g about
Jerusalem--standing at the bar of God, with Satan as his accuser. The
trial is in process when the Prophet is permitted to see. We do not hear
the pleadings on either side, but the sentence is solemnly recorded. The
accusations are dismissed, their bringer rebuked, and in token of
acquittal, the filthy garments which the accused had worn are changed
for the full festal attire of the high priest.

What, then, is the meaning of this grand symbolism? The first point to
keep well in view is the representative character of the high priest. He
appears as laden not with individual but national sins. In him Israel
is, as it were, concentrated, and what befalls him is the image of what
befalls the nation. His dirty dress is the familiar symbol of sin; and
he wears it, just as he wore his sacerdotal dress, in his official
capacity, as the embodied nation. He stands before the judgment seat,
bearing not his own but the people's sins.

Two great truths are thereby taught, which are as true to-day as ever.
The first is that representation is essential to priesthood. It was so
in shadowy and external fashion in Israel; it is so in deepest and most
blessed reality in Christ's priesthood. He stands before God as our
representative--'And the Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of
us all.' If by faith we unite ourselves with Him, there ensues a
wondrous transference of characteristics, so that our sin becomes His,
and His righteousness becomes ours; and that in no mere artificial or
forensic sense, but in inmost reality. Theologians talk of a
_communicatio idiomatum_ as between the human and the divine elements in
Christ. There is an analogous passage of the attributes of either to the
other, in the relation of the believer to his Saviour.

The second thought in this symbolic appearance of Joshua before the
angel of the Lord is that the sins of God's people are even now present
before His perfect judgment, as reasons for withdrawing from them His
favour. That is a solemn truth, which should never be forgotten. A
Christian man's sins do accuse him at the bar of God. They are all
visible there; and so far as their tendency goes, they are like wedges
driven in to rend him from God.

But the second figure in the vision is 'the Satan,' standing in the
plaintiff's place at the Judge's right hand, to accuse Joshua. The Old
Testament teaching as to the evil spirit who 'accuses' good men is not
so developed as that of the New,