"Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel."
This is a most striking verse. It was the command, under the Levitical dispensation, that the high priests should appear before the Lord in holy garments, for glory and for beauty, see Exodus 28:2. And so to human observation they did appear. Had the Prophet Zechariah not seen these things in vision, by which the Lord gave him a spirit of discernment, he would not have beheld the filthiness of Joshua.
Reader! I beseech you to attend to the doctrine contained in this view of things. Here we see what the law, and what the priesthood was, in their best dress. No doubt Joshua, like all the other priests under the law were what the world would call good men, set apart to the sacred office. Yet, when looked at under the spirit of prophecy, behold, amidst the ephod, and breast-plate, what filthiness they appeared in. Well might the Prophet Isaiah, under a sense of it, when he had once seen the vision of God, cry out, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Isaiah 64:6. Reader! and do all the ministrations of fallen sinful men, as they are in themselves, and without an eye to Christ, thus appear? Do the most upright of men, like this Joshua, come before God polluted and defiled? Oh! then think of the preciousness of Him, who taketh away the iniquity of our holy things, and whose blood, and righteousness, and everlasting priesthood, become the only safety for our persons, and for the acceptation of both persons and offerings before God!