The End of Withered Religion Part 1

Introduction

Children playing tag and having T for time out. This is how the unbelieving Israelites treated God’s temple. In contrast to this, Jesus showed what kind of worship he truly values and that the time of the old covenant in which unfaithfulness thrived was over. God was making his house a house of prayer for all the nations, whether the Jews were ready for it or not.

Religion Abused

After Jesus, the Christ, the promised King of God, comes into Jerusalem in a triumphant way being praised as the Son of David, it is no surprise that the first place he would go is to the Temple. After all, Jerusalem was not only the political centre of Israel but also the religious centre. It was spiritually called Mount Zion in the OT as the city which represented the assembled people of God. This was largely because of the presence of the Temple.

Although this was not Solomon’s Temple and in fact was the Temple built by King Herod, it continued to function as the place where God’s presence lived. In the Temple, the ceremonial religious activities took place. This is where sacrifices were made in order to symbolically maintain God’s peace and favour with his people. Now, in the OT prophets like Isaiah, God had made it clear that it was not the sacrifices themselves that God took pleasure in, but rather the faith and obedience that characterizes a heart that loves God.

Still, in the OT, or Old Covenant, it was a time of shadows and types. A time of symbols and rituals which represented greater spiritual truths. Hebrews 9:23 tells us that the Temple is a copy of the heavenly reality of where God’s presence dwells in the heavens. It represented how Christ, when he passed into the heavens after his resurrection, presented his sacrifice to the Father and it was acceptible as a sacrifice for sins. Heb 9:24

Hebrews 9:24 ESV

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

Now Kings in the ancient world were always seen to have a special connection with God. There was no distinction between the secular and the sacred when it came to politics, and kings were often thought of as gods in their own right. So a king approaching a temple is a pretty predictable thing to do. There, he will worship, fellowship with God, and received blessings to shepherd his people. However, what Jesus does here is what is surprising.

In a scene that has become very familiar to us who know the gospel stories well, Jesus begins to ransack tables belonging to those selling livestock and other goods in the Temple courts. Here, many people who came to Jerusalem from all around were able to purchase the livestock necessary for the cerimonies and sacrifices. Apparently, it was seen as appropriate to have this sort of cultic marketplace in the temple courts themselves. So, we should not think that when Jesus calls this a den of robbers that he is accusing them of technically committing theft.

So what is Jesus’ problem with what is going on? After all, it seems to serve the purpose, right? What brings out this response from Jesus? And not for the first time as John 2 tells us this had happened before.

First, it is not appropriate that the Temple is used as a place for opportunistic capitalism. The noise of buying and selling should not be interrupting those who have come to pray and worship. In fact, there is something just slimy about using the sacrificial system, a way God commanded his people to express worship towards him, as an opportunity to make a profit. We can perhaps think about large churches in the states with a bookstore at the front that features the latest book the pastor wrote at an inflated price, or of those who preach a so-called prosperity gospel where the gullible or desperate are promised God’s blessing only in response to sending money to their ministry. And by ministry what they mean is to their mansion or latest private jet. These certainly do apply to the scenario we are witnessing here.

However, this is not the primary point that Jesus is getting at. A helpful habit to get into is every time you see the NT quoting the OT, especially in Matthew or Hebrews, look at the footnote in your bible and go to the actual passage that is being quoted. What you’ll often find is that when the OT is quoted, it is assumed that the reader knows the context. This is because 1st century Jews memourized Scripture extensively and if you started to quote a passage, they would know the rest.

Here, Jesus is quoting two passages put together, as the NT authors often do to connect two OT ideas.

The first quotation comes from Isaiah 56:7. Although Matthew doesn’t quote the entire verse, but Mark does. In full, it says, My House shall be called a House of Prayer for all nations. This is a bizarre Scripture to quote, since non-Jewish people were not allowed into the Temple. In that passage, God was revealing through the Prophet Isaiah what the purpose of the Temple was, and indeed what the purpose of Israel was. In Ex 19:4 Israel is called a kingdom of priests. In other words, God’s purpose was always to bring his presence to all people, not just to Israel. God is always opening himself up to the world, not regulating himself. One of the chief believes of the protestant reformers was the God’s church was not limited to a single, human institution. Instead, the NC church exists everywhere where God’s people come together to worship and pray in the name of the risen Son of God. So God was revealing that his presence on earth was to be a place where all the nations could come together to pray. This theme is so extensively developed in the prophets it is impossible for us to go into all that is said, but you often have this image of the nations coming up Mount Zion to worship the God of Israel.

