The Cleansing of the Temple (Matt 21:12-22)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please turn it to Matthew 21:12-22.

As you know, we’ve taken a little bit of a break from our Genesis series to prepare our hearts and minds to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

To do so, we’ve taken the last week of Jesus’ life, which is often called Holy Week or the Passion Week and we’ve divided it up to work through during several sermons throughout the month leading up to Resurrection Sunday.

Last week, we spent the day dealing with the Triumphal Entry—I explained that while it did seem like the people were celebrating, worshiping, and praising Jesus, they really had a faulty understanding of what Messiah would do. Thus, they weren’t really praising or worshiping Jesus, they were praising or worshiping the Jesus that they had constructed in their own mind.

Chronologically, shortly after the triumphal entry, Jesus makes His way to the temple. And that’s where we pick things up today, but before we actually read the text, I do need to clarify one thing—something that has sometimes confused people.

There are four passages that record a cleansing of the temple. Three of those passages are in the books of the Bible that we refer to as synoptic Gospels—Matthew. Mark, and Luke. They’re called synoptic Gospels because they typically see the ministry of Jesus from generally the same point of view—so, they are all very similar, though not identical.

The Gospel according to John is different—it is not a synoptic Gospel, which means that it records things from a different perspective or a different point of view. That doesn’t mean that it’s wrong or anything that—it just means that it’s a little different.

So, keen-eyed readers of the Gospel accounts will note that the fourth record of a cleansing of the temple is in John, but it’s not during the same time period as Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all refer to a cleansing of the temple that occurs towards the end of Jesus’ ministry just prior to His death. John records a cleansing of the temple that occurs at the beginning of His ministry just after the wedding at Cana.

Now, skeptical scholars have claimed that this is an error in the text, but I think, if you were to take the time to read all four passages, you’d realize that it isn’t an error, but rather that Jesus cleansed the temple twice—not just once. John records the first time Jesus cleanses the temple; Matthew, Mark, and Luke record the second time that Jesus cleanses the temple.

This issue isn’t a priority to deal with today, but I do want you to know that skeptics have questioned the accounts of the cleansings of the temple, but there’s really no point to take their question seriously if you recognize that Jesus cleansed the temple twice.

With that said, let’s read the passage for today and I’ll explain how we’ll break it down:

Matthew 21:12–22 ESV

12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” 14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “ ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” 17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there. 18 In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. 20 When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” 21 And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. 22 And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

As we study this passage, we’re going to take the passage in two parts: (1) The Cleansing of the Temple (12-17) and (2) The Cursed Fig Tree (18-22). The first section you can tell is really tied in with the idea of the cleansing of the temple. You might be questioning why I’ve chosen to tie in the fig tree with the temple cleansing, but I think you’ll understand once we get a little further in the sermon. Contrary to what a lot of people believe, the fig tree has an important lesson for us that’s actually tied to the temple leadership and really Judaism as a whole during that time period; and it’s made more apparent as you keep working through Matthew 21-24, but for sake of time, I won’t go too much in-depth with all that.

What I hope you’ll see by the end of today’s message is that the temple needing cleansed wasn’t the primary issue—it was a symptom of the issue. The issue itself is illustrated by the fig tree. The reason why Jesus cleanses the temple twice was because the Jewish leadership were spiritually dead and in their spiritual deadness, their lack of fruit revealed itself by them turning the temple into a business. They had an appearance of life, like the fig tree, but at their root, they were dead, like the fig tree.

Prayer for Illumination

The Cleansing of the Temple (12-17)

The setting for this event is the temple itself:

However, let me clarify that they’re not actually in the temple temple.

They’re actually on the temple mount—so if you have this image of Jesus being inside an actual temple structure, you have a misconception of where He actually is.

The temple mount includes flat land around the temple structure itself—it was built by King Herod, who had built it essentially in an effort to win over the Jewish people—in fact, at this time in the New Testament, the temple mount itself wasn’t even finished—construction-wise—but that’s where Jesus is.

And on that temple mount was a large group of people who were buying and selling—that alone wasn’t necessarily a bad thing—this isn’t necessarily a condemnation against all types of commerce near the temple, but rather of a certain manner of commerce that Jesus describes as robbery.

