From a wedding in Cana of Galilee in the north of Israel, we find
ourselves now in the temple in Jerusalem at the time of
Passover. Jesus, whom John has called “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world” (1:29) is now here.
The Passover was the
greatest of all the Jewish feasts. It took place in the month of Nisan- our
March-April, at the time of when the church celebrates Easter. Jesus is here with countless worshipers who, on this occasion, remember the
deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage and in particular the deliverance from
the from the angel of death (see Exodus
12 - the 10th plague). By applying the blood of a lamb to their door
lintels, the angel of death passing through Egypt that night would pass over
the houses marked by the blood of the lamb. The Feast of Unleavened bread ( Ex 13) also happened at this time, and so the entire Passover celebration took a week.
Jewish law required that every adult male Jew who lived
within a 25 km radius of Jerusalem was bound to attend the Passover. However, many more Jews came from the diaspora
– in fact it was the aspiration of every Jew, no matter how far they lived from
Jerusalem, to celebrate at least one Passover in Jerusalem. The main sources available estimate that the
population of those living in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus was probably
around 80,000 to 100,000 citizens. But during the Passover hundreds of
thousands of Jews from the Diaspora would pour into Jerusalem. It is estimated that
over 2 million Jews may have come to Jerusalem to keep the Passover. [1]
So here is Jesus. He looks around the temple and He is
distressed by the fact that this place of worship is so abused. It smelled more
like a farm than the place where one would seek God’s presence. What was more,
the temple area was being used to fleece those who came from far to the
Passover. You see, at the heart of
temple worship was the sacrificial
system. Not being able to bring
their own sheep or oxen, pilgrims would have to buy them in Jerusalem. Conveniently, these were offered in
the temple precincts, but ruthless
people exploited this
by charging exorbitant prices. You know that feeling
when you go to the airport or
to a late night convenience store to get a
chocolate or something and you
pay three times the amount of what it
costs you at your regular supermarket.
But that was not all. There was also the obligatory temple tax- the ½ shekel - roughly two days wages. It could not
be made with the common Roman currency, because it
bore the image of the Roman emperor.
This is where the money-changers in our story come in. Being what they are, they were making money
out of this exchange, like all the money changers in our city of Windhoek. All
this was beginning to make the whole issue of coming for the Passover a very expensive
undertaking, also considering the travel
costs involved.
When you think about this
you realize that this was not only
exploiting people; it was also
exploiting God. It made business
out of God. And here Jesus is, at the temple, the place where God, in Solomon’s day had
chosen to manifest His earthly presence
and His glory (2 Chron. 7:12). He sees this
sacrilege and exploitation, and indignantly He asks, “How dare you treat My Father's house in this way?” Jesus had possessed a strong sense of the
sanctity of the temple. He called it ‘My
Father’s House’ (Lk 2:49). It
was ordained by God to be a centre of worship… a house of prayer for all nations (Isa. 56:7 – Mk. 11:17). Looking at this with His godly and holy
zeal and in the quiet strength of the Spirit, Jesus deliberately made a whip out of cords -
probably from the cords used to tie up the animals. And so we read, “and making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with
the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and
overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these
things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.’” (2:15, 16)
Our thoughts must now go back to these words found in the
Book of Malachi, the last book of the OT: 1
"Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And
the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of
the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.
2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. (Mal. 3:1-2)
I want to, very briefly, deal with the apparent problem of the temple
cleansing. The three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke record the temple
cleansing at the end of Jesus’ ministry, just before he came to Jerusalem, to
face the cross. John’s record of the temple cleansing appears right at the
beginning of Jesus’ short earthly ministry. How do we reconcile this? If one accepts the accounts of the Gospels at
face value, then there are obviously two temple cleansings. Many
scholars seem to have great difficulty with two cleansings. Three of my most trusted commentators see no such difficulty[2].
Reactions to the
Temple Cleansing
The first reaction
comes from the disciples. When His disciples saw Him doing
this, they remembered what was written
in Psalm
69:9, “For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the
reproaches of those who reproach you
have fallen one me”, and they
quickly apply this text to Jesus, the
Greater Son of David.
The next reaction comes
from the Jews. The
Jews question His authority for doing
these things, and in typical
fashion they asking Him for a sign, an authentication for what he was doing: “What sign will you show us for doing these things? [Reminds
us of Paul’s observation in 1
Corinthians 1:22- “Jews demand
signs and Greeks seek wisdom]. So, Jesus promises them a sign, but they
clearly don’t understand what He is saying here in veiled
form- like the parables : “Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up!” The Jews are thinking about
this temple[3]
that took 46 years to build, from about
20 BC, and it was still being built in Jesus day, for it wasn’t finished until about 63 AD or so, only to be finally destroyed again in AD 70.
