Introduction
It is often said and believed that the Old Testament was the Testament of Law, and grace came with the New. In some sense, there is truth to that, for even the apostle Paul states in Galatians 3:23, "Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed." Now the Scripture is not saying that a person was saved by Law in the Old Testament, and now by faith or by grace in the New, not at all. The apostle Paul himself is very clear that all were and are saved by grace through faith. Abraham was, David was. God has never worked any other way. And God has always dealt with mankind by grace. Grace is part of His nature, and He does not change. He is a God of grace today. He was a God of grace in the Old Testament, and He will be a God of grace in eternity to come. A study in the book of Haggai shows that this was a principle that God wanted His people to learn then back in ancient Israel. This was 500 years or so before the birth of our Lord. The message from Haggai to Zerubbabel, Joshua and the people explains the need for God's grace and then how He is gracious to them. Today, the lesson God wants us to learn and understand is that God's grace extends not just to our Salvation but to every part of our daily lives as well. But before we look at the text, let's review the setting.
The Historical Background
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 605 | First Deportation by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon occurs (Daniel and others). |
| 598 | The second deportation. |
| 586 | Jerusalem is destroyed and the Temple burned by Nebuchadnezzar. |
| 539 | Babylon is defeated by Cyrus. |
| 538/7 | Cyrus issues a decree for Jews to return and rebuild. |
| 535 | Jews return under Zerubbabel, Temple reconstruction began. |
| 530 | Temple reconstruction halted. |
| 520 | Haggai and Zechariah prophesy, Darius issues decree to resume rebuilding Temple. |
| 515 | Temple rebuilding is finished. |
This brings us to the time of Haggai. Haggai is a collection of four messages delivered to Zerubbabel and Joshua, the civil and religious leaders of the Jewish people and to those people who had taken advantage of the decree of Cyrus and had returned to Jerusalem from Babylon to rebuild the temple.
In 522 B. C., God, through Haggai (Haggai 1:1-11), tells the people to consider their ways and the results. They said it was not the best time to work on rebuilding the temple; that this needed to wait until the conditions were more favorable. But God points out they had made the time to build their own houses and even furnish them with luxuries. Yes, times were hard, but why? God was getting their attention by bringing famine and drought.
Zerubbabel, Joshua and the people respond and begin again to rebuild, and Haggai's second message is delivered three weeks later in which God assures them that His presence is with them. He also stirs up their spirit or fervor to build.
Haggai's third message comes about a week later and is recorded in Haggai 2:1-9. There was still a hindrance to the work, a negative attitude. This was brought about primarily by the older generation, the elders of the families who had come back to the land, for they had seen Solomon's temple as children before its destruction before they were carried off as captives into Babylon. What they saw now being built could not hope to compare to that first temple in size or grandeur. And this comparison was discouraging and disheartening. God addressed this to those who had seen the first temple and tells them to be courageous and work. While what they were doing at this point might seem little in comparison, the time was coming when God would shake things up, and ultimately the splendor of what would come would outshine Solomon's temple.
This then brings us to Haggai's final message Haggai 2:12-23. It comes about two months later, and it seems a bit out of place, at least initially.
The Principle: Contamination is Contagious; Holiness is Not!
Haggai 2:10-14 states this:
10. On the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Haggai the prophet, saying,
11. “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Ask now the priests for a ruling:
12. If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and touches bread with this fold, or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy?’” And the priests answered, “No.”
13. Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean?” And the priests answered, “It will become unclean.”
14. Then Haggai said, “‘So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean.
Now think for a moment about this; the people had started to rebuild again. They had been at the work for three months, having believed Haggai's message from God. And now Haggai receives another message to deliver to the people, and this one seems rather strange.
He is to get a ruling from the priests. In that day and throughout most of Jewish history, if you had a question about the law, what was permissible to do or eat or such, you went to a priest, and they gave you a legal ruling as to what the Law or Torah said. God told Haggai to go to the priests. Perhaps he went to Joshua, who was the high priest at this time, or maybe to one of the other priests and asked a question.
