Demonstrating His Deity
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
Intro:
AG: SILLY SIGNS
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TS: The Passover. This is the 1st of 3 Passovers John references in the gospel. This was customary for devout Jewish males over 12 and even spelled out in the Law.
This is the 1st time, but not the only time Jesus cleanses the Temple. We know He does it at least 1 other time close to the end of His days on Earth, and some have suggested even more. Jesus shook their traditions to their foundations. They had allowed a change to occur.
God Temple Design had drifted until extra rooms and courtyards were added. These were used to segregate gentiles, from Jews, and then Jewish women from men.
RS:
Today we will see where Christ demonstrates His deity in this narrative. The first way is:
1. His Passion for Reverence
1. His Passion for Reverence
A. The Cleansing of the Temple
A. The Cleansing of the Temple
The Wickedness
After this He went down to Capernaum, He, His mother, His brothers, and His disciples; and they did not stay there many days.
Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business.
Jesus finds dishonest merchants selling animals in the Temple
MacArthur Study Bible NASB (Commentary)
During the celebration of Passover, worshipers came from all over Israel and the Roman Empire to Jerusalem. Because many traveled large distances, it was inconvenient to bring their sacrificial animals with them.
Opportunistic merchants, seeing a chance to provide a service and probably eyeing considerable profit during this time, set up areas in the outer courts of the temple in order for travelers to buy animals.
The money changers were needed because the temple tax, paid annually by every conscientious Jewish male 20 years of age or older (Ex 30:13, 14; Mt 17:24–27), had to be in Jewish or Tyrian coinage (because of its high purity of silver).
Those coming from foreign lands would need to exchange their money into the proper coinage for the tax. The money changers charged a high fee for the exchange.
With such a large group of travelers and because of the seasonal nature of the celebration, both the animal dealers and money exchangers exploited the situation for monetary gain
Religion had become crass and materialistic.
The Temple Mafia was making money off of every step!
The Whip
When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables.
He makes a whip out of ropes and drives out the wicked
The circumstance of this first cleansing and the one at the end of His ministry are different and thus won’t match up as some try to make them the same.
They both serve as bookends of His public ministry and demonstrate he is Messiah
Sadly, the Jewish nation as a whole never recognized His Messianic authority.
Jesus drove both men and animals out the Temple.
The holiness of God and His worship were stake!
This gives us just a glimpse of the Righteous Judge
B. The Condemnation of the Thieves
B. The Condemnation of the Thieves
The scoundrels He faces
And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!”
He accuses them of turning the house of prayer into a market!
Many accuse Jesus of being vindictive and showing uncontrollable rage here. (Or ignore this with the weak watered down Jesus who never confronts sin.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
We see Godly wrath here unleashed against wickedness just as it has been throughout the Scripture
He whipped the men who were perverting the house of prayer and making a den of thieves!
The Scripture He Fulfills
Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”
This had been predicted in Psalm 69:9 and here quoted
Because zeal for Your house has eaten me up, And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.
“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, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the Lord of hosts.
“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 launderers’ soap.
He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, And purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer to the Lord An offering in righteousness.
AP: Patterns Noticed
In cleansing the Temple, Jesus brought forth God’s standard of what is right and what is wrong and placed it in the top priority over humanity’s standard.
We must do the same!
Israel had drifted into this state. Let us avoid their mistakes!
Guard against drift
They started making God’s design more elaborate and added to it
Then they drifted from the temple’s purpose
We can easily do the same
It is easy to drift away from the Word and to the World
We must constantly make course corrections by checking ourselves against the Word of God.
We are not here to feel good, forget our troubles or be seen
We are here for God’s Glory
The second way John demonstrated Christ’s deity in the temple cleansing:
2. His Power over Death Through Resurrection
2. His Power over Death Through Resurrection
A. The ignorance of the Jewish leaders
A. The ignorance of the Jewish leaders
The Sign Demanded
So the Jews answered and said to Him, “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?”
The insist the Jesus work a miracle to validate His authority from God
They clearly missed the fact that His actions was a sign!
The Sign Described
Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
They return to this during His trial accusing Him of threatening the Temple. This demonstrates they did not grasp what He was really saying.
The Sign Distorted
Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?”
But He was speaking of the temple of His body.
The Sign Discerned
Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.
Jesus was already pointing to His death, burial and resurrection
AP: Patterns to Follow
Believe the Gospel for what it is
Faith in who Jesus is
God in the Flesh
Faith in What He did
Died for our sins
Rose again
Faith in His promise
All who believe receive eternal life
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
That is the point of the Gospel
The 3rd way His deity is demonstrated here is
3. His Perception of Reality
3. His Perception of Reality
Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.
But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men,
and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.
Many in Jerusalem professed belief, but had insincere motives.
MacArthur Study Bible NASB (Commentary)
Because of what they knew of Jesus from His miraculous signs, many came to believe in Him.
However, Jesus made it His habit not to wholeheartedly “entrust” or “commit” Himself to them because He knew their hearts.
Verse 24 indicates that Jesus looked for genuine conversion rather than enthusiasm for the spectacular.
This part of why at the first of His ministry we see thousands following Him and on the day of Pentecost, we see 120 still there.
It is easy to pay lip service to God, but there are far to many for whom that is all it is,
A claim of faith, without a genuine repentance and trust.
Faith is far more than just an intellectual assent.
But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!
But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
We demonstrate our faith through our works
Make no mistake, our works do NOTHING in regards to earning our salvation
However, real faith leads to changed life!
For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.
The final proof any man can have of the fact that he is a Christian is that he keeps, and delights in keeping, and goes on keeping, the commandments of the Lord.
Walking with God, 55
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
AP: Have genuine faith and live out the gospel!
You may fool fellow humans
you can talk the part of being a disciple
You can imitate the part of being a disciple
BUT, you can never work your way into being a disciple
It is all of grace through faith
But real faith, brings real change in our lives
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
not of works, lest anyone should boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Intellectual assent makes us sound and act like disciples but only on the surface
Real faith makes us a new creature!
our very nature is changed
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
Guard against drift
Believe the gospel
Live out the Gospel