Turning Over Tables
Notes
Transcript
13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 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. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.
Tonight we are finishing up the second chapter of John’s Gospel. Jesus has just performed his first miracle at the wedding in Cana showing his power over creation by turning water into wine. And tonight we will see him focusing on something new, the Passover feast. This will be our first time seeing Him in Jerusalem in His adult public ministry and his first trip to the Temple during his ministry and also his first clash with the Jewish Leaders in His public ministry. And in this, we may see things that surprise us about Jesus. Things that we often do not focus on, or we gloss over, or just forget. So let’s look at our text tonight as we look at Christ turning over the tables. It’s found in .
13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 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. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.
Jesus went up to Jerusalem for the Passover. This is the first of three Passover feasts that we will see in John’s Gospel. The others being in and .
Jesus went up to Jerusalem for the Passover. This is the first of three Passover feasts we will see in John’s Gospel. The others being in and .
Since the Passover plays such a central role in John’s Gospel, I think we need to better understand the history and significance of the feast. The Passover was the major feast in Jewish religion. There were many other feasts that the Jews observed but this was the most important, the most holy. Of course, we know that the passover served as a remembrance of the tenth plague in .
That first Passover, of course, brought the death of the firstborn of Egypt but Israel was spared. In turn, in the last Passover in John we will see the ultimate Passover with Christ serving as the perfect lamb sacrifice and by His blood the Lord passes over those who believe in His name, the true Israel of God.
In the original Passover we see specific instructions given to the Hebrews about what they were supposed to eat and what they were supposed to do. So let’s look in Exodus chapter 12.
Exodus 12:
1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. 10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
14 “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. 15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. 17 And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. 18 In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. 19 For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. 20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”
And as we know, the first Passover set the stage for the Lord to strike the firstborn of Egypt dead. And a cry went out from the land as had never been heard before. That first Passover caused Pharaoh to release the Hebrews to go from the land. And, of course, we know that only lasted for a short time but they met their destruction at the Red Sea. But the Passover feast was to serve two purposes. It was to serve as a remembrance for what the Lord had accomplished in Egypt. And, as we now know, it was a foreshadow and a looking forward to what would happen at Calvary centuries later.
This feast was a big deal. People would be travelling to Jerusalem to make a pilgrimage to the Temple to make sacrifice for the Passover. It is in this context we find this passage tonight.
Jesus was making this same pilgrimage as He would every Passover during his public ministry. Verse 13.
13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
As I said, Jesus would make this pilgrimage every year of His public ministry. But this is something that He had been doing long before that. In fact, He had done this His whole life.
41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.
Now in that passage we see the boy Jesus, 12 years old, teaching in the temple. It would be our last knowledge of Him before His public ministry began in .
But here we have Him again going up to Jerusalem for the Passover as He would do every year and what He found in the Temple Courts disgusted Him.
John 2:
14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 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. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”
Now we see Jesus cleansing the Temple in John’s Gospel as well as the three synoptic Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke. Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the synoptics because they generally follow the same patterns and historical records with great similarities. John is the oddball of the group.
So there are two major schools of thought on the synoptic version of the cleansing compared to John’s account. The first of these is that the accounts in the synoptics is the same account as the one given in John and John has merely changed the timeline for theological purposes. The other school of thought is that Jesus cleansed the Temple not once, but twice.
There are problems with the first view. The synoptics put their cleansing of the Temple during the passion week at the end of Christ’s ministry, John puts it at the beginning of Christ’s ministry. But there are other significant differences as well. Let’s look at Mark’s account of Jesus cleansing the Temple.
15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
So let’s look at the differences. In John he makes a whip of cords and drives them out. In the synoptics he immediately starts turning over the tables. In the synoptics, Jesus cites two Old Testament passages. The first being .
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.”
The second passage that he cites is
11 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 John’s Gospel he tells them to stop making his Father’s house a house of trade. There is a reference to the Old Testament in John’s Gospel but it is what his disciples remembered from .
9 For zeal for your house has consumed me,
and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
So I think we have to look at these events as two separate events as the accounts are very different.
But I want us to understand the scene that we are looking at. We are at the Passover week, hundreds of thousands of Jews are filtering into Jerusalem to head to the Temple mount to make sacrifice and pay the temple tax.
