Verses 6-9 >> The presence of Jesus produces glory.
“For thus saith the Lord of hosts; yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; …”
This of course is the teaching of the apostles as conveyed to us by the New Testament. But what we must new see is the teaching of Haggai. We have learned the doctrine of the apostles regarding this ‘yet once and I will shake’ verse, but still the people say, “The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.” In other words, we have come to regard the phrase, “It is a little while,” as an indefinite period which still appears to stretch ahead of us without any sign of ending. But wake up and look around you. If God’s prophets seem still asleep, the world’s prophets cry of impending doom in ever shriller accents every day, and many worldly-wise persons have heeded their warnings already. Indeed, a rising suicide rate attests the fact that many have felt the beginning of the shaking of God and were so frightened they jumped off a bridge to get away from it all. Surely it is only God’s people who now say the time is not yet come. Everywhere one looks there are men and women starting up in alarm, aware without conscious effort that the long-foretold end is at hand, feeling instinctively that the shaking of heaven and earth is either about to commence or has already commenced in the life of this generation.
“And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.”
The nations are feeling shaken already and the desire of all nations (which is of course nationalism) is emerging more and more as they feel themselves being shaken. These and many other signs indicate the approaching end of all things in the period of bitter tribulation facing the world, but for us the end is not only tribulation but glory as well. “I will fill this house with glory.” This house? Yes, indeed, this house. Says who? Saith the Lord of hosts. So we need not fear or be discouraged or despair but only be strong to build again the house so that it is a proper place for the glory of the Lord to rest upon. Would we have the glory of the Lord of hosts filling a ruined house, a run-down structure, a mere edifice of outward godliness? Would that be a fitting climax to two thousand years of church history and the memory of all those who have gone before us? But rather let us labor to make the Church a fitting place to be filled with all the glory which God would bestow upon her so that she may be taken out of the world a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. We cannot gain glory for the Church; her glory must come from God – but we can build up the Church again from its present state so that it may be found to be a fitting place to be filled with the glory of the Lord of hosts.
“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.”
The silver and gold found on earth is put there by God, and He knows exactly how much there is to draw upon. But in a more spiritual sense we see that the silver represents that which is of the Spirit, that which on earth is purely spiritual and belonging to God, to the realm of the Kingdom of God, while gold speaks to us also of eternal things, of faith and ‘like precious things’. In the temple we see how silver and gold are used to overlay wood. Thus the meaning of the Cross of Christ, the basic factor in Christianity, becomes overlaid with spiritual thought and faith in things pertaining to the Kingdom of God; and it is this combination of the basic factor, the Cross of Christ, represented always by the wood with which the house is built, and then the overlay or ornamentation given to the basic factor by our own spiritual thought and faith in Christ Jesus our Lord which makes the house so literally precious and beautiful and tremendous and wonderful. So the Church of Christ is a structure of wood and silver and gold, of altars and pillars and buttresses and cornerstones, skillfully put together by the Master designer and architect to form a house not made with hands. We need only go up to the mountain and bring the wood, and God will add the silver and the gold to restore this house to all its former beauty and splendour.
“The glory of the latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.”
God is seen in Haggai as the Lord of hosts, the Lord over all the hosts of angels and the hosts of heaven and the hosts of earth, just as in Revelation. He is seen surrounded by many milling multitudes. This is the difference between Haggai and Genesis, between the end and the beginning, between the solitary God making the one man and the Lord of hosts with the uncountable multitudes. We see that everything in God’s plan depended on Calvary – “except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.” Because of the Cross of Christ all things fit together, the solitary God of all eternity becomes at the end the Lord of hosts, and the glory of the latter house is greater than of the former. Thus God is glorified, and it is God who glorifies the house in turn. Our task is only to go to the mountain, to return with the wood, and thus build the house – we may leave it to God to glorify the house just as He adds the silver and the gold to overlay the wood and make magnificent and beautiful the whole structure as it pleases Him. “And in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.” We need not concern ourselves about the division and strife that accompany our attempts to rebuild the house according to our instructions from the prophet, for the word of the Lord standeth sure.