Jesus however, wasn’t
talking about that temple. He knew that this temple was going to be soon
destroyed, and He said so on a different occasion. [4]
He is now speaking about the temple of His own body. He is talking about His
death, burial and resurrection, which would all happen within a matter of three days. The reflective note from John
in v.22 shows us that the
disciples really only understood this
after His resurrection.
So then, the two big themes surrounding this portion of Scripture are
the temple cleansing and the
temple replacement.
Clearly Jesus has a
high regard for the old temple, and as far as
OT temple worship went, it was
designed to keep before
Israel the fact that God was dwelling here in their midst. Here in
this place He would hear their prayers, accept their guilt offerings and
sacrifices and extend His forgiveness. And in its day it was good and holy. And
when Jesus came on numerous occasions He was rightly offended about what He
saw, and He rightly took action.
But Jesus came to do so much, much more. He came to make all
things new. In 2: 1-12 we saw that He is the one who brought the joy of the fruit
of the new wine. In fact He is the vine (John
15). And now He
comes to rebuild the temple, and He is the Temple. When Jesus stands
before these Jews and their temple we must know that someone greater than Moses[5]
is here. Someone greater than the temple is here (Matt. 12:6).
So, Jesus’ statement in v.
19 is a huge statement that points to the abolishing to the formal temple
worship with all its sacrifices. This will come about as a result of His sacrifice on the cross. He will be both, the new and final sacrifice and the new, final and
lasting temple. In John 4 we
shall see Jesus speaking not only about a new temple, but about a
new and deeper way of worship- worship in spirit and in truth, and it
all holds together in Him . And that is
really the profoundest way in which we can understand John 1:14, “And the Word
became flesh and dwelt (lit. tabernacled) among us.” The tabernacle, the tent of meeting, designed
and constructed under Moses, was
the first place where God
regularly met with His people after the Exodus. This tabernacle
was erected at the heart of the camp. The Israelites camped around this
tabernacle in their divisions, 4 tribes on each side – north, east, south, west.
And John uses this word deliberately. Jesus came to tabernacle
in our midst and among us. He came into our midst, and those that see
Him for who He is, they are the ones who behold His glory. The true church today
gathers around Jesus, and in Jesus, to the glory of God the Father, in the power
of the Holy Spirit.
The apostle Peter
capitalizes on this thought of Jesus as the cornerstone, and a living stone and we also being living
stones being built into a spiritual
house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ. (1 Peter 2:4-6) The same
idea is implied by Paul in Ephesians
2:18-22.
And so, when the Jews were
seeing Jesus zealous for the
temple, they are asking Him, ”By what
authority are you doing this? What sign will you give us that you have this
authority?”
The sign that Jesus will give them is the sign of the cross,
and the sign of the resurrection. That's the only sign that Jesus will give.
But they will not come to Him to have life (John 5:40). This brings us to the last few verses in vv. 23-25, a bridging statement which
not only belongs to this text , but which also introduces us to the next section in Chapter
3.
JESUS WOULD NOT ENTRUST
HIMSELF TO THEM
There were some ready to believe certain signs. They liked
that He changed water into wine. But do you notice what it says in v. 24? “Jesus
on His part did not entrust Himself to them.” They were ready to believe in
Jesus for the things that He would do for them and for their convenience, but
Jesus will not accept as His disciples those who are not willing to embrace Him
for who He is. This is John’s purpose.
To show you Jesus – for who He really is!
Jesus knew human nature only too well. He knew that there
were many who were attracted only by the sensational things He did. He knew
that there were many who would only follow Him while He produced
signs, wonders and miracles, but as soon as He spoke about self - abandonment and
following Him, they left him on the spot (see John 6:66).
Jesus will not take you if you will
not follow Him. So, today before this Lord’s table, once again, or perhaps
even for the first time declare your clear allegiance to Him, who is the temple.
[3]
The first temple was built by Solomon
(see 1 Kings 6-7) ; the second temple
was rebuilt by the Jews returning from
their Babylonian captivity (Ezra 6:15) .It was the third temple, known as
“Herod’s Temple.” This temple was built by Herod, not so much to facilitate
Israel’s worship, but as an attempt to reconcile the Jews to their Idumaean
king.
[4]
See Olivet discourse in Matthew
24:1-2 where Jesus speaks about
the destruction of Herod’s temple
[5] Moses represents the
law- Christ is greater than Moses and the law Hebrews 3:1-6
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