Israel’s Repentance and the Messianic

Zechariah 12 talks about the national repentance of Israel in turning to Christ. This is a future event.

About a quarter of the Scripture is prophecy. In Amos 3:7 it says, “For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” There’s a famous verse from Proverbs 25:2, which says, “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” God gave us a brain, and he expects us to use it … to invest brain power in the study of His Word. A famous rabbi from the 12th century coined an interesting term as he studied the book of Genesis: “The acts of the fathers are a sign to the sons.” What he meant was that in the Bible, God is teaching us about the future from history. As people that follow the Messiah, we can see that it’s true for our own life. Sometimes things that happen to us tend to circle back in many ways.

We are now living, not in the first return of the Jews to the land, but in the second return. And we can probably learn something of how God worked in the first return. We can certainly say that if in the first return, God prepared the Jews for the first coming of Christ, the second return of the Jews to the land is in preparation for the second coming of the Messiah.

Zechariah 12 talks about the national repentance of Israel in turning to Christ. This is a future event. The Jewish people that have come to faith throughout Church history and today are a remnant, a small part of the Jewish people. But as the Apostle Paul says and as we will see in Zechariah, there is a time in the future when all of Israel will turn to Christ.

The most important thing to know about Zechariah is that he was a young man from a prominent priestly family. He’s also a prophet in the last three chapters (Zechariah 12–14), and is very specifically talking about Israel. We read in Zechariah 12:1: “The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD…” (KJV). This gives us a glimpse into the fact that it was not always a pleasant or easy thing to be a prophet. A prophet was bringing God’s Word to the people of his day, and oftentimes, this was not pleasant. It was a burden, something that was very heavy.

To a certain degree, maybe not to the degree of Zechariah, but each one of us has that burden as we share Christ with a needy world. But here at the end of the book, God is leading the prophet to talk specifically about Israel. Sixteen times in those chapters we find the expression “on that day.” It’s actually an expression that is found in many other books of prophets, but this is the biggest concentration. God is not talking about a 24-hour day. He’s talking about a specific period or season, and specifically about the time that the Messiah Himself will come back to earth. All the nations will see Him for who He is, and after that, He will judge all the nations and rule the world from Jerusalem. It will happen “on that day.”

The name of God that appears the most frequently in those chapters is “the Lord of hosts.” It’s used 17 times. This is the name of God that is speaking about His power, His majesty, His authority. “The Lord of hosts” is talking about an almost military power of God. So, God in this passage is the God that judges, the God that comes in great power.

Jerusalem is mentioned 22 times in this passage. So, if you wonder what the geographical focus of those last three chapters is “on that day,” it’s Jerusalem. But God is not an ethnocentric God. And when he talks about Jerusalem here, He includes all the nations. The expression is mentioned 13 times in this passage.

So, when we arrive at Zechariah chapter 12, we are in a very, very difficult period for the nation of Israel. It is the period that is known as Jacob’s Trouble or the Great Tribulation. It’s a seven-year period that begins when the nation of Israel makes a covenant with the Antichrist. And, after a while, when things seem to be going well, it becomes really bad for the Jewish people.

We look around the world today and we think, “Wow, it looks pretty bad with all this antisemitism.” It’s just a rehearsal. It’s not the real thing. It’s going to be a lot worse. And at the end of that period, only a minority of the Jewish people survive. Many are killed—some think one-third, from a verse in Zechariah 13.

And then we see all the nations, which are gathered to finish the Jews once and for all.

It’s not so difficult to imagine anymore: We’re talking about the great military power that surrounds Jerusalem, surrounds Israel, and the final annihilation of the Jewish people. Now, it’s really important to remember and to understand that the sentiment to destroy the Jewish people, to destroy the people of Israel, is not really about Israel. It’s about the God of Israel. Because if Satan is able to destroy Israel, he proves God to be a liar.

And then we come to Zechariah 12:9: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” So, for the Jewish people at that time, all hope is lost. There’s no more IDF. There’s no more air force. There are no more nuclear weapons. All hope is lost. Many of the people in Israel are feeling very humiliated as a result of the October 7th attacks. All the terrible things that happened, the 150,000 people that had to leave their homes. “How could we let this happen?” is what people are feeling. Many Israelis had a great motivation to be drafted back to reserve duty and fight, to show that we can still defend ourselves. And the motto of the Israeli army is, “Never again.” Never again the Holocaust. But on that day, it will be different: All hope is lost. As a nation, we will have understood that it’s the end. There’s no more hope.