The second quotation comes from the passage we just read together in Jeremiah 7. Here, God is addressing the hypocritical and even superstitious way his worship was being approached by Israel. Another passage that expresses this is 1 Sam 4 where the Israelites, who were losing the war with the Philistines because of their disobedience to God, brought out the Ark of the Covenant as a superstitious good-luck charm that they thought would automatically give them victory. It did not. In Jer 7, the Israelites are putting all their hope into the fact that the temple is in Jerusalem. There’s no way that the Babylonian army could ever take or destroy Jerusalem because the Temple of God was here. Again, the Temple of God, a copy of a heavenly reality, is treated as little more than a good luck charm to keep Jerusalem safe. God says through Jeremiah 7:9-11

Jeremiah 7:9–11 ESV

Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.

In other words, calling the temple of den of robbers is not referring to actual theft, but to religious hypocrisy. In the same way that robbers go out and do their evil things and then come back to their secret lair where they are safe, the Israelites were going out and committing all kinds of wickedness only to come back to the Temple and think that they are safe.

So when we put these two passages together, from Isaiah and from Jeremiah, we see the full picture. The first quote refers to what God’s purpose for his temple is, and the second is the reality of how God’s people were treating it. Rather than it being a centre of worship from which to draw all nations to the worship of God, a light and city on a hill, the temple was being treated as a place to which the hypocrites retreat for safety from their just condemnation.

So Jesus’ problem here is not ultimately about bookstores in church lobbies. It is about the whole attitude towards what the temple, or the church, is. It is not a place for unrepentant and hypocritical self-righteous robbers to retreat to, it is a place where all the nations may come with sincere hearts to worship God in faith. It was not that animals were being sold, it was that the entire system of sacrificing had become such a trade and a habit to hide hypocrisy that true worship had left a long time ago.

True and False Religion Clash

With that in mind, the rest of our text shows the clash between hypocritical worship and the kind of worship God really loves.

Right after the cleansing of the temple from hypocritical worship, the blind and lame come to Jesus for healing. Here the true worshipers are found, and we are reminded that Jesus came to give rest to the needy. Here we see the difference between true worship and false. While the hypocrite use the temple as a place to hide their hypocrisy and sin, the true worshipers come to the presence of God for mercy and healing.

Do you see the difference between these two? One says, “I know I sinned this week, but I’m going to go to church, pray to God, take the table, and know my sins are forgiven. Then I’m fine to go ahead living my life the way I’ve been living it. The other comes into God’s presence saying, “I know I sinned this week, and I know I deserve hell. I know I deserve to be as far away from God’s presence as possible for the rest of eternity. But I know that Jesus saves sinners, and so I will go into his temple, the church (the people, not the building) and I will seek forgiveness and healing. I am the spiritually blind and the spiritually lame and I believe that Jesus will heal me so that I no longer go after sin like I did before; instead, I’ll be free to walk in the Spirit and serve my God with all my heart.”

Do you see the difference between these two people? I very much hope you do, because your eternity could rest on that. See the difference between the hypocrite and the repentant. It is the difference between the one who wants to be saved from hell and the one who wants to be saved from sin. The temple could not save the unbelieving Israelites the day that God’s wrath came for them in the form of a Babylonian army. It could not save the hypocritical and unbelieving Jews from the end of the old covenant system the day Rome burned Jerusalem to the ground, reducing the temple to rubble as it remains to this very day. Being baptized will not save you from your hypocrisy, from the sin you hide behind closed doors from which you come as a robber to his den to hide in safety from the punishment your sin deserves only to go out and do it again without a second thought. But for those who are here knowing their sin and weakness, looking for the one called Jesus who made the blind see, the lame walk, and saved sinners from their sin, they are the ones that this place is for.

Some churches treat alter calls like a robbers den. Some treat confession or the Lord’s Table like a robbers den, a place to escape the consequences of their sin. These set up tables like the ones Jesus flipped over; a place to conveniently continue in sin and unbelief while avoiding death and hell. Such things will not save them. God expects one thing from you, and one thing only. Humble, childlike, obedient faith. He knows you will stumble. He knows you won’t be perfect in a day, or even in a lifetime, but his mercy is for those who want to be truly healed of their sin, not just those who want a spiritual Advil to take the negative symptoms taken away.