The people selling were vastly overcharging for what they were selling, which is why Jesus is so quick to call it a den of robbers.

And all this ties into the sacrificial system of the temple—consider what these people are selling—they’re selling animals that were utilized for sacrifices to the Lord.

Or, in other words, during the time leading up to the Passover, they recognize that there are thousands of Jewish people coming into the city who are going to need a sacrificial animal to give to the temple priests—so, what do they do? They raise all the prices to make a fortune—again, they’re fleecing the people to make a quick dollar.

So, Jesus, who is God—the person who is foreshadowed through the giving of these sacrifices because He is the God who atones for sin in His own sacrifice, sees all that is happening and in righteous anger, drives out all these people and He overturns the tables.

Now, I get that there’s a joke that floats around on social media—the meme is essentially, “what would Jesus do?” Well, flipping over tables is an option, but there’s an issue in that meme in that those who joke in that way typically don’t recognize that Jesus has a right to do what He does in this situation.

Often, when we’re in a mood to flip over tables and yell at people, it’s not done in righteousness, it’s done in sin.

Jesus, however, does this in absolute righteousness while quoting a passage from Isaiah (that’s actually rather beautiful because it speaks of all nations coming together to worship the Lord), let me read that passage to you: “‘Also the foreigners [non-Jews] who join themselves to the LORD, to attend to His service and to love the name of the LORD, to be His servants, every one who keeps the Sabbath . . . And holds firmly to My covenant; even those I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar; for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.’ The Lord GOD, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, declares, ‘I will yet gather others to them, to those already gathered.’” (NASB)

Jesus, in His cleansing of the table expressly speaks about how the temple, the house of the Lord is intended for all people of all nations of all backgrounds to come and worship and pray.

The moneychangers have essentially turned the Lord’s temple into a place available only to those who could afford to be there—and it is filthy and sinful.

Now, as the text continues, we quickly move from the cleansing of the temple itself to Jesus healing people. In v. 14, we see that “the blind and the lame came to [Jesus] in the temple, and he healed them.”

We’re not really told too many details about the healing aspect of these people—however, based on other events of when Jesus healed people in the New Testament, we could make a few assertions:

First, these people certainly had these ailments—they weren’t faking. These people were genuinely blind and lame.

Second, these people were healed not because of themselves, but simply because Jesus decided to—consider the few instances in which Jesus doesn’t always heal everybody. He chose to heal these people.

Third, like every other instance that Jesus healed in the New Testament, part of the reason was to confirm who He was and is.

We see this confirmation as the people respond to Him.

The people witness the healing and they start crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” — that’s again, the idea of crying out for salvation with the Son of David element dealing with the Messiah.

They seem to recognize who He is at least to some extent.

But, of course, the Jewish leadership aren’t very happy about the situation. vv. 15-16 says that the chief priests and scribes saw what Jesus did and heard the children crying out in the temple “and they [confronted Jesus], ‘Do you hear what these are saying?’”

That’s not meant to be a happy thing—they’re not asking Jesus in an excited way, “hey, do you hear them? check this out!” They are confronting Him.

And as I said last week, if they were right—that Jesus was just another man—they would’ve been right to confront Him, but Jesus isn’t just a man—He’s fully man and fully God.

And He deserves the children crying out to Him because He is God.

But the chief priests and scribes don’t believe Him to be God—so they reject Him and they reject what the children are crying out to Him—they’re still missing every sign that’s pointing to the Messiah.

And Jesus’ response to them before heading out of the city is to quote Scripture, “Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise.” Jesus quotes from Psalm 8 to respond to the scribes and chief priests.

The psalm states, “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.” (ESV)

The psalm continues with “When I look at your heaven, the work of your fingers, the moon and the starts, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (ESV)

The translation that Jesus is quoting Psalm 8:2 from is the LXX. In it, Psalm 8 makes the implication that the praise given by these children, by babies and infants is given to God alone.

