‘If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?’” The priests answered and said, “No.”
Two months after the people restarted work on the temple, God sent Haggai to the priests with a test question about the law. It asked about carrying consecrated meat in a fold of clothing. Their answer exposed the true state of the whole nation, and of every offering they laid on the altar.
Why Haggai asked the priests
God aimed the question at the men whose job was to guard the knowledge of the law. The lesson behind it was about separation.
Edward DennettIts object was to teach the nature of true separation to God, and that His blessing depended on keeping it. This 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." That is why God sent Haggai to ask the priests these questions about the law.
What "holy meat" actually means
Everything turns on the sense of the word "holy" here.
Edward DennettFirst we must be clear about what a holy thing is. It is something set apart for the service of God. So "holy flesh" might be part of an animal that someone had given to God in sacrifice. It was not, therefore, holy in itself by its very nature. God is holy in that way, and holiness like that shuts out evil, just as light shuts out darkness. But a holy thing in Scripture is what is consecrated, set apart for God.
Holiness does not spread by touch
The consecrated meat could not pass its status on — not to the garment, and not to the bread or oil the garment touched. The priests' "No" states a rule that works only one way.
F. B. HoleThe priests had to admit that what is unclean and unholy is infectious and therefore defiling, while what is holy and clean does not spread in the same way.
The same one-way rule shows up in ordinary life:
F. B. HoleEveryone knows that if you put a rotten apple in a box of good ones, the rot will soon spread. But nobody imagines that a few sound apples will make the rotten ones good.
Second-hand holiness saves no one
One writer sets this beside the altar, which made holy whatever touched it.
L. M. GrantHoly meat (what 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 a person holy, but a second-hand contact does not. In the same way, personal faith in the Lord Jesus Himself saves a person. Contact with a believer saves no one.
What ceremony cannot do
People keep attempting it anyway, through ceremony and touch.
Edward DennettIn every age people have tried to do what the Jewish priests said was impossible. They try it by ordination and consecration — as if solemn words spoken, and a human touch, even from a holy hand, could set someone apart for the Lord's service, or a "holy" office could make its holders holy... Whenever the church seeks to claim the things of the world by her "holy" contact, for her own use and advantage, she only betrays that she does not know her true place and character, and becomes defiled by the very things she tried to make holy.
The verdict on the people
Haggai then applied the ruling to the people in front of him.
William KellyOf course the priests answered truly when they said "No." The one who is holy passes no holiness on to anything else... As with the unclean condition of a man, so with the nation of Israel: they defiled whatever they took up. All works and offerings are unclean. There must be personal cleanness before anyone can act or offer rightly.
Where this lands today
Holiness does not spread by contact. So one popular idea falls apart: that you can fix what is wrong by joining it.
William KellyThe common notion is that you can cleanse the world by going into it and mixing with it. Instead, the world will certainly defile you... Isolation is wrong. But the Christian cannot avoid one duty: to separate from what is evil in the Lord's sight. And we separate in order to unite, according to God's word, with those who call on Him with a pure heart.
Yet this does not leave a believer hopeless about what he offers:
F. B. HoleLet us not think that the finest offerings we ever made were perfect, whether in praise and worship or in service. 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 who bears the guilt of our holy things. He presents our flawed worship or service to God in His own perfections.
Summary
- Definition — "Holy" here means set apart for God, not pure by nature; only God is holy in the absolute sense.
- Direction — Holiness does not travel by touch, but uncleanness does. The rotten apple spreads; the sound one does not.
- Distance — Only direct contact with Christ makes a person holy. No office, ceremony or second-hand contact can pass it on.
- Diagnosis — The people were defiled, so their work and their offerings were defiled too. Cleanness must come before service.
- Duty — Separate from what defiles, not to stand alone, but to join those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Our High Priest then presents even our flawed worship in His own perfection.