Bible Commentaries

THE CALL TO THE CHURCH

‘Consider your ways.’

Haggai 1:5

Haggai was the first prophet who rose up in the midst of the congregation of Judah, after his return from Babylon, to declare to it the will and saving purposes of its God. Between him and Zephaniah lay the seventy years of the exile. The Jewish people had learned something in captivity; they would not risk again the wrath of Jehovah by the temptation to promote His glory by working with a mixed people. The refusal provoked a bitter opposition, and the hands of the people were made idle by continued threats of war, and by hired counsellors employed to misrepresent the true object of the religious zeal of the Jewish nation. The work at the House of God at Jerusalem ceased during the rest of the reign of Cyrus, and yet these outward hindrances were not the only or the chief cause of the delay in rebuilding the House of God. The builders were frightened, they were misrepresented, but the people themselves had lost the true vision of that which really constituted their glory and their strength. They were taken up with their material prosperity; they were looking too low—at mere earthly greatness. Great lukewarmness had been shown from the very first at their return. The indifference was even remarkable among those most connected with the altar; of the twenty-four orders of priests four only returned; of the Levites only seventy-four individuals. Even the more religious wept because they saw that the outward splendour of their new Temple would be less than that of the former. They were faint-hearted, their zeal had cooled down, they turned their thoughts to ease and personal prosperity. They ceiled their houses, and let the Temple of the Lord lie waste. For fifteen years or more the work of the building had ceased, and the people were content to say: ‘The time is not come, the time that the House of the Lord should be built.’

It was in such a time of outward ruin and inward depression that the prophet Haggai, now a man far advanced in years, had the courage to stand forth alone, first with the word of reproof, ‘Consider your ways; is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses and this house to lie waste?’ and then, on their repentance, with words of bold encouragement, ‘Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work; for I am with you, saith the Lord of Hosts: according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not.’

I. The Church’s hope.—‘Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning: that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.’ Few periods of the sacred narrative are more fitted to fulfil this gracious purpose than the history of the Captivity and the Restoration. In it we see the Chosen People of God triumphed over by the powers of the world, the place which God had chosen to put His name there desecrated, His Temple destroyed, His Church overthrown, scattered—for the moment apparently stamped out; yet, in the vision of the prophet, we can see how all these opposing forces were but the instruments of discipline in the hand of the Most High. Not an arrow could be shot if the Lord forbade. The kings of the conquering armies were but the servants and shepherds of the Lord, Whose flock for a time they were allowed to scatter. The city of Jerusalem might be taken, its walls might fall, yet the real cause of destruction was made known when the prophet Amos saw in his vision the Lord Himself standing on the wall of Jerusalem, with the plumb-line in His hand; true, it was on this occasion the symbol of destruction, but it was the same as the symbol of construction: it represented order, and plan, and purpose, and it was held in the hand of the Lord; it was intended to teach the faithful, through the prophet, that He Who had built up was now taking down, and that He could rebuild again; it was a faint image of that most perfect example of the Church’s confidence and hope, in the presence of the opposing world, which said: ‘Thou couldst have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above.’

II. God is in the midst of her.—And yet this is not the whole nor the greater part of the comfort and hope which this Scripture brings us. God not only controlled the forces which opposed the Church at Jerusalem, but He was with her even when she seemed most subdued. His Spirit was with Ezekiel and the captives by the river of Chebar, and the dry bones were commanded to live, and to Daniel, though in captivity, He revealed the rise and fall of dynasty after dynasty, bringing them up before his prophetic vision as easily as summer clouds. His church was in captivity, but His arm was not shortened; in His hand were still the corners of the earth. And thus, when the hour for the return arrived, the all-sufficient word was speedily given to the prophet Haggai, ‘I am with you, My Spirit remaineth with you: fear ye not.’

Bishop Edward King.