It reads, ἐκ στόματος νηπίων καὶ θηλαζόντωνκατηρτίσω αἶνον ἕνεκα τῶν ἐχθρῶν σου τοῦκαταλῦσαι ἐχθρὸν καὶ ἐκδικητήν

From the mouths of children and infants You have ordained praise (LXX, Ps 8:2)

There’s an implication by Jesus in the way that He responds by quoting the Greek translation rather than the Hebrew, in which He makes clear that it is right for these children to be praising Him because He is God and He deserves the praise that should only be given to God because He is God and He has ordained these children to praise Him.

It’s a beautiful thought, if you think about it—that God ordains the very praise that He receives of Himself.

After this situation in the temple, Jesus retreats to Bethany to rest for the night. We don’t really get too many details about what all that entails—and I’d argue that that’s intentional. We often tend to get tripped up in details, but if the details aren’t necessarily there, it forces us to consider what happens next. Look at vv. 18-22 with me.

The Cursed Fig Tree (18-22)

Matthew 21:18–22 ESV

18 In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. 20 When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” 21 And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. 22 And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

In the remaining five verses we read a somewhat unusual situation concerning a fig tree. Jesus get’s hungry, sees a fig tree, notices that the fig tree doesn’t have any fruit whatsoever, and He curses the tree.

It’s a rather unusual event that a lot of Christians today tend to be confused about—if you ask the average Christian what they should make of this, they usually don’t have a response. The issue is that the disciples witness what’s happening, and I’m going to argue that they completely missed the point.

The disciples see everything that happened and all they think of is the temporal. They see the miracle and think, “what in the world, what just happened, how is this possible?”

Jesus responds by saying if they genuinely have faith, they’re going to do much more than just whither a fig tree—and let me clarify something, some have taken this to mean that they will do miraculous things just like this. I take it to mean that the things that Jesus has commissioned His people to do—to make disciples, to evangelize, to disciple, to equip the saints, to do what the church is intended to do, Jesus says is far better than temporal miracles like this.

I think that’s why the text ends with the idea of faith and prayer—it isn’t necessarily about doing temporal miracles—it’s about doing what you’re called to do and God blessing and giving fruit through the ordinary means of everyday life.

But again, let me explain why the disciples seemed to have completely missed the point.

In the Old Testament, there are three references that compare Israel to fig trees. God utilizes fig trees to discuss the spiritual health of Israel in three different prophetic writings:

In Hosea 9:10, “Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your father.” (ESV) Meaning, God recalls His early delight in Israel by comparing them to the first ripe fig—something desirable.

In Jeremiah 24, Jeremiah sees two baskets of fix: one with very good figs and one with very bad figs. The good figs symbolically represent the obedient Jewish people who were exiled and would be restored, while the bag figs represent the rebellious Israelites that were left in the land of Egypt. It’s a metaphor to show the divided spiritual condition of Israel and God’s response to both.

In Micah 7:1, we read, “Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires.” It’s a lament from God that the people weren’t producing the spiritual fruit that God desire.

When Jesus walks up to a fig tree, it isn’t by random, it’s meant to connect the use of fig trees from the Old Testament with the New Testament and when considered in light of all that happened in the temple, it all makes sense.

Often, people look at just what happened at the temple and so they derive all their idea of the cleansing of the temple from those few verses, but if you look at the context—the moneychangers in the temple, the corruption of the temple—those issues aren’t the primary problem, they’re symptoms of the problem.

The primary problem that Jesus is pointing out—that Jesus is confronting—is that the Jewish leaders and even many of the Jewish people are spiritually dead. The problem is that the leadership and most of the people are spiritually dead and everything that happened in the temple is the bad fruit of being spiritually dead.

Now, you might hear that and think, “but all the people, they’re still going to the temple, they’re still participating in the Passover, they’re still giving to the temple, they’re still doing everything they’re supposed to do.” And that’s precisely the point.

The fig tree looked like a healthy tree—it had leaves, it wasn’t yet wilted, it was sturdy in its composition, but it didn’t have fruit. It had the appearance of being alive, but it was really dead.

The Jewish people look like a healthy people of God—they still go to the temple, they still participate, they look sturdy in their understanding of Judaism, they still seem to be doing what they’re supposed to do. They had the appearance of being spiritually alive, but they’re really spiritually dead.

