Month: August 2025

Imagine a sterile scalpel falling on the floor during a surgery. Would the surgeon simply say, “Well, the instrument was sterile, therefore the floor must also be. Pick it up and hand it to me”? That ridiculous illustration puts in modern terms, the illustration the Lord uses in Haggai 2:10–23.

Beware of sin’s defiling power. Sin pollutes, corrupts, and impacts your life. God says, “Ask the priests.” The priests had the responsibility of instructing the people, including in matters of ritual purity, Leviticus 10:10,11. In the Old Testament ceremonial laws, certain things and certain people were holy, set apart to God in a special way. There were elaborate ceremonies for consecrating priests for their role of handling the holy things. This holiness reflected the character of God. Thus Uzzah was punished with death for touching the ark in David’s day. Haggai asks the priests to rule on the question as to whether ritual holiness, ritual purification, could be transferred and their response is negative. Haggai addresses the people as they have been rebuilding for a couple of months. He is interested, not only in their progress in construction, but even more in their seeing their relationship with their God. The ceremonial cleansings were not primarily about modern sanitation (though they may have had some benefits in that direction). Haggai’s second question focuses on the ceremonial defilement that came from contact with a dead body. Not only did the person who had touched the body become ceremonially unclean, anything or anyone he touched became unclean. Anyone who was ceremonially unclean was prohibited from entering the Temple or participating in public worship. The point of the second question was a strong reminder of just how easy it was to become ceremonially unclean. (You see this reflected in the practice in Jesus’ day of Jews refusing to enter the home of a Gentile.) The message behind the ceremonies was a lesson in the corrupting effects of sin. The attitude of the people, though outwardly religious, had been one of neglect of the Lord and his Temple. This attitude of heart had affected their entire lives with its corruption, verse 14. Remember that you can’t isolate sin to one area of your life and tolerate it there. Sin, wherever it exists, has a corrupting, defiling effect.

Continue reading “Defilement Reversed”

What is the most overwhelming task you have faced? Those who had returned to Jerusalem from exile had heard Haggai’s admonition to resume rebuilding the temple. Haggai’s second prophecy, Haggai 2:1:9, came just seven weeks after his first, and rebuilding was going on. But it seemed discouraging. What Israel needed and what you need is to see the earth-shaking glory of the Lord!

Be strong! Listen to God’s command to be strong and work. The former glory of the temple was discouraging. Some of the older remnant had seen Solomon’s temple, stripped of some of its glory, but still a most impressive building. The prospects of replacing it were grim. As Zechariah indicated (4:10), there were those who despised the day of small things. The task of the church in a rebellious and apostate world seems equally discouraging. The temptation is to get discouraged or simply give up. Haggai has to encourage the people after they have been building for almost two months. The command to “be strong and work” echoes David’s admonition to Solomon (1 Chronicles 28:20), and the earlier word to Joshua (Joshua 1:6–18). The very fact that this admonition is the word of the Lord was an encouragement. God had not abandoned his people. He was speaking to them and nurturing them through his prophet. God does not want you to use adversity as an excuse for disobedience or slackness. Friends may look down on you if you refuse to compromise your faith. Pressures can make obedience difficult. Instead of giving in, continue to serve God.

God assures you of his presence. “I am with you” is a theme that runs throughout Scripture. It comes to its clearest expression in the coming of Immanuel. In your baptism the Lord declares that you belong to him. In the Lord’s Supper he is with you as your host. The relationship is so close that you feed upon your Lord. As the Lord Almighty, the commander of the hosts of heaven, he is with you, strengthening you in your work. The Spirit of the Lord remains with you. That Spirit was evident in the cloud of glory. The Spirit came upon Moses and the elders, Numbers11:16, 17. The same Spirit would enable his people to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of rebuilding, see Zechariah 4:6. The Spirit has been poured out on you in even greater fullness, for you live on this side of Pentecost. You experience that Spirit, not just as the One who guided Israel through the wilderness, but as the One whose sovereign power was involved in raising Christ from the dead.