The Temple tax was an annual tax that adults had to give each year. It was a census tax that was commanded in .
11 The Lord said to Moses, 12 “When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. 13 Each one who is numbered in the census shall give this: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as an offering to the Lord. 14 Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the Lord’s offering. 15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the Lord’s offering to make atonement for your lives. 16 You shall take the atonement money from the people of Israel and shall give it for the service of the tent of meeting, that it may bring the people of Israel to remembrance before the Lord, so as to make atonement for your lives.”
Now I want to make sure we are clear that the collecting of this tax is not what Jesus was upset about. We know this because Christ paid the tax himself.
24 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” 25 He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” 26 And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. 27 However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.”
Jesus had no problem with the tax. It was commanded, it was part of the Law and, remember, Jesus kept the Law perfectly throughout His life. The only one to do so. So these money-changers are here to change out the money from foreign money, coming from Rome and other locations, to the approved coinage that was acceptable for the tax. This was to be the coinage of Tyre. Tyrinian coins. There are a couple of reasons given for this. Some believe that it was to make sure they were not offering coins with pagan images on them as sacrifice at the Temple, others say it was due to the quality and purity of the Tyrinian coins, some say it was both. But whatever the reason, the money had to be changed out.
What Jesus was objecting was that this was being done on the Temple grounds themselves as well as the selling of animals for sacrifices. This was an outright assault on the holiness of the Temple. What should have been a holy place, a place fully devoted to God, it became a market, a place for men to make gain.
These money-changers and merchants overcharged for these animals, added interest on exchange of money. It was corrupt, it was a money making machine and they knew people would pay because they had to make the sacrifices and they had to exchange the money. It was corruption at the deepest level taking advantage of the Jewish religion.
Jesus sees this and gets angry.
John 2:
14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 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. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”
He is infuriated by what He sees going on in the Temple, His Father’s house. He makes a whip and drives them out of the Temple, dumps the coins on the floor, turns over tables. This is not a passive, timid, shy action. This is abrupt, bold, fierce, authoritative action. And we see a few things in this.
First, being angry is not a sin. There are things that we must necessarily be angry at. We should be angry when we see people go against God, defame His name, desecrate His house and His people. That means being angry when there is injustice towards people who are all made in the image of God. This is why Paul quotes when he wrote to the Ephesians.
Ephesians 4:
26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
Righteous anger is not a sin. But we must not let our anger turn into bitterness, the next verses in Ephesians say:
Eph 4.27
27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Jesus was not sinning by being angry and cleansing the Temple. This was a righteous anger.
The second thing we see from this is that Jesus was not politically correct. We live in a politically correct culture. A culture that says you cannot question the established practices and accepted thought. You must be tolerant. Of course that is ironic since the culture does not tolerate biblical Christianity.
You know I graduated from Liberty University and when I first started at had a T-Shirt that said “Liberty University, Politically Incorrect since 1971.” It was a cute saying on a shirt but it made a big point. To stand on truth, to stand up for the Gospel, the speak biblical truth we must necessarily be politically incorrect. And we should not be ashamed about it. As Paul said
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In fact, to be ashamed of the Gospel, to be more worried about being politically correct is dangerous. Look at .
38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
We cannot be ashamed, we should not be timid, shy, or afraid to offend. Do you think Jesus was worried about the money-changers and merchants getting offended when he started turning everything upside down? I don’t think so.
We must be bold. We must proclaim the truth. I think we so often hear about the love and compassion of Christ. Everyone says “What would Jesus do?” Well that is a great question, but we should look at everything Jesus did, not just the parts that give us warm fuzzy feelings inside.
At the same time we need to be careful about what we do. We need to make sure we are biblically correct in all that we say and do before we go out and turn over some tables. And remember, we must always take the log out of our own eye before we remove the speck from another.
But we need to take special note of something John points out here. Jesus is turning over tables, chasing out animals. Now oxen and sheep would be easy to round up. Doves and pigeons are another story. But notice he did not drive out the birds. Look in verse 16.
16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”
He was not out to hurt the money-changers. He wasn’t out to destroy property. He told those with birds to take them away. He didn’t release them. In His righteous anger, he still took care to not hurt physically. Yes, I am sure their pride and feelings were hurt, as they should have been, but they did not suffer any real loss, no real harm. Again, we need to be wise when we go to rebuke, when we go to turn over the tables so to speak. But we should not shy away from speaking the truth and standing up for God and the Scriptures.
