We have been told in Haggai 1:14 that they are no longer negligent, and by all accounts, they are rather the opposite now. They are beavering away to rebuild. And the most sensible, the most natural reading, the reading most in harmony with the rest of Scripture, is that these people have not done something conspicuously wrong just at this stage. On the contrary, they gave every appearance of getting things conspicuously right. They were engaged in a holy work. It was a costly involvement. They were associated with a holy building. And as they did so, they began to think that the merit of the building and the work would somehow rub off on them, that it would somehow cover like a blanket the faults in their own lives, that their religious association would render them clean in God’s sight.
It is a perennial human tendency. There is a sort of spiritual name-dropping that we hope will wash with God. I remember inviting a friend of mine to one of the men’s breakfasts we hold here from time to time.
You do realize my father was a vicar?he said defensively,you don’t need to bother me with Christianity.And the unspoken message was,I’m sure his faith will have rubbed off on me; I’m alright in God’s sight, you know.No, you're not, says this passage. By implication, you can have a Christian father or mother or husband or wife, and it is a great privilege, as Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians 7:1–40, because it means that you hear the gospel and you see the gospel lived out, and there is someone close to you who prays for you. But you will not be accepted in God’s sight, on account of their faith. We are in spiritual cloud-cuckoo-land if we think that we will.Maybe there is someone here and you give up your time for Christian service, or perhaps you have given up a well-paid job to work for a Christian agency, or in paid Christian ministry. Maybe you have begun to give money to Christian causes. Does the holiness of that work make you clean in God’s sight? Haggai 2:14 is the conclusion for us as for them: All that I am, and all that I do, and all that I offer, is unclean. We are in cloud-cuckoo-land if we suppose otherwise.1
Christopher Ash
14 Alors Aggée, reprenant la parole, dit:Tel est ce peuple, telle est cette nation devant moi, dit l'Eternel, Telles sont toutes les œuvres de leurs mains: Ce qu'ils m'offrent là est souillé.