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Zechariah 14:6, 7 says,
6 In that day there will be no light; the luminaries will dwindle. 7 For it will be a unique day which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but it will come about that at evening time there will be light.
As usual, the prophet blends prophecies about Christ’s first coming with prophecies about His second coming. It is left to the reader to discern how to apply them. We today have the benefit of looking back at Christ’s first coming, so we can see how some of those prophecies were already fulfilled, at least partially.
Zechariah seems to be referencing the Day of the Lord described in Joel 3:14, 15,
14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. 15 The sun and moon grow dark and the stars lose their brightness.
Recall that on the day Jesus was crucified, the sun went dark for three hours from noon until 3:00 pm (Luke 23:44). Later in the evening, at 5:10 pm, the moon, already in an eclipse, rose over Jerusalem. Hence, it is written that “at evening time there will be light.” April 3, 33 A.D., the day Christ was crucified, was indeed “a unique day.”
However, when Christ returns, this prophecy will be fulfilled in a different way, no longer just a single day but for a thousand years (Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8). This long “day” is described by John in Revelation 21:23, speaking of the New Jerusalem,
23 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.
In both cases, dwindling “luminaries” also represent governments and authorities, as if to suggest that nations will no longer be administered by carnal men issuing laws devised by the corrupt minds of men. Though it will take a thousand years to fully subject all nations to His benevolent rule, those who remain in outer darkness, outside of the Kingdom of Light, will be ruled by luminaries whose light has been greatly dimmed.
Only after the final battle described in Revelation 20:7-9 will the Kingdom of God annex the rest of the nations in the one-world government of Jesus Christ the King. So it is likely that these prophecies will have at least three times of fulfillment—the day of crucifixion, the time of Christ’s second coming, and the time of the great White Throne judgment, where He comes to judge all of humanity from the beginning.
All three of these times, each in its own way, may be described as “the day of the Lord.”
Zechariah 14:8 says,
8 And in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea; it will be in summer as well as in winter.
In Hebrew, “living water” is flowing water, as in a river or stream. In the law of baptism, the first bird was to be killed “over running water” (Leviticus 14:5), because baptism symbolizes coming out of death into immortal life.
Zechariah briefly summarizes Ezekiel 47:1-12, where he prophesies that a river was flowing out from under the “house” (temple) “toward the east” (Ezekiel 47:1). It started out as a trickle (Ezekiel 47:2) but grew into “a river that could not be forded” (Ezekiel 47:5), as it flowed toward the eastern sea (now called the Dead Sea). The purpose of this river is to bring life to the Dead Sea—that is, to overcome death that has afflicted mankind since Adam’s sin.
Ezekiel 47:12 continues,
12 By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be food and their leaves for healing.
In Revelation 22:1, 2 John applies this to the New Jerusalem, not the old city,
1 Then he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
This is one of many occasions where the Old Testament prophets describe the scene in terms of the earthly Jerusalem, but which are actually fulfilled in the heavenly city. As I have often said elsewhere, the Old Testament prophets never distinguish between the two Jerusalems. Only in the New Testament do we see them distinguished.
Hence, we ought to understand that Zechariah prophesied that “living waters will flow out of [New] Jerusalem.” We should not interpret this in an Old Covenant manner, simply because it is fulfilled under the New Covenant. Because of sin, the Old Covenant could only bring forth death, because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Furthermore, Romans 7:10, 11 says,
10 and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death to me, 11 for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
When Adam sinned, he was driven out of the garden in order to deny him access to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24). It is only through the Mediator of the New Covenant that we have access to the tree of life. Hence, the tree of life is associated with the river of living water that comes out from the throne of God in the sanctuary of the heavenly Jerusalem.
Zechariah 14:9 says,
9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day the Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one.
Many have acknowledged Christ as king in past ages, but most people have not known the divine plan—or, if they were told, they disagreed with it. However, the plan will continue to unfold over the ages until, in the end, “every knee will bow… and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10, 11). He will not merely be king over the survivors, but will also be acknowledged as king by all who had opposed Him in past ages.
So Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:25, 27, 28,
25 For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet… (Psalm 8:6). 27 For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when he says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. 28 When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.
He does not subject all things by casting most of humanity away and consigning them to perpetual torture in “hell,” but by converting them and by writing His law in their hearts in that final age of judgment. (See my book, The Restoration of All Things.)