Haggai 2

The restoration of a small group from the people of Israel and Judah out of the land of captivity in the days of Zerubbabel was a wonderful gift, but could it really be the fullness of the kingdom that Isaiah spoke of at the end of his book of prophecy? It is not even yet the New Covenant of which Jeremiah spoke. It certainly cannot be the marvelous temple with a stream of living water flowing from it that we learn about at the end of Ezekiel. It is always challenging for those who are trying to follow the Lord's will in their day to see the small blessings around them and to keep these in perspective. It was a marvelous new time of life for God's people to have this opportunity to rebuild the temple building in Jerusalem, but surely this was not yet the new heavens and the new earth that the Lord had spoken of. It would not even match the glory of Solomon's day. When would the age of the lion lying down with the Lamb come?

The temple was the place of God's presence with His people since the days of Solomon. Prior to that, the Israelites had a tent called the tabernacle that the Lord had instructed them to build and to move according to His command. Toward the close of Christ's earthly days as He was preparing to go to the cross, He spoke to His disciples about the coming destruction of the building temple in Jerusalem and the building of a temple of people in the gospel age. Through the preaching of Christ, His cross-death, His resurrection from the dead, and His promise of a general resurrection age at His return, this temple is being gathered now. God is dwelling in His temple still today, but it is no longer a building temple where He dwells. Christ Himself came as the temple of the Holy Spirit. All who are united with Him have a communion in this Temple. The Lord is with us. But there is something still more glorious that is coming. We are yet mortal. When Christ returns there will be a great resurrection to immortality. It is then that we will experience the fullness of the glory that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others wrote about. This is our hope. We have this hope in Christ. He is the glorious Temple of God. When Haggai writes about the treasures of the nations and the glory of the temple, these promises find their final fulfillment at the return of Christ and the resurrection age. Any sense of fulfillment that we have now in the gospel age, while very real, is still quite small compared with what will be. Then God will grant to us perfect peace, not just a personal internal sense of composure, but also an external environment completely without the warfare that characterizes this age.

The temple has always been about the presence of God with His people. In every era we are to work on the building up of the temple of the Lord with the fullness of His presence in and among us. The Lord has made big promises to us. We are to seek Him that He might fulfill them in some way through our lives. He is with us now, and we should love to see Him do whatever He wishes to do in our day, however large or small, as long as He is still with us, and His Spirit is in our midst. We need not fear the attacks of others. There is no point in being depressed about this era of the church as opposed to some earlier day of blessing. It should be enough for us that the Lord God Almighty is with us, and that He bids us to build up His temple.

In the final age that is coming, nothing in the living temple of the Lord will be unclean. In the Old Covenant era, the people were to live with a constant consideration of the difference between that which was ceremonially unclean and that which was clean. When someone was clean, they became unclean through contact with someone or something that was unclean. When Christ the Messiah came, He touched the unclean and made them clean. This is the power of the presence of God. What matters to the church now is the new creation that begins in us in this age, and that finds perfect fulfillment in the life to come when God says, "Behold, I make all things new." In our sin, we are defiled, just as the people of the restoration had sin and were defiled. But Christ, our sinless Substitute, makes all things new. We have been touched by Him, washed by the blood of the Lamb, and we are being prepared for the life of the fullness of His presence as we seek Him eagerly now and work according to His kingdom designs.

The Lord is able to bless us now in this work, and we should not think that He will bless us now if we ignore Him and His people or if we are not diligent to seek His presence. Before the people of the restoration heard the call of God through Haggai things were not going well for them. After they heard the call for the building of His temple, things did go well for them. This is presented to us as a plain fact. There is no reason for us to resist the application of this to our day. We are not seeking worldly prosperity, but we do need godliness with contentment. We certainly are hoping for fruitfulness in our labor in the Lord, and there is an abiding principle in our relationship with God that we will reap what we sow. There is no virtue that comes to us by ignoring our need for God's presence or resisting His commandment to build His temple.

The central figure in the building of the eternal resurrection temple is Jesus Christ Himself, the descendant of the Davidic leader Zerubbabel who received these messages in the day of the restoration. Just as the building that they would build in that day would be nothing compared with the resurrection temple that Jesus brings, the man Zerubbabel was a divinely appointed place-holder for the glorious Messiah. If this son of Shealtiel was made to be a signet ring chosen by God in His day, what will be the chorus of men and angels in the Day of resurrection when we see the greatest Son of David, Jesus Christ, in all His resurrection glory? He is the one who will destroy kings and kingdoms at His coming. It is this Jesus who calls now to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. We cannot do that without Him.