The question was this if you had a piece of holy meat that is part of a sacrifice that was brought and offered to the LORD, and you were caring it in a fold of your garment. Now remember, if you were a priest in that day, and you offered a sacrifice for another person, you were often allowed to keep part of that sacrifice to eat. That was part of your support. As a priest, you wore these long robes, and you were carrying this meat, say a lambchop, back to where you were staying to eat it; you might use your robe like a pot holder because it was hot. Now the question is this. What if your garment, which was holding this sanctified or holy meat, touched some bread, or some other cooked food, or perhaps your cup of wine or the olive oil that you had with your meal, would this other food now become sanctified or holy by way of this touch? Would this make the rest of the meal holy?
And what did the priests respond? What was their answer? It was a single-word answer. Literally, לוֹ, which is Hebrew for "No!" Touching something that is ceremonially sanctified does not cause what is touching it to become sanctified. Holiness is not contagious or transferred by contact. It does not transfer from something that is holy to something that is not.
Haggai then asks the priest for another ruling. "What is the teaching about this?" he asks. Suppose a person who is ceremonially unclean or impure from contact with a corpse were to touch any of these items from a meal, the bread, wine, olive oil, or some cooked dish. Would they then become unclean or impure? And the answer that the priests give again is short and simple. They did not have to think about it; the Law was clear. One word in Hebrew, יִטְמָֽא or in English. "It will be unclean!" If something that is unclean or ceremonially impure touches something that is not, it will cause what it touches to become unclean or impure. Uncleanness or impurity is contagious; Unlike holiness, purity or uncleanness does transfer from something that is unclean to something that is not. A good analogy is that you can get Covid-19 from contact with an infected person, but you cannot get the cure from contact with a person is does not have it.
Alright then, what is the point of this exercise that God asked Haggai to do? Well, he explains the point. In the next verse in verse 14. He says,
14. Then Haggai said, “‘So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean.
Wait just a minute now! In the overall context, this seems a bit harsh. After all, the leaders, Zerubbabel and Joshua, have just again started the rebuilding. They have been working on it for three months. So now the LORD comes along and tells them, "You are an unclean people. Your nation is impure. Everything you touch with your hands is unclean, and all your offerings, they are unclean!" Hey now! You would think they might need to be commended or at least encouraged to continue doing what they are doing, right?
Yes! of course, that is right!
I teach math on occasion. Suppose I had a student that starts the semester and just doesn't do the homework. In math, if you do not work the problems, you will probably not do well at all. So I have a little chat with this student, and it works. He begins to turn in the work and becomes eager to do it. Great! Right? Well, a week later, I pull this student aside and tell him he is mentally slow, nothing he does is acceptable, and he will never pass! Great teaching, do you think? Of course not!
That is terrible teaching! But doesn't this, from the context, seem to be what God is doing to Zerubbabel, Joshua and the people? They have started rebuilding, and it is going to be tough. They need encouragement right now. Well, the LORD will do just that. But first, they need to learn something about God's grace. To do that, they need to understand something about themselves. They need to realize that they do not deserve any good thing the LORD does for them because, if you do not understand that, you can never understand God's grace. If you think you deserve something at any point from God, you will never see it as grace.
To understand what God is trying to teach them, consider their circumstances. They had immigrated back to their homeland. To do so, they left established lives in Babylon. They had, no doubt, left friends, probably some family and had made the long trek back. It was a financial hardship. And once they arrived back in Judah, things were not easy. They had displaced people who had, in the intervening years, made this place home. Were these people happy at the exiles' return? Not at all. Would you have been happy if the land you had been living on for decades and perhaps had grown up on were now claimed by someone else? I mean, even if they understood that these exiles might have a distant claim on it, they would not have welcomed them back. The exiles had faced difficult times, but they were doing what God wanted them to do.
