How Do We See the Gospel in the Book of Haggai?

When I was growing up, my mom worked in a nursing home. For the most part it was a good experience when I’d go to visit. She did a great job with the residents and developed deep bonds with them. My mom was really good at what she did. That also meant that I got to know some of the residents; I think it was helpful for me. 

But there was one occasion…good grief this was traumatic to me as a child. What I can remember of the encounter is that I was at the end of a hallway and waved and smiled at this elderly lady in a wheelchair. When I met her eyes, they looked empty — like nobody was really there. Then it was like a switch went off. 

She started chasing me in her wheelchair and shouting, “I don’t envy you!” I had no idea what that even meant as a child, but it felt like she was telling me that all of my life choices were horrible, that I needed to reassess everything about my life, and until I did, I wasn’t welcome down Hall B. I ran out of there crying. My mom tried to explain that she had no idea what she was doing, but that didn’t much matter to me. 

I tell you that to say that when someone says something like, “Consider your ways!” I don’t receive it as “gospel.” I receive it as an old lady trucking it in her wheelchair trying to put me in my place. 

Now, “Consider your ways!” is the essential message of Haggai. How do we find the gospel here? Is this just waving a stick at people who aren’t doing what the old prophet thinks they need to do? 

In this article we’ll see how Haggai is actually a book rich with gospel truths. 

How Do You Find the Gospel in the Old Testament?

I suppose before understanding how to find the gospel in the OT, it’d be helpful for us to define the gospel. The simplest definition is one given by JI Packer: God saves sinners. If you’d like to put a bit more meat on your gospel presentation, I use two different frameworks with four points each. The first is God—Man—Christ—Response. The second is more of a story: Creation—Fall—Redemption—Glory. 

The first presentation centers upon God’s character and how humanity fails to meet God’s holy standard, as such the judgment of God is upon us. But the good news is that Jesus Christ fixes this by fulfilling what is required through his life, death and resurrection. Our only fitting response, then, is to respond to Him in repentance and faith. When this happens, we are united to Christ and his record becomes our record. 

The second presentation centers upon the overarching story of the Bible. God lovingly created us to love Him and enjoy Him forever. We were made for rest, rule, and relationship. But we made shipwreck of this, and so rather than having the blessings of obedience we are under the curse of disobedience. Rather than having peace (rest), purpose (ruling), and healthy relationship we often experience the opposite. Ultimately, we are alienated from God. But thankfully God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bear our curse and to fulfill what God intended for humanity. As such we now experience the blessings of Jesus’ obedience in our place. He restores the rest, rule, and relationship we were created to enjoy. Someday everything will be ultimately restored and we will live in a new heaven and a new earth. 

We could write entire books focusing on these various themes of the gospel. But every gospel story follows this basic skeleton. No matter where you find yourself in the Old Testament (or the New Testament) you can find one of these various threads. Every place in Scripture is either telling you something about God, something about our rebellion, something about His rescue, or something about our future restoration. If you can spot this, then you can fill out the rest of the story. 

How Do You Find the Gospel in Haggai?

Part of the story of the gospel is that humanity prioritizes all of the wrong things. Rather than giving our lives to what actually matters, we flit it away on the trivial. That is why a message like “Consider your ways!” can be drenched in the gospel — even if it feels like an old lady chasing you down with her wheelchair. 

Permit me to change my illustration for a moment. I remember in grade school our teacher wanted to teach us the importance of reading through all of the instructions before taking the test. In order to do this, she had us take a really annoying and difficult test. Some of the students finished in like five minutes and were able to go play Oregon Trail on the computer. I was confused at how quickly they finished. 

I was stumbling my way through this test, all the way to the end — when I was prompted to read the instructions at the beginning. In those instructions I was informed that I didn’t have to take the test. Had I read the instructions, like the teacher wanted me to, my little green blob could have died of dysentery on the Oregon Trail. 

All that to say, it would have been gospel for somebody to have said, “consider your ways.” A message like Haggai’s has a way of stopping us in our tracks — or maybe has us fleeing for refuge. Am I proceeding on secondary or tertiary things but I’ve neglected the most important?  

There are some things in the Christian life and in the life of the church that are essential.  Neglecting these, no matter how dedicated and disciplined you are in the other areas, will be to your detriment.  You can go about trying to master Greek but if you never open your New Testament what good will that do you?  It is kind of like what John Owen said, “A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more.”  

The people in Haggai’s day were spending all the resources on themselves. They’d cobbled together a few verses and concluded that the prophetic timeline didn’t have them rebuilding the temple yet. So, they were giving all their resources to non-essentials. Haggai stepped in with a rebuke. 

But this rebuke is meant to point to that which is essential. God’s not rebuking them just for the fun of it. He’s not all that big on making sure they’ve got a physical temple anyway. But it’s what the temple symbolized: God’s presence. They were putting all sorts of things before that. And that is the biggest rip off there is. 

I think there was some disappointment behind their inactivity too. In Haggai’s second message he speaks of their disillusionment that the new temple is rather modest compared to what they’d lost. God encourages them by promising that the glory of this latter temple will surpass the former. 

But it was never bigger. What that promise points to is the coming of Jesus — the embodiment of God’s glory and God’s presence. That’s what that last message of Haggai is about too. It contains a promise to Zerubbabel declaring him as God’s chosen servant. But ultimately, it’s pointing to Jesus — a descendant of both David and Zerubbabel, who fulfills the role of the promised Messiah. 

So, Haggai is really all about our messed-up priorities, but also about God’s dedication to what does matter. God doesn’t get His priorities messed up. This is the gospel in Haggai. We neglect God, but He does not neglect us. While we might continue to prioritize the trivial, He remains committed to what is essential — Himself. Through Christ, God is restoring what we could never rebuild on our own. 

“Consider your ways” isn’t just a rebuke, it’s also an invitation. An invitation to leave behind all that doesn’t satisfy, all that is trivial, and to give ourselves to that which is truly fulfilling.

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Tanawat Pontchour