“Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and He shall grow up out of His place, and He shall build the temple of the LORD: Even He shall build the temple of the LORD; and He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne; and He shall be a priest upon His throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both” (Zechariah 6:12,13).

In ancient Israel, the offices of king and priest were kept strictly separate. There was too much risk of misuse of power for one man to hold both offices.

Yet, in the truest sense, no one but God Himself was fully qualified either to rule as king or to mediate as priest. Thus God Himself must one day become man, in order to be both King of kings, and eternal High Priest. As a prophetic promise of His coming accession to these positions, God symbolically invested Zerubabbel and Joshua, the current governor and high priest, with the combined function “a priest upon his throne”—through the prophet Zechariah. This was only prophetic, however.

Long before, God had made a similar promise through David, speaking of the coming Messiah: “Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. . . . Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:2,4). The mysterious Melchizedek, first encountered by Abraham a thousand years before even David’s time,had also been both “King of Salem” and “Priest of the most high God” (Genesis 14:18).

The Lord Jesus Christ has now come, and henceforth will always be “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords” (I Timothy 6:15). Furthermore, “this man, because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:24,25). HMM