Grace and Glory
“‘From this day on I will bless you.’”
Haggai 2:19
Certainly, the glory of Zerubbabel’s temple did not compare to that of Solomon’s. But it wasn’t really the ornate gold and silver that gave that first temple the glory, was it ladies? It was the glory of the LORD that filled the temple when the priests brought the ark of the covenant into the Most Holy Place (1 Kings 8:6,10). And it will always be the glory of the LORD.
In the meantime the workers pressed on with the rebuild. Two months later, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month (2:10), Haggai returned with more questions, more challenges, and a word of blessing.
Just because they were building the LORD‘s temple didn’t mean they had become holy. When they were busy with their own houses while His was in ruin, God had called for a drought to get their attention so they would give careful thought to their priorities (1:9-11). Now that they’d re-ordered their ways, did they deserve to be blessed?
The answer is no: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Yet God said, “From this day on I will bless you.”
Glory and grace and blessing are intertwined. It was impossible then, is impossible now, to live in God’s glory aside from the gift of God’s grace. God’s glory traveled with the exiles in the wilderness. God’s glory inhabited the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple. And it was all because God chose to bless or grace them. But that glory was not totally theirs until Jesus.
You who know Jesus know this grace intimately. And since your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), Christ in you (is) the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). From the fullness of (Jesus’) grace we have all received one blessing after another (John 1:16)—grace upon grace upon grace!
“Grace, grace, God's grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God's grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin!”
—Julia H. Johnston, 1910
Nancy P
All Scripture quotations are from the NIV 1973, 1978, 1984, unless otherwise noted.
