..........Myspace Codes An Extraordinary Life: Haggai 2:10-23 ~ A Lesson on Holiness

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Haggai 2:10-23 ~ A Lesson on Holiness

This last talk on Haggai focuses on the problem of an unclean people as exemplified in verses 11-14. It demonstrates how very hard it is to be holy yet so easy to be unclean and hence, be unacceptable. To be holy, one needs to obey God's Word for behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams (1 Samuel 15:22).

Let us rewind a little. Revisiting the previous passages, the context of this passage is in relation to the reconstruction of the temple. What the Israelites have yet to realize was that the temple would be (is now) replaced by 3 groups of people:
  1. Jesus, who is the dwelling place where God dwells among His people and reveals His glory (John 1:14; Titus 2:13)
  2. The individual Christian, whose body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within that person (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)
  3. The community of Christians, who are members of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19-22)
Similarly, God exhorted His people to work on the temple even though the glory was not yet seen. God's people need to ask what it was that lifted the curse up from Israel, which subsequently led to the blessings referred to in verses 18-19. What YHWH wants is the faith (and repentance) of His people, which is expressed in the works prompted by it.

While the illustration in Haggai 2 shows that touching something holy does not purify someone but touching something unclean will defile someone, we see quite the opposite in Jesus. He, the Holy one, was not defiled when He touched unclean things (e.g. the bleeding woman, the leper, the dead boy) but instead, purified what (or in this case, who) He touched. This fulfillment of how the Lord purifies His people is further explained in Hebrews 9:13-14: "For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God."

Friends, it is time for us to "rebuild" the temple, stone upon stone, as we continue to repent of our sin and place our faith in Jesus as we patiently await His promised return with future glory.

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