us, whom He presents before God, for we “are the body of Christ, and members in particular,” [1 Cor 12:27] and Christ Jesus is entered “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for our betterment.” [Heb 9:24] And He does there, without fail or mishap, present us faultless before God, as it is written in praise unto our King, “now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.” [Jude 1:24]

Now then, dear Christian, how do these truths fare with your heart? Do you accept them? Do you find them sweet or amiable or worthy of meditation and acceptance? Or do you feel as though they could in no wise apply to a sinner so great as yourself? Let us see clearly that the latter response is of the devil, for God sees us as faultless in Christ Jesus our Lord. Yes, so much so that it is written, “herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world.” [1 Jn 4:17] So accepted in Christ are we, (yes, “accepted in the Beloved [Son].” [Eph 1:6]), that we may be bold and freely approach God in the day of judgment. Where others may cower and shrink back, yet we shall step forward in humble faith and courage, for we shall in that day step nearer to our father and our Groom, to our friend and our God, to our Shepherd of old who wrought salvation in our souls when He saved us from the pit and made us His own. As it says regarding men, so too we may apply to Satan who accuses us before God:

“What shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?...Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also obtains audience [with Him] for our betterment.” [Rom 8:31, 33-34]

What glorious comfort we may find here in these verses. Can anything Satan says change God’s mind about us? Hardly! “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” [Rom 11:29] Can the dragon’s railings upon our character, his bringing up of sinfulness and trespass, cause God to find fault with us, or to lessen His great love toward us? In no wise! For “who shall separate us from the love of Christ?…For I am persuaded, that neither…angels, nor principalities, nor powers…nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Rom 8:35, 38, 39]

But why should Satan’s constant threatenings be ignored and altogether discarded by our God? Have we not sinned? Is it not truth that we have many a time done our Lord a great disservice in our thoughts, conducts, and words? It is true indeed, my fellow Christian, and yet The LORD does not see these things as true. And why is that? It is as we read, wherein Paul speaks rhetorically: “who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again.” Let us rejoice in this truth! For if we have been saved, if we have been “raised…up together,” and made to “sit together in the heavenlies,” [Eph 2:6] in that blessed place where God “hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings,” [Eph 1:3] then we are without fault before our God. Jesus stands there beside us as it were to defend us, as we are told, “if any man sin, we have an advocate with The Father, Jesus Christ The Righteous [One].” [1 Jn 2:1] Though we once were sinners, yet no more; for we “are justified in the name of The Lord Jesus, and by The Spirit of our God.” [1 Cor 6:11] We have been, by our God’s overflowing mercy and grace, declared and made righteous, so that we are no longer those sinners which Satan our accuser brings to God’s remembrance. Though we sin in practice, yet Satan has no grounds; for it is written that “now once in the end of the world hath [Jesus Christ] appeared to the annulment of sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” [Heb 9:26] To annul means, “to make void; to nullify…to abolish…” [Webster] And so though in practice we sin, yet we are declared righteous by our Lord Jesus Christ, for we are “now justified by His blood,” [Rom 5:9] and in Christ “God imputeth righteousness without works, saying…blessed is the man to whom The Lord will not impute sin.” [Rom 4:6, 8] When we, as God’s saints, saved in Christ Jesus, covered in His righteous blood, are condemned of our enemy, whether it be Satan, the flesh, or the world, it is seen by God as a lie. For it is not true; God’s word, which “cannot be broken,” [Jn 10:35] declares it to be true, and thus it is true. In Christ Jesus we are not guilty but innocent, for our sins have been dashed to pieces as the chaff of the summer threshing floor, they have been made void in Jesus Christ, and God declares, “I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” [Isa 43:25]

Let us take great comfort in this truth: all the accusations of Satan, or any other enemy, fall to the ground and are forgotten; not one of them may stand in court before The Father. Again, as it says, “every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.” [Isa 54:17] There is not one word of Satan’s which shall stand against us in judgment, not now nor in that day, for we are found in Christ Jesus. We have seen how that despite Satan’s earnest attempts to accuse and condemn, they are void for those washed in the blood of Jesus. And let us see another thing from today’s passage, and we shall be encouraged yet further. Let us read again,

“And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of The LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And The LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even The LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” [Zech 3:1-2]

And now, may we notice, that while “Satan [was] standing at [Joshua’s] right hand to resist him,” yet The LORD did not find any occasion to argue. No, our Lord did not respond to Satan, as though he was worth responding to; nor yet did Joshua or Zechariah, but all that is recorded is such: “The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even The LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee.” And herein lies a great truth, that our Father responds to accusations against us with His choice of us. For as it is written, “He hath chosen us in [Jesus] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” [Eph 1:4] In Christ we are loved and chosen and that is all God need say. There is no argument, no going back-and-forth between The LORD and Satan, but simply and shortly, “The LORD [that hath chosen Jerusalem] rebuke thee.” And may all those saved men and women who read these words insert their name into that sentence, for it is also God’s response regarding us when our enemy comes to attack and revile.

Let us meditate again upon the matter: The LORD does not take those foul words into account; they do not influence His love toward us, nor His choice of us, nor His thoughts of us. Even though Satan accuses us “before our God day and night,” yet The LORD still favors us and loves us, seeing us in Jesus Christ our Savior and His Son. And let us also be careful to notice that not one of Satan’s words are recorded. There is not one accusation written down – all of them are forgotten, all of them are blotted out, all of them are forever lost in history. And so it is today: there is not one, single accusation in heaven against our names, for we are found and protected and loved in Jesus. We are, as it says, presented as “unreproveable in His sight,” [Col 1:22] a word which means irreproachable or blameless; that is, we are presented as such and we “cannot be justly reproached [charged with fault],” we are “free from blame…[and] innocent.” [Webster] May God be ever praised; He is not a God who gives heed to gossip or wicked speech, but who always and without fail sees us as Christ Jesus. And praise God again, for every word of ill against our person is removed, leaving only those blessed words which agree with our Lord Jesus’, “as The Father hath loved me, so have I loved you,” and, “The Father Himself loveth you.” [Jn 15:9; 16:27]

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