Jesus and the Cleansing of the Temple

John 2:13-22 Jesus and the Cleansing of the Temple Introduction: 1. The Temple 1. The temple is the main focus of this scene in John. 2. “The temple was the beating heart of Judaism. It wasn’t just, as it were, a church on a street corner. It was the centre of worship, and music, of politics and society, of national celebration and mourning. It was also the place where you would find more animals (alive and dead) than anywhere else. But, towering above all these, it was of course the place where Israel’s God, YHWH, had promised to live in the midst of his people. It was the focal point of the nation, and of the national way of life.” -N.T Wright 3. “The Passover of the Jews was at hand”. 1. At Passover hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world would make their way up to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover Feast. According to the Law, a half shekel of pure silver was to be paid by each Jewish male, as well as a spotless animal sacrifice. Therefore by selling oxen, sheep, and pigeons, the merchants, as well as the money-changers, rendered a service to those who had traveled to Jerusalem from afar, enabling them to buy the animals on-site rather than having to carry them for long distances. 1. Originally they set up their business on the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron Valley, but by this time they were conducting their business in the temple complex, whereby, these individuals disrupted the worship of non-Jewish, God-fearers and therefore obstructed the very purpose for which the temple existed. 2. Passover was the event that brought God’s people out of slavery in Egypt. God had sent his angel through the land of Egypt to kill all the firstborn as an act of judgment on Egypt, but God provided a way of deliverance, the blood of a spotless lamb would be taken and smeared over the doorpost of the house and the angel of death/judgment would passover that household. God commanded that they were to remember this event, how God had delivered them throughout their generations, how God had redeemed them. Yearly the Jews would have a celebration, a remembrance of what God did in delivering them from bondage. John has already referred to Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world- In this scene, Jesus, the true passover lamb, has made his way to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast. 2. The Cleansing of the Temple 1. “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.’” 1. You can imagine the commotion when an unknown “prophet”/"rabbi” from Galilee started a ruckus by overturning tables, setting the animals free, driving out the merchants, all with a whip in hand. The local authorities wonder who does this man think he is and what is his authority to do these things? What was wrong with what they were doing? 2. At this point most people turn to the synoptic gospels to find out more about Jesus’ point in cleansing the Temple. But I think that is a mistake, because this does not seem to be the same account. In that account Jesus says, that “His Father’s house is to be a house of prayer for all nations, but that they had made it a den of thieves.” Here he simply says, not to make his Father’s house a house of trade. Plus Matthew, Mark, and Luke put the cleansing of the Temple toward the end of Jesus ministry, not at the beginning as John does. I think it is very clear that there were two temple cleansing’s in Jesus ministry: one at the beginning and one at the end. 3. Jesus cleansing of the Temple indicates that the Temple had been defiled, it had lost it’s intended purpose - to be a dwelling place for God, a meeting place between God and man. Yet it had become a place of business, a place of trade. It needed to be cleansed, to be set straight. Jesus, according to the prophet David, was motivated by a zeal for God’s house (Psalm 69:9). Obviously a zeal for the original intent of God’s house. But Jesus answer to the Jewish authorities takes us deeper into what Jesus cleansing ultimately means. 3. Jesus is the True Temple of God. 1. 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.” 1. “Jesus’ perplexing response was understood neither by his (interrogators) nor by his disciples. On the face of it, Jesus was inviting the authorities to destroy the temple, and was promising to raise it again within three days of it’s destruction. At the literal level, they were unlikely to call his bluff. They were nevertheless stymied, since he was offering them a powerful ‘miraculous sign’ to justify his authority for cleansing the temple. Indeed, it was a marvelously appropriate sign: anyone who could restore the temple within three days of its complete destruction must be judged to have the authority to regulate its practices” -D.A. Carson 2. When Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. - "he was speaking of the temple of his body." Jesus is pointing to himself as the true temple of God, the dwelling place of God in the flesh. As John said earlier, “The Word became flesh and “dwelt” (Tabernacled) among us”. 