I

ART. IV. HAGGAI AND PAUL.

IN the Book of Haggai, chap. ii., ver. 6–9, we read, "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; 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 silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will give peace, saith the Lord of hosts." This is what Haggai saw in prophetic vision. And in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. xii., ver. 26-29, we find Paul sealing it with apostolic authority, for he writes:-" Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire." The Prophet and the Apostle, then, draw the same scene, and paint with the same colours. If Haggai is the Voice, Paul is the Echo; and though it is the voice that creates the echo, the echo may help us to interpret the voice. Here we have a double rainbow of blessed vision; and though the reflected circle be smaller than the primary, still they both span our troubled earth, and the tints of hope are the same in each.

The opinion of some is, that Haggai, in the words quoted, had his eye simply upon the restoration of the Temple, as undertaken and urged by Zerubbabel; and beyond this date they refuse to extend the prophecy. But that a crisis far more formidable and significant than the mere completion of a house by this time almost roofed in, was meant, we may feel certain, when God makes Himself known, under the name of " Jehovah Sabaoth," five times repeated with solemn emphasis. "Sabaoth" conveys the idea of multitude and array and hosts; and when five times "Jehovah" appears upon the scene under this designation, it is to announce, not merely that He is the self-existent and eternal One, but that, as King of kings, He owns all beings and rules all events,—that all nations are His, and all thrones, that He claims the treasures of the rich, and shall wield the forces of the powerful,-that nothing can resist His fiat, or

disturb His schemes,-that "He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of earth." A title, however, so august, so overawing, so magnificent, would not be assumed and reiterated so often, only in connexion with the local affairs of Jerusalem, but must have had reference to some event which would vibrate through this world, in all its regions and in all its epochs.

Not satisfied with the opinion that Haggai's prophecy stretched no further than the days and achievements of Zerubbabel, others apply it to the Incarnation of Christ, and are confident that all the prediction was fulfilled when the Son of Man was born at Bethlehem. But if we bear in mind that at the birth of Christ "all" the nations had not been shaken, the Roman power being then in its zenith,-that when on earth Jesus was covered with shame, not with glory,-that no more connexion had our Lord with the Temple than any other worshipper,-that though in His day Messiah had gone back to heaven, still Paul quotes the prophecy of Haggai as unfulfilled,—and, finally, that it is inconceivable that "the house of God" should be enveloped in the effulgence of its crowning splendour only to be swept clean away for ever, to shine no more in the eye of earth or heaven: we will feel at once that this position is untenable. Tradition has long said that Haggai meant the first coming of Christ; and it bids us fix the entire scene of the prediction in the past. But in "the days of His flesh" Jesus came not to "fill the temple with glory," but to tread it in deep humiliation, and predict its hastening overthrow with the tears of grief and dismay. "Behold! your house is left unto you desolate."

Both Haggai and Paul, then, point us to the Future, and shew us Christ Jesus our Lord in His kingdom of glory and power. The Prophet looked into a future far beyond the horizon of his day, and his vision swept the whole firmament of time. But the Apostle also looked into a future which lay out of sight, at

distance he could not calculate; and if we follow his voice, he will lead us amid scenes, which, even up to this hour, have not transpired. It is the second coming of Christ that Haggai saw, and it is the second coming of Christ that Paul seals.

"Yet once." That it is neither a commencement nor a progress, but an end, which is announced both by Prophet and Apostle, is evident from that expression which we find in each, "yet once," or "once more," meaning "once for all." The Hebrew

N may not uniformly convey the idea of a finishing stroke; but Paul translates it by aπağ, which undoubtedly has this signification both in the New Testament and among classical writers. Even in the Old Testament as in Exod. xxx. 10-we find

"once" denoting "once for all," when it is said, "Aaron shall make an atonement—once in a year." And that the word has this import in the Greek of the New Testament is evident, for in Rom. vi. 10, Paul writes, "He died unto sin once even once for all. By "yet once," then, as it stands alike in Haggai and Paul, we are to mean once for all," and have our views directed to the consummating issue, the final crisis, which will terminate the dispenation of change, and usher in the era of stability and rest. Hitherto this world has been like a sea scoured by storm and tempest, and the high waves of which have often filled us with alarm. But at length all is calm as "the sea of glass," without wind or billow or darkening night. "The great tribulation" was accompanied with every form of terror; but it is "once for all," and the thunders are hushed. The last overthrow will make the pillars of earth to bend; but it is "once for all," and the flood will not return. The smoke has risen from the battle-field, and the warrior will no more displace the husbandman. The plough is in the furrow, and the sword is in its sheath.

