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Religious activity cannot make us holy. A man hears a knock at his door. When he opens it, a giant bug punches him in the face, kicks him in the shin, and runs away. The next day, the same thing happens. After the third attack, the man goes to the doctor and explains what he has been experiencing. The doctor says, “Yeah, there’s a nasty bug going around.”
That joke illustrates the direction sickness travels. One sick student can enter a healthy classroom on Monday and, by Friday, leave behind a room full of coughing children. But no sick child has ever sat among thirty healthy classmates and caught their health. Sickness spreads; health does not. Haggai 2:10–14 makes the same point about spiritual health: uncleanness spreads, but religious activity cannot make us holy. The passage also points us to the one Person who can make the unclean clean without becoming unclean Himself.
Watch the sermon above or listen to the podcast audio. Then continue reading to see why holiness cannot be caught through proximity, service, sacrifice, or any other religious activity—and how Christ gives sinners the righteousness they cannot produce.
Table of contents
Haggai’s Third Message: “Ask the Priests About the Law”
Haggai 2:10 — “On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet.”
Haggai delivered four dated messages, and this is the third. The ninth month was Kislev, which falls in November and December. The second year of Darius was 520 B.C. Therefore, this message came in the middle of December, about three months after the people returned to work on the temple in Haggai 1.
Haggai 2:11 — “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Ask the priests about the law.”
The priests were asked about the law because they were the experts in it. One of their responsibilities was to distinguish between holy and common, clean and unclean:
Leviticus 10:10 — “[Priests are to] distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.”
It helps to think of holy as meaning separate or set apart rather than merely “morally good” or “righteous.” Food cannot be morally good, but it can be set apart for God’s use. In this setting, holy, clean, and uncommon describe the same side of the distinction. Unholy, unclean, and common describe the other.
Holiness Cannot Be Transferred
Haggai 2:12 — “‘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.”
“Holy meat” was meat from a sacrifice that had been set apart for God. The priest carried part of the sacrifice home as his portion. They did not have coolers, so the meat was carried in the folds of the priestly robe. Imagine that, on the walk home, the part of the robe holding the meat brushed against bread, stew, wine, or oil. Would the other food become holy?
The priests correctly answered, “No.” Yet they were not saying holiness never transferred at all. Leviticus says of a sacrifice, “Whatever touches its flesh shall be holy” (Leviticus 6:27). The holy meat made the robe holy, but the robe did not then make the food holy. Under the law, holiness traveled exactly one step—to the thing it touched—and then stopped.
This illustrates our first lesson: holiness cannot be transferred. Holiness is not contagious. It does not rub off. Nobody has ever become a Christian simply by standing close to one.
Uncleanness Can Be Transferred
Haggai 2:13 — “Then Haggai said, ‘If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?’” The priests answered and said, “It does become unclean.”
Haggai did not choose just any form of uncleanness for the second question. He reached for the worst: contact with a dead body. Most uncleanness lasted one day, but this lasted a week: “Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days” (Numbers 19:11).
Unlike holiness, uncleanness did not stop after one step: “Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening” (Numbers 19:22). Compare the two directions:
- Holiness reached the thing it touched, and then it stopped.
- Uncleanness reached the thing it touched, and it kept going.
In other words, good does not spread very far, but bad spreads and spreads. If we bring something unholy from the world into our lives, marriages, homes, or church, it does not get cleaned up merely by being near us. Instead, it damages us. People sometimes say, “We are going to take this thing from the world and redeem it, sanctify it, or clean it up.” But that asks holiness to do something the law says it does not do. If it is unholy out there, proximity to our church, life, or family does not automatically make it holy.
Unholy influences are not limited to things. Scripture warns us about people who shape us in sinful ways:
Proverbs 22:24–25 — “Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.”
The verse does not say the angry man learns patience from you. It says you learn anger from him.
1 Corinthians 15:33 — “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.’”
It does not say good company fixes bad morals. It says bad morals hurt those with good morals. Paul begins with “Do not be deceived” because this is an area where we easily deceive ourselves. We become certain we can spend time with sinful influences and remain unaffected. We imagine we will be the exception, but Scripture says otherwise.
This truth can be taken too far. I am not saying Christians should have nothing to do with unbelievers. We are called to love them and share the gospel with them. But when we befriend unbelievers, we should go on purpose, with our eyes open, knowing which direction holiness and unholiness naturally run.
Religious Activity Cannot Make Us Holy
When reading the prophets, ask, “Why is this prophet saying this to these people?” Why did God speak to the returned exiles about the way holiness and uncleanness transfer?