3. “Learning our principles of interpretation from Jesus himself we understand that some things ‘predicted’ in the Old Testament were not set out as verbal predictions (As in, “thus says the Lord”), but as pictures, events, people, and institutions. 1. Examples: 1. The sacrifices mandated by the Mosaic law included some built in features that forced the thoughtful reader to expect a sacrifice beyond themselves. 2. The Law anticipated holiness from the heart. (Jer 31:31-34) 3. The system of priests looked forward to a perfect mediator. 4. David and his kingdom announced, in their very being, the promise of a perfect David. 1. “It appears that the temple in Jerusalem is being viewed in such a typological way. It was important that worship of God in it’s precincts be pure; it is even more important to recognize that the temple itself pointed forward to a better and final meeting point between God and human beings. Jesus cleansed the temple; under this typological reading of the Old Testament, he also replaced it, fulfilling it’s purpose”. -D.A. Carson 5. Jesus Later speaking to the Woman at the well would say, “the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”- John 4:23-24 1. “Jesus was looking beyond the age of temple worship to the time when worship will be offered in the Holy Spirit on the basis of the sacrificial death of the Lamb of God, who is prefigured in the passover victims which he just had evicted from the temple. He is claiming nothing less than a reconstituting of the entire worship of God’s people around his own person and mission. The Temple will pass into oblivion, not only because it was physically destroyed, but because it is spiritually obsolete. Jesus’ body, offered up in sacrifice and raised up in power, will be the new temple where God and humanity, creator and creature meet face to face.” -Milne Conclusion: 1. Since Jesus replaces the Temple with Himself: What are the implications for us? How are we to worship? 1. Worship now centers not on a location but around the person and work of Jesus Christ. His person and mission. 2. We worship God through Jesus Christ, by honoring his person and his sacrifice, by responding to who he is and what he has done. He is the the creator come to earth to live among us, to suffer and die on behalf of our sins in order to bring us to God and give us life eternal in the age to come. 2. Responding to His Person 1. Since Christ is the true temple, and his spirit indwells each believer, we the church, worship God both gathered and scattered, in spirit and truth. 2. Our Bodies 1. In Romans 12:1 Paul says that we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship. That means that everything you do with your body is to be done as an act of worship to God. Whether you eat or drink or hammer nails or drive a car or make a meal or program a computer or read a book or shoot a basketball or mend a shirt—whatever you do with your body, do to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Then it is your spiritual worship. 3. Praise and Thanks 1. It might include singing or speaking words of praise as in Hebrews 13:15, "Continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name." So the spiritual sacrifices are the praises and thanks of God's people alone and in group worship. 4. Acts of Love 1. Or it might include acts of love like giving and sharing. For example, in Philippians 4:18 Paul receives gifts of support from the Philippian church and says, "I received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God." 2. And in Hebrews 13:16 it says, "Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” 3. Worship is whatever you do in response to Christ, in the power of Christ and for the glory of Christ? 3. Mission 1. Worship by proclaiming the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 2. Believers have been given Israel’s world-wide evangelistic assignment. Paul describes his ministry to the Gentiles as a priestly service - “because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God”- Romans 15:6. 3. To view the priesthood of believers as meaning that we have direct access to God through Christ is true, but this is not the purpose of the metaphor. A priest stands between a needy people and a holy God. He advocates not his own position, but the needs of the people. The NT affirms the priesthood of believers as they bring a lost world to faith in Christ. We proclaim to the world what Christ has done for our souls! 4. “We declare before the nations the works and the name of the Lord. Our praise to God bears witness to the world. The heart of evangelism is doxological.” - Edmund Clowney 5. 1st Peter explicitly says that God chose us and made us his new people for the purpose of telling people about his excellencies…Or to put it another way, we have been chosen in order to declare how precious Jesus is to us. -John Piper 1. Our power to make that declaration will increase in direct proportion to how precious Jesus really is to us. We are called to tell the world why Jesus is precious; how in Christ, God has come to man and made a way of access, acceptance, and fellowship!