Haggai 2:12-13

‘If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and touches bread with this fold, or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy?’ ” And the priests answered, “No.” Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean?” And the priests answered, “It will become unclean.”^[1]

In these two verses Haggai asks the priests two separate questions. The questions are rhetorical but are answered nonetheless, and are important because of the issue they address. What is it Haggai seeks to discover? The answer is simple and direct and sets forth a fundamental principle that is clearly applicable today. “How can an impure people engage in a holy task? Will not their contagious condition of impurity render impure everything with which they come in contact?”^[2]

The question is posed using consecrated meat on the one hand and a corpse on the other. The consecrated meat is holy and pure by virtue of its consecration, but the corpse is unholy and impure. One cannot be made holy and pure simply by coming into contact with that which itself is holy and pure, but coming into contact with that which is unholy and impure can defile one. So, here is the principle: holiness and purity are not communicable, but uncleanliness and impurity are.

We are living in a time when this principle is flipped. We declare that God does not have grandchildren but then, incomprehensively, think that just because a person comes to church they are justified. The reverse is equally incomprehensible; we do not tend to believe that contact with that which is defiled will defile us. We think that we can manage the level of defilement. We tell ourselves that we are not being programmed by that to which our senses are exposed because we can make a compartmental distinction between that which is holy and that which is profane. But it is an insidious lie from the enemy that siphons many from their Kingdom journey. One cannot be made holy simply by coming into contact with that which is holy, but they can be and are defiled by their contact with that which is impure and unclean. God has called us to holiness, which means ‘to be separate.’ He calls us to be holy because He is holy (Leviticus 11:44). The only contact that makes us holy is a continual dedicated, uncompromisingly personal relationship with Jesus Christ. How is this principle operating in your life today?

Dear Lord and King, You are holy and righteous in all Your ways. As high as You are above the heavens so are Your ways higher than our ways and Your thoughts than our thoughts, and yet we desire to be holy even as You are holy. But our love for the impure and the profane keeps getting in the way. We want to be where You are but the pull of our flesh hinders us. Help us today to say ‘no’ to the ways of the world and the impure desires of our hearts that we might say ‘yes’ to Your will and Your way. Amen.

^[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Hag 2:12-13.

^[2] Richard A. Taylor and E. Ray Clendenen, Haggai, Malachi (vol. 21A; The New American Commentary; Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2004), 177.