But see how the chief priests, those men who were put in charge of the temple worship, respond. Of course they cannot say anything against the healing, but what of the children crying out the very things they heard in the streets just moments before: “Hosanna to the Son of David.” They speak to Jesus as if he should correct these children, since they obviously do not know how blasphemous their words are. Surely, Jesus should step in and correct them, tell them that he isn’t really the Son of David. But Jesus doesn’t do this, and more surprisingly Jesus goes on to quote Psalm 8. Why is this surprising? Because Psalm 8 is not a Psalm about the Messiah, or the Christ. It is not a Psalm directed at the King of Israel which was to come. Instead, it is a Psalm directed at God. The praise coming from the mouths of infants is not the praise of the Messiah, or praise for the Son of David, it is praise for God. Ps 8:1-2

Psalm 8:1–2 ESV

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

Once again, Jesus identity as God in human flesh is proven from Jesus’ own lips. While the priests hope that Jesus will correct the children in their praises for the Son of David, Jesus not only pushes back against them but goes even further to say that he is due the praises of God. That to praise the Son of David is to praise God himself, and he indeed will take those praises from the little children because they are right. Think about this, the children are right and the priests and theologians, the experts, are wrong. Why is this the case? Because through children Christ is putting to shame their withered religion. Look at this crowd of worshipers Jesus has picked up for himself; the lame and the blind in need of healing, and the children shouting his praise. It is not glorious or spectacular in the eyes of the flesh, but it is the kind of worship Jesus desires and invites. As he has been showing his disciples the need to be like children in order to enter the Kingdom of God, will he drive these youthful worshipers away for singing out the truth? Certainly not, and it is not surprise that those who worship in hypocrisy and treat God’s temple like a den of robbers do not like to see worship in its true form: the child, the broken, and the sick, coming in faith for help and singing the praises of the Christ, God in human flesh.

Conclusion

While the cleansing of the Temple does apply to the way Christianity has been marketed to Americans like Coca-Cola or McDonald's, its application is much broader than that. It applies to all attempts to make worshiping God about anything other than worshiping God. Some try to make Christian faith the place where the culture wars are waged, where Christianity becomes synonymous with conservative American politics. Or on the other side of the spectrum, those who use the love of God displayed so perfectly in the coming of Christ as proof that Jesus must be okay with gay marriage. On the individual level, many assure themselves that they are good with God because they prayed a prayer once, go to church, and tithe. These things do not get at the heart of the Christian faith any more than Temple worship did for the Pharisees and priests in Jesus day, or the Israelites in the time of Jeremiah.

There is only one good reason to be at church today, to call yourself a Christian, or to come a take of the Table in a few minutes. That reason is simply that you have been humbled by your sin, you want to be saved from it, and you believe that Jesus is the Christ who came to save us from our sins. That is it! Try to force anything else into the foundation of Christian faith, and you are bound to go off the rails.

Christ came to be with us, to tabernacle with us. When he left, he sent his Holy Spirit so that his divine presence may exist corporeally in the church. What is the church? It is the community of those whom come to Jesus singing the songs of children, coming with their blindness and sickness for healing, who come believing and yet seeking help for their unbelief. This is why we say faith alone. It is only faith that draws the true child of God to himself, while all others come with false pretenses.

If you have come like this, than rejoice in the Temple, for this community of saints is indeed the Temple of the Lord; a house of prayer for all nations. A place for the blind and lame to come and find healing, rest, and hope in Christ. A place where those with childlike faith come to sing the praises of the Son of David without shame or condemnation. Let us never be guilty of making this a haven for unrepentance, nor a hideout for hypocrisy. Let our love be genuine, for as we have received freely so let us freely give.

If you have not come to know Christ like the blind, lame, or like a child. If you have come here with a pretense of godliness all the while using it as a cover for unbelief and hypocrisy. Or you just have never come to confess the Lord Jesus Christ, know that this is a place for the sinner; for the weak and the sick seeking healing for their sinfulness. Come to Christ with a heart that knows he is the Son of David, God in human flesh who came in love to save us from our sin. Give yourself over to that simple faith and you can know that the merciful heart of Jesus will not pass you by.