“Is it right for you to live in a perfect house at this time because this temple has been devastated?” (Haggai 1:4)
Haggai prophesied with the theme the reconstruction of God’s temple. The people of Judah, who had returned from Babylon, began rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, but the opposition from the hostile guys was a quite severe. Therefore they were discouraged and stopped trying in a while to rebuild the temple. In that situation, the prophet Haggai encouraged the people to rebuild the temple. In some churches of today that plan to build a chapel, they often encourage church members to build with quoting from the text of Haggai the Book. It makes sense one side, but there are also many cases of leading to wrong understanding misinterpreted concerning the church construction.
The meaning of the holy temple in physical concept and that in spiritual sense should be distinguished one another. And there is a considerable difference in concept generally between the holy temple of Jerusalem in the time of Old Testament and the temple of the New Testament. Therefore, by mentioning the Temple in Jerusalem, to emphasize the physical construction of the church involves any unreasonable problems in it. Just as excessive medicine can be poisonous in body, a wrong application of the words of the Bible may make faith wrong. It would be of course a pleasure work to build a holy temple or a church building. But the act of church construction does not mean the same as what the prophet Haggai said in the Bible.
The temple of Jerusalem was precious place to the people Israelite, for Jerusalem was the name which was promised to stand for the Lord Jehovah’s name there. But the temple of Jerusalem could not sustain always a complete and eternal value. When the holy name was defiled by Israelite’s failure to live up to God’s will, the temple of Jerusalem was destructed without mercy. In addition, even if Israelite had been specially chosen among many, they had to receive God’s punishment relentlessly because of the crimes they committed. Nevertheless why did the prophet Haggai encourage the reconstruction of the temple in Jerusalem to them? It was an aim to awaken the people who had leaned to the worldly life and help them return the right life. A desirable thing for them was to obey the Lord of all things and enjoy the blessings of eternal life.
They were living in their own fine houses, leaving the holy temple building in ruins. A ‘perfect house’ in the 6th century BC, in the text, means a good house built properly. They had little concern of the holy temple Jerusalem either being or disappeared. The other things were no matter for them as long as lived comfortably in their own houses with good facilities. By quoting that situation of that time, if someone reproaches some church members’ reality who are living in superior environment of expensive apartments or detached houses, there is a reason in it on the one hand but it has also a problem on the other hand. In some cases, such the thinking may be appealed to some people. But it will be a thing to be understandable of course if the church members are poor and cannot properly build up a chapel or their houses. However, it is quite wrong if the church members live in abundance and do not take concern of their church construction.
We need to have more important understanding than that of church building. The devastation of holy temple shows predictive that the spirituality of each Christian as a holy temple collapses. And yet, their bodies live care freely in the well made houses. Their souls are impoverished, but the fleshly life is content with comfortable life. There’s none of awakening for faith at all to them. Therefore, they do not even try to have the will to reconstruct fallen souls in Jesus. Isn’t very this the tragedy of the church these days? If they live in such an insensitive soul like that, they can’t be expected that their life will go well in the future. We should listen to the said in the verse Haggai 1:5, “Give careful thought to your ways.” If we don’t follow listening to the Lord, we’ll have less harvest even sowing, have no satisfaction even eating, and thirsty even if drink. It will not warm even if we wear it, and even if we earn money, the earned will disappear as if we’re putting it in a pocket with a hole.
Let’s all rebuild the ruined temple of God. Let’s make solid a holy temple so that the Spirit of Christ stays in there always. The man who accompanies with the Spirit of Christ is called the holy temple of God. And the congregation following Christ is God’s holy church. The temple and the church should be full only of the holy words by Christ’s Spirit. Then we can live as beautiful and brilliant figures, and the world will not be corrupt and it will be bright.
(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on Feb 28th 2021)
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