Growing up, I had a section on my headboard that held a collection of rosaries. I also had religious gifts from my first communion and confirmation. We had crucifixes around our house, statues of Mary and the saints, and Bibles we did not read. Why have Bibles if we were not going to read them? We had all that religious material because we thought having it—or being near it—made us holy.
I believe something similar was happening with the Jews in Haggai’s day. They had spent decades in Babylon and Persia, very unholy places. Now they were back in the Holy Land, and perhaps they thought being in a holy place made them holy. They were rebuilding the holy temple, offering holy sacrifices on a holy altar, and perhaps they thought all this religious activity made them holy.
Haggai 2:14 — “Then Haggai answered and said, ‘So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, declares the Lord, and so with every work of their hands. And what they offer there is unclean.’”
Haggai’s answer is connected to the second question. The people were unclean, so everything they touched became unclean. Even their sacrifices were unclean because the people offering them were unclean.
This must have been brutal for them to hear. Consider who they were:
- They left comfortable lives in Babylon to return to rubble.
- They heard one sermon in Haggai 1 and returned to work in only twenty-three days.
- Haggai 1:12 says they obeyed the voice of the Lord and feared Him.
This is not God rebuking rebels. This is God telling obedient, working, sacrificing people that their obedience, work, and sacrifices cannot produce what only He can give: holiness. The lesson for us is the same. We think that if we put ourselves around holy things, perhaps some holiness will rub off on us:
- being in the church building
- being on the ministry schedule
- sitting in the worship service
- serving in a ministry
- giving money
- being raised in a Christian home
These are good things, but even good things cannot make us holy. A person can be in the right place, among the right people, doing the right activities, and still lack the righteousness God requires.
God Takes Our Uncleanness and Gives Us His Righteousness
Something about Haggai bothers me: I do not like problem identifiers who are not at least problem helpers. Haggai identified the people’s uncleanness, but then he stopped. He did not tell them how to become holy. Why?
Haggai and Zechariah were contemporaries, prophesying to the same people at the same time. God did tell the people how to become clean—but He did so through Zechariah. Haggai preached this message on December 18, 520 B.C. About two months later, on February 15, 519 B.C., Zechariah received the visions recorded in Zechariah 1–6.
Joshua’s Filthy Garments Picture Our Unrighteousness
Zechariah 3:1–3 — “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?’ Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments.”
This is the same Joshua the high priest we have been reading about in Haggai. Satan stands ready to accuse him, but the Angel of the Lord—the preincarnate Christ—puts Himself between the accuser and the filthy priest. He calls Joshua a brand plucked from the fire: a stick about to be consumed until God reached in and pulled it out. That is what God does when He saves us.
Garments in Scripture can picture our righteousness or unrighteousness. In the parable of the wedding feast, Jesus described a man who entered the king’s banquet in his own clothes. Although he was in the right place and sitting with the right people, none of it made him righteous. The man was cast into outer darkness because he lacked the required wedding garment (Matthew 22:11–13). He pictures those who try to enter heaven through their own righteousness instead of receiving the righteousness given through faith in Christ.
The shocking part of Zechariah’s vision is that God chose Joshua. Ezra 2 tells us roughly fifty thousand Jews returned to Judah in the first return. Surely Zechariah would not have argued if God had shown him that one of them was spiritually filthy. But Joshua was the one man in the nation who looked holiest:
- He was a Jew, a member of God’s chosen nation.
- He was the high priest, the holiest man in the nation.
- He wore the priestly garments, the holiest clothes a man could wear.
Yet in God’s sight, Joshua was filthy. This is how all of us look compared with God’s perfect standard. Isaiah does not merely say our sins are filthy: “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isaiah 64:6). Our very best deeds cannot meet God’s standard of holiness.
Christ’s Righteousness Is Credited to Us
Zechariah 3:4 — “And the angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.’ And to him he said, ‘Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.’”
This is one of Scripture’s most beautiful pictures of salvation. Notice what the Angel of the Lord did not say: “Joshua, go clean yourself up and come back. Work harder, remove the garbage from your life, and return when you are good enough.” Instead, the Angel did everything for Joshua, just as Christ does everything necessary for our salvation.
Have you heard the saying, “The only thing you contribute to your salvation is the sin that made it necessary”? Joshua contributed nothing except the filth that required his clothes to be changed. The Angel removed the filthy garments, took away Joshua’s iniquity, and clothed him with purity.
2 Corinthians 5:21 — “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Because garments picture righteousness, Joshua’s change of clothes illustrates the classic double imputation that occurs when God saves us. Ligonier Ministries offers a concise explanation of imputed righteousness and why Christ’s obedience, rather than ours, is the basis of our acceptance before God:
- Christ takes our unrighteousness—our sin—upon Himself.
- Christ credits His righteousness to our account.