I think that’s also true for our personal life: Many times, when we’re at the end of our own power, we are done and there’s nothing more we can give, then it’s an opportunity for God to do something.

And Zechariah, in this short verse, takes many different passages from the former prophets, and he says that it is God Himself—actually, the Messiah Himself—that intervenes. And the people of Israel are wondering, “What is happening? Who is fighting on our behalf?” And that brings us to verse 10. This is when it gets really peculiar: God is speaking in the first person. “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy…” So, something very peculiar is happening. God is pouring His Holy Spirit out on Jerusalem. And, of course, as followers of Christ, it reminds us immediately of Acts chapter two, when the Holy Spirit was poured out in Jerusalem and the Church was formed. So here, it’s similar but a different event.

It continues: “…so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him…” A very peculiar statement, a very clear statement about what happened to God.

Some years ago, I had a discussion with an Orthodox Jewish person about this passage. He asked me how I became a follower of Christ. We were talking about Jesus, and he said, “Why do you see it that way? I’ve never read it that way before.” And so, we read this passage together, and he was absolutely shocked. This was written four or five hundred years before the time of Jesus.

There are other passages in the prophets that talk about God being pierced; for example, Psalm 22:16. There are different words used for it in other passages. Even though it’s translated as “pierce” here, this word actually has a softer meaning, maybe to dig. But in Zechariah, the word is actually to pierce through. God is saying, “When they look on me, on him whom they have pierced through…”

Here, the verse makes a very peculiar change: God is moving to speak in the second person. In the second person, He says, “when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him…” Very peculiar. They shall mourn for him—who is he? It is God that was pierced, and now the nation of Israel is mourning for Him.

It continues to say, “…as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” So, it’s really mysterious. Talking about the firstborn son, apparently, it’s God Himself, because He was pierced in the first person. And, there’s something else that is very peculiar about this verse. The expression, “an only child” (“his only son” in the KJV) is very, very unusual in the Hebrew language, because God is always described using a plural noun, even as He is the one God. God is never singular. He’s always plural in Hebrew. But what’s translated here as “his only son” talks about the son in the singular. And, as far as I was able to see, this is the only place in the entire Hebrew Bible that is talking about God in the singular, and it’s talking about the only begotten Son.

Now, think about the one and only son. You are a Jew, and you hear about the one and only son. What story does it remind you of right away? Genesis 22, Abraham and Isaac. God says, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” So, this is supposed to remind us right away of the story of Abraham and Isaac, which is about the father sacrificing his son.

Remember, this is Israel’s hardest hour. This is what is taking place. But then it gets even more peculiar. Notice what happens in verse 11: “On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.” When I read this at the beginning, I thought, “Just a moment. The Jewish people just accepted Christ. Shouldn’t there be joy? Why isn’t there great joy right away?” I have a theory. Over the last 2,000 years, many different things have been said about Jesus of Nazareth among the Jewish people. Some of them are actually written in the Talmud, a book that many, many Jewish people read. The vast majority of those things said about Jesus of Nazareth are very negative. He’s a sorcerer. He uses the power of the devil. He’s a thief. And many other things that are even worse. So, I think that when the Jewish people recognize Christ for who He is, they realize all the things they and the past generations said about Him. And they all died without knowing it.

Now, I’d like to think for a moment about the first six verses of Isaiah 53. This chapter is the most wonderful, messianic prophecy in the Hebrew Bible in the Old Testament, but I do think that is not the main emphasis of this passage. I think Isaiah 53 is the confession of the Jewish people once, on a national level, “We accept Christ.”

I want to remind you that at the end of Isaiah 52, God is speaking about His servant just before this passage. But notice the language. God is not speaking here. “Who has believed what he has heard from us?” When Zechariah talks about this day, everything is in the future tense. But look at the verbs in Isaiah: Everything is in the past tense. It’s looking back, not forward. And we didn’t believe this report. It was ours, but we didn’t believe it. We looked at the servant of God, and what did we think about Him? He was not important. We despised Him. He has no status. He’s quite simply a nobody. We saw Him suffering, and we thought that God was punishing Him.