The Lord of glory shakes all things. Pay attention to the Lord’s shaking! Previously the Lord had shaken the earth during his theophanic appearance at Sinai. Grasp the wonder of what was happening. The infinite, powerful, sovereign, holy God came down to earth and said, I am with you. I am your God, you are my people. But Haggai is talking to people who have lost the wonder of that sense of the presence of God. As you take your eyes off of God and focus on yourself, you become much more measured in your response to him. A caution sets in that blunts your obedience. Don’t lose that wonder. Another shaking is coming. The Lord would shake the nations and bring their precious things into the temple, Ezra 6; Ezra 7:15. Desired can refer to a person, or to precious substances. The Lord builds his temple. The second temple, like the first, is specifically the temple of the covenant people. The best the nations can offer, however, is brought into its construction. The silver and the gold are ultimately his. You might expect the construction of the temple (or its reconstruction) to involve only Israel. But the bringing in the best of what the nations have indicates the breadth of God’s work. God would bless his people, and not only them, but through them the nations as well. The glory of the true temple that Hebrews tells you about is not cedar imported from Lebanon or gold from Arabia, Africa (or wherever Ophir was), but people. Catch the vision of that — and look for ways to bring the good news of the Savior into conversations–even in response to politically correct greetings. A cosmic shaking is coming. Not only will the earth shake, but the seas, and even the heavens. The author of Hebrews in 12:25–29 quotes Haggai as he points to the final renewing work of God. This universe-shaking event began to happen with the coming of the Messiah. Just as the initial steps of temple construction seemed puny, so God’s greatest work includes a young woman in Nazareth, who gives birth in a stable in Bethlehem. It takes the eye of faith of Simeon and Anna to recognize in this Child the fulfillment of God’s promises. The beginning looks forward to completion of his work, the renewal of all things. The things which God shakes are temporary. They will be replaced with a permanent order. This is the final, the eschatological shaking. The Lord shakes the old to replace it with the new and permanent. Because that shaking is coming, pay attention! Hebrews 12:25. Look at who God is, look at what he has done for you, and pay attention to him.

Live as the glory-filled house of the Lord. This house will be more glorious. The humble beginnings, mourned by those who had seen the glory of the former temple, would result in a glorious building. But the glory of the new temple would not lie primarily in gold and silver. In a sense the second never matched Solomon’s original. The silver and the gold were not the core of the glory of the place of worship. What impressed those at the dedication of Solomon’s temple was not the precious metals, but the weight of the glory of the Lord which filled the temple. That glory would become evident in the building under construction, not in a theophanic cloud, but in a person. God himself would become man, and in that temple he would conduct the preaching of his kingdom. Do you see the church the way God sees it? Or do you start by focusing on your short comings, or those of your neighbor? Is your first question, what can I get out of church? Try seeing it the way God sees it in Hebrews 12, which is the way the church really is. You have come, God tells you.

Why is a building so important? It is not the building itself. God’s people worshiped prior to the tabernacle or temple. In a real sense, the idea of a temple as a place where God meets with his people extends from Genesis to Revelation. Eden, apparently high ground from which rivers flowed, is described in Ezekiel 28:13–14 as a mountain. Following the Fall, an altar for sacrifice becomes a crucial part of the temple. Your sins have to be covered for you to enter God’s presence.You have Sinai and the replica in the tabernacle and later the temple. But, not only does Jesus proclaim the good news in the rebuilt temple, he describes his body as the temple. And, after his death and resurrection, the temple becomes, not a building of stone, cedar, gold, and silver, but temple made of living stones. Finally, in the new heavens, John is taken to a high mountain (Revelation 21:5) to see the bride, the wife of the Lamb. It is a holy city, more magnificent than Solomon’s temple. But in it there is no temple, (Revelation 21:22, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple. The holy city, the new heavens and earth, the glorified creation renewed and perfected, is the place where God meets with his people.

“The substantial essence of the new temple is still the glory of God; however, that glory is no longer confined within a material building but instead is revealed openly to the world in Christ and his subsequent dwelling through the Spirit in the worldwide church as the temple. The progress of God’s revelation has made the fulfillment of apparent prophecies of an architectural temple even greater than originally conceived by finite minds. That is what Hag. 2:9 appears to express: ‘the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former.’ Such an escalation from an architecturally conceived temple to a nonarchitectural one is also pointed to by some OT precedents that already understood that a temple could exist without there being an architectural reality. Two examples are the garden of Eden, called a ‘sanctuary’ (Ezek. 28:13–18), and Mount Sinai, understood to be a mountain temple, after which the tabernacle was modeled.”