Jesus, through means of symbolism and illustration just compared the spiritually dead Israelites to a physically dead tree—that’s the point, but His disciples completely miss that point.

That’s why, in the last few verses, Jesus switches the conversation to deal with prayer and faith. Why does Jesus do this? It’s simple:

Jesus sometimes meets people where they’re at when it comes to conversations like this.

For instance, consider how Jesus speaks in parables throughout His ministry. To the average person—they’re not ready for truth, so Jesus speaks in a way that only those who are ready comprehend and everyone else just hears a nice story.

Likewise, Jesus recognized that His disciples weren’t ready to hear the spiritual reality of the deadness of the Israelites, so He focuses on issues of faith and prayer instead.

But it’s the issue of spiritual deadness that drives the primary point of the text; and thus, our application is tied into the issue of an appearance of life that really just masks spiritual death. The fig tree, much like the Jewish leadership in the temple—gave an appearance of life, but ultimately wasn’t alive. And due to the spiritual deadness of the Jewish leadership, there was rampant corruption in the temple—as people were fleeced by the money-changers. Now, let’s contextualize that for our own benefit.

Application

We live in a culture that prizes busyness.

Many of us are busy from the moment that we wake up until the moment that we fall asleep—and there’s an underlying sense that people who are very busy must be very important or something along those lines.

And so, we think, if we’re constantly busy, we look important, we look successful, we’re the top of our game.

The issue is that many of us apply that same mindset to our Christian life—so, we think, if we stay abundantly busy doing “ministry-related things” that we must be spiritually healthy and filled with spiritual life.

Practically, that looks like this:

Every time the church doors are open, you’re there. Anytime there’s an outreach opportunity, and evangelism opportunity, an opportunity to serve, you’re there.

Whenever anyone needs any help with anything, you’re there. Someone needs help with their car, you think, “the Christian thing for me to do is to drop everything and help them.” Someone needs help fixing their gutters, you think, “Jesus would be upset with me if I didn’t go right now and help.”

And so, you’re hectically busy doing a hundred different things in the name of caring for your neighbors and attending everything that your church offers (and sometimes even what other churches offer).

So, you assume you’re spiritually healthy.

The issue is that much like busyness in the secular world, busyness in the spiritual world can very easily mask health concerns.

In the secular world, busyness easily hides issues concerning mental, emotional, and spiritual illnesses—at least, until the person can’t take it anymore and snaps.

In the spiritual world, busyness easily hides issues concerning mental, emotional, and spiritual health—at least, until the person can’t take it anymore and just gives up.

Or, said differently, being excessively busy doing the church or the Christian thing—doesn’t mean that you’re spiritually healthy. It just means that you’re excessively busy and often being excessively busy will hide that spiritually, you’re dead inside.

Like the Jewish people in the first century, you’re going through the motions, but you either don’t actually believe or you’re so spiritually stunted that you’re quite literally just going through the motions. Activity doesn’t equate spiritual life or health.

And while I do hope for everyone to be at everything that our church hosts or does, the reality is that you can attend every single thing that the church does and be just as spiritually dead as the chief priests and scribes of Jesus’ day—and our goal, as a church, is to help you be spiritually healthy, not dead inside.’

Being busy doesn’t mean you’re healthy—in fact, it often can hide the fact that you’re spiritual unhealthy or even spiritually dead.

Now, before I dig deeper into that, I do also want to point out that on the flip-side, a lack of activity almost always reveals spiritual sickness as well.

How do we know this? Because James makes it abundantly clear that true faith results in good works. Jesus tells us that good trees produce good fruits—that’s actually part of how we’re to determine whether someone is a false teacher or not—by whether or not there are good fruits being produced by them.

While busyness can mask your lack of spiritual health, a lack of activity—a lack of church attendance (or sporadic church attendance), an unwillingness to serve in any capacity, lack of love towards others that results in you helping them when they need help—all these things reveal a lack of spiritual health.