And in verse four, we see that on the day when this is happening, Jeremiah 31 is fulfilled. Ezekiel 36 is fulfilled. So, finally, there’s a new heart. There’s a heart of flesh for the Jewish people, and the truth is descending on a national level: God wasn’t punishing Him. He was carrying our own sins and burdens instead of us. Now, imagine how that must feel on a national level when you look at 2,000 years of history, the repentance and national mourning that take place for what we did. And then the joy will come.

The next chapter, Zechariah 13, begins with these words: “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.” And we read in the book of Ezekiel that when Christ returns, the geography of Jerusalem will change. In Ezekiel, the Temple Mount will be the highest mountain on the earth. Jerusalem’s going to be much, much bigger than it is today. There will be a great fountain from the Temple Mount going east and west. And the mention of water is not accidental.

You may remember that at the end of the Tribulation, we read in the book of Revelation that all the sources of water are going to turn into blood. So, water’s going to be something very precious, and this fountain coming from the Temple Mount will bring healing to all sources of water on the earth. When Christ is ruling from Jerusalem, all forms of uncleanness will be cut off from the earth.

Christ gave Himself for the sins of all humanity. The door is open, and the invitation is there for anyone to accept Him. Yet we know that many people still choose not to follow Christ, but to follow different forms of idols. Well, on that day, it will be different. On that day, there will be no more idols. There’ll be just one King, and His name is Yeshua—Jesus.

One more word about the cleansing fountain. Under the Mosaic covenant, do you know what the Jewish people need to cleanse the priests for them to ascend the Temple Mount? A red heifer cow. Many Jewish people invest tremendous amounts of money and search all over the world to look for the red heifer. In fact, they found some in Texas, and they paid millions and millions of dollars to buy them and to bring them to Israel. And in parentheses, I will say that many evangelicals funded this.

I’m not saying it is a good thing. As followers of Christ, what is our calling? To share the good news of Christ. Now, when I talk about this with some of my American friends who were involved in this, they say, “But we want to hasten the coming of Christ!” And I tell them, “He’s strong enough. He doesn’t need your help. He finished the work. He put you on this planet to share the good news of Jesus.”

And so, the red heifers are in Israel. There’s a Bible professor from a religious university in Israel that did a whole teaching on how you need to burn the red heifer. Once the heifer is approved and burned, you mix the ashes with water, and then you can put it on the priests and on the mountain, and then they can go to the Temple Mount to sacrifice. But on this day, we don’t need any red heifer, because the shadow is gone and the real has come.

I’m not trying to speak in a degrading way about the Jews that are waiting for this. I know some of them, and they’re very sincere in their faith. And this may need to happen. There needs to be another temple. But personally, I tell them, “You’re wasting your time, and your efforts are in the wrong place.” On that day, there will be a fountain, and all the idol worship that climaxed with the Antichrist will be gone.

What does all of this mean for us today? As followers of Christ, we are called to the Great Commission first and foremost. To tell all the people on this earth about the one and open door to the real God through the Messiah, Yeshua, Jesus. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16).

What this verse means is not to the Jew first, because the Jews are smarter or more beautiful or stronger. If you don’t believe me, read Deuteronomy 7:7. It talks about the order in God’s kingdom or economy, if you will. The Jews were uniquely qualified to receive Christ because they had the Scripture. But in accordance with God’s wisdom, as a nation, we missed it. But no, the rule of Israel isn’t done. We know that God still has a burden for Israel. His Word will come true.

In Romans 11:14-15, Paul says, “in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?”

Sometimes, people ask me, “What is the plan for One for Israel after the Rapture? What is your plan to keep your activity going?” I don’t know what will happen, but here is what it means for me, and I hope it will mean that for you as well. It gives me a sense of urgency. In Israel, we enjoy great freedom. We can stand on every street corner and talk about Christ all we want. All of those activities are 100% legal. It doesn’t mean that everybody likes it, but it’s legal. And so, the urgency I’m talking about is bringing the gospel to people in a way they can understand and relate to.

I pray that God will have mercy, and this season of relative freedom will continue for a while, so more people can come to the kingdom. There are many, many ways to bless Israel, but the best way and the way we are called as followers of Christ, is to bless Israel with Jesus, with Yeshua.

(For more on the ministry of One for Israel, visit oneforisrael.org)