“It is a little while." The devastation that Haggai and Paul proclaims will be not more terrific than conclusive. But the Prophet assures us also that it is at hand; for "it is," says he, "a little while," and then all that is threatened will be inflicted. Even Haggai could descry the things which were coming on the earth as near. He saw the handful of cloud sitting on the horizon his ear had caught the tread of marching armies; and he cries," in a little while." But in his quotation from the Prophet, Paul, in Heb. xii. 27, though he re-echoes the "once for all," omits "the little while," as if the interval which existed in Haggai's day had dwindled into an invisible span, or been wholly obliterated. It is vain, then, to imagine and affirm that the winding-up of our age is at an immeasurable distance still, and may be dismissed from our view as scarcely a unit in our calculation of the future. In the time of our Prophet it was no more than "a little space" which lay between his epoch and the eventual crisis. In Paul's day, "the little space" had been narrowed into a line that might be traced, but could not be measured. And is it not eighteen hundred years since the Apostle wrote? Is it not two thousand five hundred years since the Prophet flourished? Our vessel, then, must be nearing that rock on which she is to split and break up.

I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land." Both Prophet and Apostle warn the sons of men that God has a controversy with them, and that the angel's sickle is ready to cut down the harvest. But they don't simply

announce, they describe, likewise, the judgments which are on their march. And, first of all, there will be Physical changes upon every element, and aspect, and region of creation within that circle to which the evil of man extends. For we read in

Haggai, "I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;" and in Paul, " I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." It is granted that the context might induce or require us to interpret these expressions figuratively, and view them as simply denoting local modifications; but if we bear in mind that Haggai is at this moment thinking of Egypt, and what was done for Israel there, (as we may conclude from what he says in the fifth verse,) whilst Paul, on the other hand, from the expression "then," which he uses in Heb. xii. 26, manifestly had Sinai in his view, with all the phenomena of that date, it must be allowed that both Prophet and Apostle meant us to understand that the closing scene of our dispensation will be signalised by every form of physical change. Assuredly, when Haggai would illustrate his meaning by reference to Egypt, he wished us to call up Egypt with all its miracles on land, and water, and air, in the days of Pharaoh; and when Paul would run a parallel between the final crisis and Sinai, he would have us to realise Sinai as it was in the days of Moses, when the sky was on fire and the mountains quaked; so that we may well admit that, in the view of both Prophet and Apostle, "heaven and earth, and sea, and dry land"-as the sphere of convulsion, and wreck, and wasting-just meant "the heaven" which is stretched above us-" the earth" on which we dwell," the sea" that our ships navigate,—and " the dry land” that forms our fields and gardens.

We read in Psalm cv. 27, " He shewed his signs among them and wonders in the land of Ham. He sent darkness and made it dark. He turned their waters into blood. He gave them hail for rain, and flaming fire in their land. He spake and the locusts came. He rebuked the Red Sea and it was dried up." But we further have it written in Psalm lxviii. 7,"O God, when thou didst march through the wilderness the earth shook; even Sinai itself was moved; the heavens also dropped." Of this, then, we are assured, that both in Egypt and at Sinai, the elements were set on fire, and the sea was cut in twain, and the darkness of smoke hung in the sky, and the earth reeled to and fro. Actually, and without a metaphor, the structure of our visible creation was broken up, and the signs of the firmament were confounded, and every joint of this material fabric was unloosed. But Egypt and Sinai are the type, the close of our dispensation, the antitype. And who

would suspect, far less affirm, that when the type was literal, the antitype will be figurative?

We may add, that this conclusion seems not only authorised by the language of Haggai and Paul, but countenanced by the strain of the entire Bible. For in Isa. xiii. 13, we read,—" I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place." In Joel ii. 30, we also read,-" I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth; blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come." Is it not also announced in Zechariah xiv. 4,—“ His feet shall stand, in that day, upon the mount of Olives; and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof, and there shall be a very great valley." But our Lord himself, in Luke xxi. 25, warns us, "There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, aud in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring." Then, in Rev. xvi. 18, we are expressly told that when the seventh vial is poured out, There will be thunders and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth." Whilst Peter, in his second epistle, (iii. 10,) assures us, That the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up.'

It is in terms as explicit and significant as these, that the Scriptures describe the signs and wonders which are to mark the termination of our present Economy; and we are shut up to the alternative either of denying that the events of Egypt and Sinai are historical, or admitting that the expressions we here quote denote a palpable conflict, and organic disarrangement, and universal ruin, over the entire area of this sublunary world. As yet, the curse of the Fall has been limited or dormant; but now the flame breaks forth, and nothing escapes its devouring rage. Like a resistless cyclone, charged with a hundred storms, judgment sweeps down from the throne, and the earth is left desolate and empty.

"And I will shake all nations." After he has predicted.

*For aught that we know, it may be that everything is now tending to bring out this result, and that the entire energy of our system is accumulating fuel for the final conflagration. At least one of the discoveries of modern science, as we learn from Professor Tait, of Edinburgh, is, "that as all energy is constantly in a state of transformation, there is a constant degradation of energy to the final unavailable form of uniformly diffused heat; and that this will go on as long as transformations occur, until the whole energy of the universe has taken this final form."