If you’re spiritually healthy, you will fellowship with other believers through regular church attendance, you’ll pray and worship together, you’ll participate in church-related events and even the ordinances together. If you’re spiritually healthy, you will want to serve somehow regularly, you’ll want to help your neighbors because you love your neighbors.

But, be careful to not assume that just because you do these things that you are spiritually healthy—you could be going through the motions and you could be spiritually dead or spiritually ill.

Now, with that in mind, you might ask, “am I spiritually dead or spiritually ill?” And truthfully, I can’t really answer that for you completely—I can give you my best estimate based on the fruits in your life, but this is really more of a question between you and God. And that’s where are application really takes root today. Consider your own heart, your own spiritual life, your own activity.

First off, if you’ve repented of your sins, you’ve believed, you’ve cried out to Jesus and you’re resting on the blessed hope of a future eternity with Him because of His substitutionary atonement for your sins, don’t fear, you’re not spiritually dead.

Prior to your salvation, you were spiritually dead in your trespasses and sins, you were spiritually unable to understand the things of God, you were hostile to God—you were His enemy.

When the Holy Spirit regenerated you, He removed your heart of stone and gave you a heart of flesh, He made you spiritually alive, He gave you new birth, He saved you.

So, if you’re genuinely a believer, you’re genuinely following Jesus Christ, it’s not a question of you being spiritually alive or dead—you are alive in Jesus Christ.

The question is, are you spiritually healthy? And I think you can determine whether you’re spiritually healthy by asking yourself a few questions:

What do I love the most? — the first and greatest command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Admittedly, we don’t always love God perfectly—our sin nature often prevents us from doing so. However, if we regularly find ourselves loving other things, other people, our sins—if our affections are regularly towards things that aren’t God or is anti-God, we can readily make the argument that we’re not spiritually healthy. If we’re spiritually healthy, our affections ought to be pointing towards Jesus Christ and they ought to be growing towards Him.

Do I exhibit fruit? — this refers to both the fruit of the Spirit as well as the fruits of good works. So, am I growing in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? By the way, that’s not a menu—you can’t just choose that you’re only going to be kind or only going to be gentle. The more you follow Jesus, the more you should exemplify these fruit. In addition, am I doing good work as fruit of my salvation? Or do I have nothing to show for the fact that I believe?

How is my prayer life? — do I actually spend time in prayer, speaking to God through Jesus Christ while empowered by the Holy Spirit? Or, is prayer just something that I occasionally do when I remember to do it? Do I regularly and actively spend time communing with God in prayer or is it something that I only do when I sit down to eat food or right before I go to bed? Or worse yet, do I only intentionally pray when I’m sitting at church?

How do I respond to sin? — do I love my sin so much that I feel little conviction when I sin? Do I try to figure out ways for me to keep sinning? Or do I hate my sin so much that every time I stumble in sin, it almost makes me sick? Am I quick to recognize when I sin and run to repentance? Or do I just keep sinning and repentance is the furthest thing from my mind?

Do I depend on God? — do I actually rely on Him to meet my needs, to provide for me, to lead me and direct me? Or do I rely on myself to meet all my needs, to provide for me, to lead me and to direct me? Am I growing in dependence towards God or am I wholly relying on my own autonomous ability instead?

Am I growing in love for Christ and HIs people? Do I confess sin and seek to kill sin in my life? Do I desire the Word of God and prayer, even if I struggle to be consistent? Do I treasure the Gospel and run to it daily? Do others see spiritual fruit in my life—even if I don’t always feel it?

Or, is your activity—your busyness masking your lack of spiritual health?

The problem that necessitated the cleansing of the temple wasn’t that they were corrupt or that they were doing things that they shouldn’t have been doing in the temple. Those were all symptoms of their spiritual state—the moneychangers, the response of the Jewish leadership, those are the fruits of a spiritually dead or spiritually unwell people.

What do your fruits reveal? Are you spiritually alive? Are you spiritually dead? Are you spiritually healthy? Or are you spiritually unwell?

Consider your heart, consider your spiritual life, consider your fruit.

Only Jesus can make dead trees live again. Only Jesus can make you spiritually healthy. If you find you’re bearing no fruit, don’t decorate the branches—run to the Savior.