G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, p. 643

The temple functioned as a place of peace. The horns of the altar functioned as a place of refuge. The sacrifices offered daily in the temple served to maintain peace between a holy God and a sinful people. The new temple would witness a greater sacrifice. At the heart of the work of establishing his kingdom would be the death of the King. The blood of Jesus has spoken something far better than the blood of Abel did. God has incorporated you into his glorious temple. The Lord’s Supper is a meal which is an assurance of peace. The holy God invites you to table fellowship. Take hold of what God has accomplished for you, of the peace which he as brought. And then reflect that as you talk to your family, your co-workers. The redemptive work of the Messiah has cosmic implications. The completion of his work involves renovating and replacing this temporary world with the glory of the new creation. You observe the Lord’s Supper “until he comes.” Your participation today is a confession that you really belong to the unshakeable kingdom which your Savior is establishing.

Prepare for the final, great shaking of all things. And you prepare by placing your trust in the One whose coming was the beginning of shaking, the One to whose voice you continue to listen.

You may postpone something for good reason. But postponement can also be due to procrastination. In Haggai 1 the prophet summons God’s people to reexamine their priorities and to stop procrastinating.

Don’t procrastinate! Listen to God’s prophet. Haggai prophesied during the restoration from exile. Haggai’s name means “festival.” He may have been born during one of the great feast times. He functioned along with Zechariah, during the time that Israel had returned after captivity. The first day of the sixth month of the second year of King Darius was August 29, 520 BC. Although the first returning exiles had started rebuilding the temple, the work had been interrupted. Haggai and Zechariah were instrumental in its resumption, Ezra 5:1, 2; 6:14. If Haggai 2:3 implies that the prophet had seen Solomon’s temple, he must have been in his 70’s at this time. Israel in Haggai’s day resembles the church today. God’s people were few and faced overwhelming opposition.

Haggai 1:1, 2 are directed to the leaders, Zerubbabel, the governor, grandson of King Johiachin, and Joshua, the high priest. This message summarizes the attitude of the people. It uses language that assumes the people are not present. Haggai 1:3, 4 addresses the people themselves. The message concerns the attitude which had been summarized in verse 2. Haggai served as a spokesman for the Lord. He conveyed God’s message to his people (whether addressing the rulers or the people at large). The Spirit who inspired Haggai intended his words for the church of all ages, and thus this little collection of his prophecies was included in Scripture. It is the Word of the Lord addressed to you as much as it was to Israelites in 520 BC. The Lord is identified here as the Lord of Hosts, often translated, the Lord Almighty. It is a reference to the sovereign power of God who commands.

Get your priorities straight. There seemed to be good reasons for delay in rebuilding the temple. The people had made a good start on rebuilding the temple, which had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezer. When Cyrus issued his decree returning the people to the land in 538 BC, one of his purposes was that they might rebuild the temple, Ezra 1. The people made a good start, Ezra 3:7–13, but the work had ground to a halt. Surrounding enemies raised political opposition, Ezra 4:1–5, 24. For 15 years the temple stood, apparently only as a restored foundation. The people had intentions of returning to the task, but believed the time was not appropriate, Haggai 1:2. Royal opposition had arisen, and they may have shared the idea of their neighbors that temple-building was a kingly activity. Their own numbers were few. They had their own houses to work on. (Verse 4 may refer to richly paneled ceilings — a sign of wealth, or may simply be talking about putting roofs on their homes.) In any case, they had decided that they could be active about building and restoring their own homes, but the house of the Lord was something that could wait. Some may have been waiting for the Messiah to come and rebuild the temple. theirs was not an age of glory. It can be easy to look upon serving the Lord as something you will do when you are better prepared, have had more training, have read one more book, etc. The prophet summons you to prompt obedience. Now is the time to focus on the presence of the Lord. Haggai’s message could be summarized, if you’re not willing to make the Lord a priority now, you never will. This prophecy is not primarily a plea for offerings for building funds. To treat it that way is to blunt it’s edge. Rather, the prophet summons you to recognize that serving God has to dominate all of your life. You cannot postpone that.