And they were rebuilding the temple, the one place God met with His people. Sure, they had stopped work when the authorities that be, the Persian rulers, had commanded it, but now they had begun once more but were still under opposition. They were obeying what they knew was God's will. They knew God had brought economic and agricultural problems on them for not rebuilding when they should have. Haggai had told them this. But now they were being obedient. What might have been your attitude if this had been you?
I know what I would have been thinking. I would be thinking, "Now God is going to bless us! Why? Because we are doing His will. Yes, it is hard, but we are doing the right things. We are building the temple. The temple had been dedicated, the work consecrated, the foundation put in place. Sacrifices were being offered. Surely that means something for me. Now God is pleased with us. We are doing His will. We are holy people; those people who oppose us out there, they are heathens and unrighteous. God will bless us now because we are doing the right things." That's what I probably would have been thinking!
Is that grace? Is that attitude one that grasps the concept of God's grace? Not at all! God will bless them but not because they deserve it. So, he uses an illustration from the ceremonial cleanliness laws. Does holiness transfer by contact? No. Something that is unclean is not made holy by contact with something that is holy. Just because the people were building the temple (a holy place), it did not make them holy. And contrary to this, something that is holy is made unclean by contact with something unclean. Therefore, God tells them that they are unclean, and all they touch becomes unclean. The temple does not consecrate them or make them holy; rather, they make it unclean.
The Principle: God's Blessing is not based on Merit
They were impure, unclean in God's eyes. And as a result of this, they did not deserve any blessing or benefit that God might provide for them. Now notice what God says next, verses 15-23.
15. But now, do consider from this day onward: before one stone was placed on another in the temple of the Lord,
16. from that time when one came to a grain heap of twenty measures, there would be only ten; and when one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there would be only twenty
17. I smote you and every work of your hands with blasting wind, mildew and hail; yet you did not come back to Me,’ declares the Lord
18. ‘Do consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month; from the day when the temple of the Lord was founded, consider
19. Is the seed still in the barn? Even including the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree, it has not borne fruit. Yet from this day on I will bless you.’”
20. Then the word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month, saying
21. “Speak to Zerubbabel governor of Judah, saying, ‘I am going to shake the heavens and the earth
22. I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the power of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots and their riders, and the horses and their riders will go down, everyone by the sword of another.
23. ‘On that day,’ declares the Lord of hosts, ‘I will take you, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, My servant,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you,’” declares the Lord of hosts.
What God was telling them is this. You are an unclean, sinful people. Yes, you have returned here, and yes, you are obeying and rebuilding My temple, but that does not make you holy! On the contrary, because you are unclean, everything you touch is unclean, and even the offerings you bring, you make them unclean.
But consider this, Set your heart upon this! In spite of this, I am going to bless you from this day onward. Do you deserve it? No. Do your actions make you clean in my sight? No! Indeed, you make what you do unclean, But nevertheless, I am going to bless you!
Do you see it? That is God's grace. In spite of themselves, God was going to bless and use them, a sinful and unclean people.
You and I need this lesson as well. For like God's people of 2500 years ago, we too tend to forget it is God's grace. To be sure, we usually acknowledge our sinfulness and God's grace when we think about our salvation. We realize that we could not earn our way into God's favor; we could not do enough good things to merit a place in heaven, so we accept His gift of life provided by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf. We freely admit that we were and are saved by faith through grace.
But that being done, we often forget the principle of grace and go about our way, trying to earn favor with God through our actions by our own efforts. Zerubbabel, Joshua and the people had been told God had brought the hard times upon them because they were not doing what they came to do, to rebuild the temple. He got their attention, and they responded. He then stirred up their spirit, and they went to work. He encouraged them to build even though what they were working on was little in comparison to what had been. Now, what were they probably thinking? God is now going to bless us because we are doing His work! And that thought, that way of thinking, is spiritually fatal, for it blinded them, and it blinds us as well to God's grace.
Yes, they were now being obedient. But their obedience did not make them holy. They were still a sinful unclean people. But God, in His grace, would bless. So it is with us!