Isaiah describes both sides: our righteous deeds are polluted garments (Isaiah 64:6), but God “has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10). By grace through faith, our filthiness is taken away and we are covered with Christ’s righteousness.
Christ is not being forced into Zechariah’s vision. He is directly present. Skip to verse 8:
Zechariah 3:8 — “Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch.”
The Branch is Jesus. God promised Joshua that He would send His Son, and the next verse reveals what He would accomplish:
Zechariah 3:9 — “I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.”
Haggai said, “Everything you touch is unclean.” Zechariah answered with God’s promise: “I will remove all the uncleanness in one day.” This points to the day Christ died on the cross.
The Law Cannot Cleanse, but Jesus Can
That day at the cross was foreshadowed throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry as He took away uncleanness and brought cleanness. Under the law, when the clean touched the unclean, the clean became unclean. But watch what happened when Jesus, who embodies perfect holiness, came into contact with leprosy and death.
Jesus Touched a Leper and Made Him Clean
Mark 1:40 — “And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, ‘If you will, you can make me clean.’”
Leviticus 13:45 required a leper to wear torn clothes, let his hair hang loose, cover his upper lip, and cry, “Unclean, unclean,” so people could move away before he came near. According to the law, the leper made other people unclean. Other people did not make him clean.
Mark 1:41–42 — “Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, ‘I will; be clean.’ And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.”
Jesus did not have to touch the man. Later in Mark, He cast a demon out of a girl without even going near her. Why touch this leper? This man had probably not felt a human hand in years, and Mark tells us Jesus was moved with pity. Christ touched him out of compassion.
The touch also shows Christ’s superiority to the law. According to the law, contact with the unclean should have defiled Jesus. Instead, cleanness traveled in the opposite direction: Jesus remained clean, and the leper became clean.
Romans 3:20 — “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
Most of the world gets this backward. No one is saved by keeping the law. The law reveals how sinful we are. It does not cleanse anyone; it tells us how filthy we are. Jesus alone can do what the law cannot do: make the unclean clean.
Jesus Touched a Dead Girl and Gave Her Life
Haggai’s second question was not about leprosy; it was about touching a dead body. Mark 5 answers that question even more directly. Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, begged Jesus to come because his daughter was near death. On the way, Jesus was delayed by a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, making her ceremonially unclean. She reached out and touched Jesus. Rather than making Him unclean, she was made well.
While Jesus was speaking with her, messengers came from Jairus’s house: “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” (Mark 5:35). Jesus continued to the house and approached the child:
Mark 5:41–42 — “Taking her by the hand he said to her, ‘Talitha cumi,’ which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise.’ And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement.”
Again, Jesus did not have to touch her. He could have raised her with His voice alone, but He took her hand. Put Haggai’s question and Mark’s statement beside each other:
- Haggai asked about “someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body.”
- Mark says Jesus took a dead body by the hand.
Jesus did not become unclean. Instead, He took the death from her and gave her life. This is what He does for everyone who comes to Him: He takes away our spiritual death and gives us spiritual life.
Now bring Haggai’s two questions together:
- Haggai asked whether the clean makes the unclean clean. The law said no, but Jesus touched a leper and the leprosy left.
- Haggai asked whether the unclean makes the clean unclean. The law said yes, but Jesus took a dead girl by the hand and she got up and walked.
Jesus demonstrated His superiority to the law by reversing both directions. The law can identify uncleanness but cannot remove it. Christ can touch the unclean without being contaminated because He possesses the holiness, authority, and compassion necessary to cleanse us.
We Do Not Catch Holiness; We Must Come to Christ
Thirty healthy students cannot make one sick student well. In the same way, a sanctuary full of Christians cannot turn an unbeliever into a believer. We have never caught health, and we will never catch holiness:
- not from a church building
- not from our family
- not from our service
- not from our giving
- not from our very best day
But there is one Person in history who touched what was unclean and made it clean without becoming unclean Himself. His desire to cleanse has not changed. Before Jesus spoke to the leper or stretched out His hand, Mark tells us what was happening inside Him: He was moved with pity. Nothing required Him to touch that man. He touched him because He looked at a body consumed by disease and felt compassion.
If you have never come to Christ and asked Him to do spiritually for your soul what He did physically for diseased and dead bodies, do not delay. And do not try to clean yourself up first. That is the one thing this passage teaches us we cannot do. Religious activity cannot make us holy, but Jesus can take away our uncleanness, clothe us with His righteousness, and give us life.
Watch or listen to the complete sermon above, subscribe to the Scott LaPierre Ministries podcast, and continue the Haggai series with Why the Second Temple’s Glory Was Greater Than Solomon’s.
