If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any food -- shall it become holy? And the priests answered and said, No.
Two months after Haggai's last message, God sent him to ask the priests whether holiness spreads by touch. Their answer exposed the state of the whole nation, and it settles a question we all face: can good things make bad things good?
God sends the question to the men who taught the law, and He has one lesson in view.
The message in this section is for the priests. Its object was to teach the nature of true separation to God, and that His blessing was tied to keeping it. That principle holds good in every age, because it rests on the holiness of God Himself. In Malachi we read that "the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts" (Mal. 2:7). For this reason Haggai was sent "on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month," two months after his last message, to ask the priests these questions about the law.
The word "holy" here does not mean pure in its own nature.
First of all we need to be clear about what a holy thing is. It is something set apart for the service of God. So "holy flesh" might be, for example, part of an animal that had been devoted to God in sacrifice. It was not, therefore, holy in and of itself, by its very nature. God is holy in that way, and such holiness shuts evil out, just as light shuts darkness out. But a holy thing in Scripture is something consecrated, set apart for God. Israel as a nation was holy in this sense, because God had taken them out from all the other peoples of the earth and separated them to Himself.
The priests were right, and their two answers run in opposite directions.
Of course the priests gave the right answer when they said "No." He who is holy passes on no holiness to anything else. Then Haggai said, "If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?" The answer was just as precise: yes. He who is defiled communicates defilement… As with the unclean condition of a man, so the nation of Israel defiled whatever they took up. All works and offerings are unclean. There must be personal cleanness before anyone can act or offer rightly.
One writer points to the single place where touch did pass holiness on: the altar.
Scripture calls the altar "most holy," and whatever touched the altar became "holy." Haggai 2:12 shows a contrast to this. Holy meat (that which had touched the altar) did not make anything else holy by touching it. The altar speaks of the person of Christ, the "most holy." Direct contact with Him makes one holy, but a secondary contact does not. In the same way, one who has personal faith in the Lord Jesus Himself is saved, but no one is saved by contact with a believer.
If holiness does not spread but defilement does, a popular strategy collapses.
On the one hand, we learn that what is holy cannot cleanse by association. On the other hand, what is unclean can defile by association. So the common notion that we can cleanse the world by associating with it, or help the people of God by associating with the corrupt systems they may be found in, is a fallacy, and worse. To act like this is not only no help to others; we ourselves become defiled.
Two lives show it. Jonathan stayed at Saul's court, and Lot settled in Sodom.
But Jonathan cannot sanction the place; Jonathan's presence did not make Saul's camp or court anything other than what it was. The only impression the soul gets of Lot in Sodom is of a tainted Lot, not of a sanctified, purified Sodom.
Haggai's verdict was that everything the people offered was unclean. One writer turns that on our own worship and service, then points to the remedy.
Let us not think that the finest offerings we ever made, whether of praise and worship or of service, were marked by perfection. They were not. The flesh is still in us, and in subtle ways it tarnishes the fairest things we offer. But we have a great High Priest. He bears the iniquity of our holy things, and presents our defective worship or service to God in His own perfections.
- Ask — God puts the question to the priests, whose task was to teach the law. Its aim was to teach true separation to God, grounded on God's own holiness.
- Holy — "Holy flesh" means flesh set apart for God, not something pure by nature. Only God is holy in that absolute sense.
- No — Holiness does not spread by contact. Defilement does. Cleanness must be personal before anyone can act or offer rightly.
- Except — Direct contact with Christ makes a person holy. Second-hand contact never does. Faith must be your own.
- So — You will not clean up the world by joining it; you will only be defiled. And a High Priest carries even our best offerings to God, bearing the failure in them.
And Haggai said, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, is it become unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.
Haggai's fourth message puts a legal question to the priests. It comes in two parts. The first part asked whether holy flesh spreads holiness. This verse asks the opposite: does a man made unclean by a dead body spread that uncleanness? The priests answer yes — and that single word exposes the state of the whole nation and its work.
Haggai does not argue. He sends the question to the priests. Their job was to give God's own verdict on clean and unclean.
Note that the answers the priests gave Haggai rest on the sure word of God. They mean two things. First, a holy thing has no power to make anything holy. Second, uncleanness must defile everything it touches.
The same writer explains what Scripture means by a holy thing:
A holy thing is something set apart for the service of God. So "holy flesh" might be part of an animal that had been given to God in sacrifice. It was not something holy in itself, absolutely holy by its very nature. But whatever was holy in this way had no power, as we learn from our passage, to make other things holy.
Holiness and defilement do not behave alike. One stays where it is; the other travels.
Something holy cannot make unholy things holy. But something unclean defiles what is holy, because holiness shuts evil out. The presence of evil destroys holiness simply by being there. There is one exception: holiness of the kind that, by its own existence, shuts out everything contrary to it — such as the nature of God.
The same rule shows up in everyday things:
Everyone knows what happens if you put a rotten apple in a box of good ones: the rot soon spreads. Yet no one imagines that adding a few sound apples to rotten ones will make the rotten ones good.
The uncleanness in the verse is not that of an outsider. It belongs to someone who was clean and has since touched death.
The second principle only confirms the conclusion above. Uncleanness must defile — but what uncleanness is meant? It is the uncleanness of a man who was clean until a dead body made him unclean. Now death is the fruit of sin, and so sin is the source of the defilement. Now apply this to ourselves. The uncleanness here is not that of a sinner before God. It is that of a believer who has become defiled by evil associations. The solemn lesson about such a person is this: like tar, he stains everything he touches. What a responsibility this puts on each of us in our fellowship with God's people!
In the question, it is the man who touches these things, not the dead body.
One is unclean because of a dead body, and whatever he touches becomes unclean. The thing he touches never has to touch the dead body itself. The moment it touches the man who touched the dead body, it becomes unclean.
Haggai turns the ruling on the people themselves. Two writers draw out what had to come first.
As with the unclean condition of a man, so the nation of Israel defiled whatever they took up. All works and offerings are unclean. There must be personal cleanness before one can act or offer rightly.
Their works and offerings were all unclean, because they themselves were unclean. They needed cleansing first. So separation from evil, from what defiles, was necessary. So it is today. The order is "cease to do evil" and then "learn to do good."
Haggai did not leave them under the warning.
The prophet had warned them about the imperfection that marked their work. Then he assured them that God's blessing rested on them despite it... So it is today. There are elements of failure and uncleanness in all our service. But despite that, if the heart is right, we may expect spiritual blessing from God.
- Asked — Haggai gets his answer from the priests out of the law, so the verdict is God's, not the prophet's opinion.
- Answered — contact does not pass holiness on, but it does pass uncleanness on. Evil spreads; good does not.
- Applied — the "dead body" points to sin, and the person in view is a believer who was clean and has become defiled by evil associations.
- Absorbed — touching the defiled man is enough. Nothing has to touch the dead body itself.
- Assured — unclean people produced unclean work and offerings. Cleansing comes first, service second. Yet where the heart is right, God still blesses.