Think! Focus on your covenant God. Give careful thought to your ways. The Lord himself is speaking to you. Israel never had quite enough. Recognize that something is drastically wrong with this world. See God’s hand in your afflictions. God’s action lies behind the frustration. Pay attention to what the Lord requires. Recognize that not all suffering is the direct result of particular sin, John 9:1–3, but all suffering grows out of sin and its curse, and ought to point us to the hope of restoration, Romans 8:20, 21. Israel’s problems recall the covenant curse. The blessings the Lord has promised for covenantal obedience contrast with the current situation of Israel, Deuteronomy 7:13–15. The afflictions through which the people were going should have recalled the stern warnings of Deuteronomy 28:15–24. More recently the covenant curse had been reiterated by the prophets, Jeremiah 7:20.

Honor God in his house. Drought has its origin in the temple ruin. The Lord had specifically commanded Israel to worship at the place he would choose, Deuteronomy 12:17–19. The feasting at the temple would be a sign of God’s covenantal blessing on his people. Adverse circumstances are not an excuse for disobedience, but rather a reason to obey. Focus on the Lord’s house. Haggai summoned Israel to renew the work of building the temple. God calls you to keep him and his worship central. Rejoice in God’s glory. God actually takes pleasure in his house. Yes, the curses of the covenant had come upon Israel. But the very temple, which they were delaying to rebuild, contained the way of dealing with that curse. The altar of the temple was where, symbolically, the curse on sin was transferred to the animal, whose life was then offered on the altar. God is honored in your worshiping him. God makes his glory known. The Tabernacle first, and then the Temple, were places where God made his presence visible. This is where he causes his name to dwell. It is a theophany. Those building have now, according to 1 Peter 2, been replaced with something made of living stones. You are God’s temple.

“When Solomon dedicated this temple, it was filled with ‘the glory of the Lord,’ which was none other than God making manifest that this was the place where he had chosen to dwell (1 Kings 8:10–12). Later, Solomon interpreted this sacred space of God’s glorious dwelling to be the ‘house’ that is ‘called by your Name’ and was ‘build for our Name’ (1 Kings 8:41–45). Thus, God’s glorious presence and name in the temple are virtually the same, which is a natural equation, since it is common in the OT that the name off a person represented that person’s essential character, and thus notion is particularly applicable to God’s name.

“God says that the exile and promised restoration were for ‘the sake of My name,’ and ‘For My own sake… my glory I will not give to another’ (Isa. 48:9–11). Part of the restoration was the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple, which, again, was to glorify God: ‘Rebuild the temple that I may be… glorified” Hag. 1:8).”

G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, pp. 959–60

Obey! Obey the voice of your God. The Lord stirs your heart. What had changed? Circumstances looked no more favorable for the task of reconstructing the temple than they had a month earlier. The Lord stirred up the spirit of the leaders and of the whole remnant. Their obedience grew out of the Lord’s sovereign work in their hearts. Note the parallel to Ezra 1:5. By nature you are dead in sin. Change comes, not from within you, but from the resurrecting power of God that changes your heart and spirit, Ephesians 2:1–10. The stirring that you need comes only from the Spirit, whom Christ, as the triumphant remnant, poured out upon the church. Notice that God requires what he alone can provide. And he does provide it! Philippians 2:12,13.

“God does not form new souls in us when he draws us to his service, but changes what is wrong in us; for we should never be attentive to his word, were he not to open our ears, and there would be no inclination to obey, were he not to turn our hearts; in a word, both will and effort would immediately fail in us, were he not to add his gift of perseverance.”

John Calvin, Commentary on Haggai

Work in God’s presence. The term “remnant” includes all who survived to be the true people of God. These are the people who do not ignore the voice of the Lord, but rather obey it. They acknowledged their own sinfulness. These are the people who fear the Lord. This is a holy awe, even terror, a recognition that you are a sinner in the presence of a holy God, Deuteronomy 5:5. The people recognized that the drought and other problems were due to God’s judgment. They had withheld the honor due God. As you look at the remnant, recognize that Christ is the true remnant. The nation had become a remnant. The process of narrowing would continue, for even the remnant would prove less than faithful. Ultimately Israel would reject the Stone, would cast out the Son. In the last analysis, it is only the Messiah who is truly faithful, only he who renders perfect obedience. But he, as the true remnant, acted as your representative. He obeyed in your behalf. In him the remnant again broadens to include all who live in covenant fellowship with their God. The people obeyed because God was with them, Haggai 1:13. This is Emmanuel, God with us!

Consider your ways, particularly the frustrations and problems in your life. Check for specific areas in which you may need to repent. But see all of the suffering and futility of life as a call to renewed covenant fellowship with your God.