This cleansing of the Temple also showed again that He is the Messiah. Verse 17.
17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
This is a quote from
9 For zeal for your house has consumed me,
and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
Again, John writes all of this to show the Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior, and that we might believe in His name.
Jesus has now started a ruckus by every definition of the word. The Jewish leaders, they want answers. Verse 18.
18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”
What sign will you show us? What they are really saying is the same thing they said to John the Baptist in chapter one. What they are really saying is, “What authority do you have to do this!?” Who are you? Who do you think you are to come into our Temple and to disrupt everything?
Well, as usual, Jesus had an answer for them.
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
Now we will see that the Jews had no idea what Jesus was talking about. This statement confused them. Verse 20
20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”
You see, the Temple that they were standing in was not yet complete. In fact, it would not be complete until after AD 60 just a few short years before it was destroyed by the Romans. Up to this point, the Temple had been under construction. It had been 46 years to get to the point that it was now at. It was functional, usable, but not complete. Yet Jesus is now saying that if they destroy the Temple he will raise it back up in three days. Of course, the Jews did not know what Jesus was referring to. Verse 21.
21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
Jesus was foretelling about His death and resurrection. From the very beginning of His ministry Jesus knew His purpose. It was not something He was discovering. He knew exactly why He was there. He was going to redeem mankind.
The Jews, however, did remember what Jesus had said here, that he would rebuild the Temple in three days. In fact, they used his words to mock him during his trial and at the cross.
59 Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, 60 but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward 61 and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’ ”
Matthew 26:59-
38 Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. 39 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” 41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ”
Matthew 27:38-
They used his own words against him to give false witness about him, to mock him, to discredit him. Talking about things they knew nothing about.
But it wasn’t just the Jewish leaders who did not understand what Jesus was talking about. Clearly, his disciples did not know what he was talking about either. Verse 22:
22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
It was not until later that the disciples understood. We have to remember that they did not even quite understand at the time of the crucifixion, they did not understand even when told about the resurrection. At the crucifixion, only John, the author of our text tonight, was mentioned among the people present at the cross. Peter had denied Christ three times during his trial. And after the resurrection they still did not understand. .
9 and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, 11 but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
They did not immediately understand what happened at the resurrection. They had not put two and two together. But we know that they did get it eventually.
22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
The Scripture being referenced is likely . And I’m reading this verse from the New Living Translation.
10 For you will not leave my soul among the dead
or allow your holy one to rot in the grave.
The Scriptures told the Jews, and anyone else who would read and believe, exactly what would happen to Christ. It is no secret! God had been foreshadowing Christ’s death and resurrection for centuries.
We see it in Abraham and Isaac, the story of Joseph and his brothers, we see it in the Passover of Exodus, we see it in the sacrificial system, we see it in the Psalms as we just read, we read about it in the prophets. It is no secret what God’s plan was and the disciples now remembered this. This was always God’s plan. And what a great plan it was.
When we think about what God did for us, sending Jesus to stand in our place to die on that cross bearing its shame, and then to be risen from the dead making Him the conqueror of sin and death we should realize that we owe anything and everything to God. It is the most beautiful love story ever told here.
That’s the best story we have here on this Sunday before Valentine’s day. The story of redemption is one big love story. What a great and loving God we serve!
The last three verses of chapter two serve as a bridge to the truths that are going to unfold with Jesus and Nicodemus in chapter three.
23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.
These verses are crucial for us to understand what is to come next. It says that many were believing when they saw the signs of what He was doing. This was a shallow faith, a superficial faith, not saving faith. They were not entrusting their salvation to Him. They were not relying on Him for the justification of their souls, to take away their sin.
Jesus, therefore, did not entrust himself to them. He knew what was in their hearts. He knew that they did not truly believe in Him and who He was.
Saving faith is more than just a head knowledge or some spurious moment of awe and wonder. Saving faith is the full entrusting of oneself to Christ. It is to truly make Him Lord of your life.
And we will see this more when we get into chapter three.
But what we need to take away is the boldness of Christ. We need to boldly stand for truth. We need to trust the Scriptures. We need to know that Christ has been raised from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
Let us pray.