God has saved us by grace through faith; that is, He has brought us into the land, spiritually speaking, and Has commanded us to build. We are to live our lives for Him and serve Him. Often, we forget that, and like God's people of old, we leave off the building for Him because it is inconvenient. Often, He gets our attention through circumstances in our lives. And so we start again to build. We become discouraged, and He encourages us. But then we began to think, "Well, now that I am doing His will, being obedient to Him, He will bless me. I deserve it." And in doing that, we lose sight of the wonderful unfathomable grace of God.
Yes, having placed our faith in Jesus Christ, we are justified. Does that make us righteous, holy people? Well, yes and no. In a legal sense, yes, it does. We are legally holy. In a practical, everyday sense, no, we are not. This distinction is much like what happens in our own legal system when someone commits a crime. They are clearly guilty and go to trial, but because of the skill of the lawyer, blindness of the jury, a mistake by the prosecution in collecting evidence, and failure to follow legal procedures, the jury or judges declare them innocent. Are they innocent? Yes, legally, they will suffer no punishment from our legal system as a result. But are they still the sinful and same person who committed the crime? Indeed!
So also, we have been declared justified by God. Is that because we are innocent or good in God's sight? No, not at all. It is only because of what Jesus Christ did for us. We have been given the Spirit of God within, but we still have our old sinful, rebellious nature and will have it until the day we die and the resurrection or rapture. And just as prior to our salvation, we could not earn God's favor or grace by our own actions and deeds, so now, after our salvation, we cannot earn God's grace in our lives. As sinful, unclean people, we do not become holy by building the temple or working for the kingdom; contrarywise, we contaminate all we do.
That seems to be a harsh statement, but we need to realize and be aware of its truth. Every good thing I do is contaminated by my sinful nature. I work on teaching God's Word. Is that a righteous work? Well, it is a good thing but is it one hundred percent holy? Of course not. Do I want to do the best job I can? Yes. Why? What are my motives? Are they always one hundred percent pure and directed only for the glory of God and love for others, or are they aided and motivated by that deep-down personal desire to be accepted, praised by others, or by not wanting to look bad?
Who among us, as human beings, as long as we are still possessed of our old sinful nature, are free from these motives as much as we try to get away from them? None of us are. And because we are human, not one of our efforts is free of this. It contaminates all we do, even when we wish it did not. Anything short of God's absolute and perfect holiness is unclean.
But thanks be to God's amazing and unfathomable grace! He blesses us even when we are imperfect, sinful and unclean! He promises to reward our feeble efforts, as imperfect and impure they may be. Not, we must remember, because we earn it or deserve it, but because He is a gracious God!
How does our enemy, Satan, attack us? He is subtle, indeed! Often, we are led to believe this lie, "Well, God will not bless me because I have not been faithful to Him." While it is true He may use difficult circumstances and hard times to get our attention, it is not true that blessing is contingent upon what we do, for no matter what we do, as long as we have our old nature, it is contaminated and impure. If we turn to Him in faith, He blesses us in spite of our sinful nature.
How often have I (I cannot count the times!) thought, "God certainly won't bless me today after what I have thought about or done!" or "This is going to be a bad day because I haven't had my devotions or prayed!" or on an opposite note thought, "Now God will bless me, because I witnessed to two people." or "I gave this person a really good gift, maybe God will give me a good week; things should go well!"
We should strive to do the best we can, to be as obedient as we are able, but we must remember it does not earn God's blessing. He blesses us in spite of our weakness and fallible nature. We serve Him not to earn His grace but because He has been gracious to us.
Paul, in writing to the believers at Colossi, was trying to tell them this same truth, that having been saved by grace through faith that, they now were to continue to live that way and not by keeping the law or doing any other actions. He says in Colossians 2:6, "Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,"
And how did we receive Christ Jesus? By grace through faith!
So go your way today, and know that God is with you. If there are issues, sin which has kept you from walking with Him in faith, confess it. Go your way and realize God will bless you, not because of what you have done or haven't done, but solely because of His amazing, unfathomable grace toward us.