Page 23 - October 2024 - Truth & Tidings

Introduction garment would transmit its ritual holiness
The final two messages of Haggai came to other food that the garment touched.
on the 24th day of the 9th month in the The priests were spiritual leaders expected
to teach the Word of God (Lev 10:8-11).
2nd year of Darius (520 B.C.). Though
they were on the same day, the Lord Therefore, they would need to study it
addressed two distinct audiences. The carefully. A careless, misinterpreting
priest would lead the people into con-
first message concerned His desire to tamination, limiting God’s blessing. The
bless the people upon the condition of
cleanliness. The second message promised priests rightly responded in the negative;
unconditional blessing through Christ, the holiness would not extend to the other
pictured in Zerubbabel. The first utterance victuals though it did transmit to the worn
considers an unclean people who lacked garment. Teachers of God’s Word must
as a result, while the second displays the handle it carefully and have foundational
power of God and the absolute surety of knowledge (1Ti 1:6-7). They must exercise
His kingdom plan. care in what they say (Jas 3:1-2), realizing
they speak with authority directly from
Message Four: Blessing for a God (1Pe 4:11), which will ensure bless-
Defiled People (vv10-19) ing for God’s people in being “complete,
equipped for every good work” (2Ti 3:17
Israel didn’t see blessing despite ESV).
completing three months of building Haggai’s next question about contact
on the foundation of the temple (1:15). with death was a serious ceremonial issue
Zechariah demanded repentance from for the Israelites. A Jew contaminated by
the people for their evil, saying, “Turn death required double sprinkling from
ye unto me … and I will turn unto you” a mixture of spring water and the ashes
(Zec 1:3). He told them they were in
1
danger of falling back into the sin that of a spotless red heifer during a seven-
day isolation period before bathing and
took Israel into captivity. Haggai went to clothes-washing (Num 19). Haggai asked
the priests to probe their knowledge about
defilement and holiness. and received an affirmative answer about
whether the unclean person could infect
The Transmissibility of Holiness and others with uncleanness. The application
Contamination of Uncleanness (vv10- in verse 14 is plain: Uncleanness had
14) infected Israel. Harding succinctly applies
Haggai inquired about the law of the sin that “sin has greater infectious power than
offering. He asked specifically about the purity.” 2
interpretation of Leviticus 6:27, whether
the meat in the pocket of the priest’s 2 P. Harding and J.J. Stubbs, What the Bible
Teaches: Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai,
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV Zechariah, Malachi (Kilmarnock: John Ritchie
unless otherwise noted. Ltd., 2007).
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