Lent 3
John symbolizes him as Israel’s paschal lamb, slaughtered on Preparation Day
John has a stiffer standard for his contemporary antagonists—whom he regularly charges with failure to believe—than for disciples of Jesus like himself. And we follow him into the trap.
In the synoptic Gospels, ‘rebuilding’ the temple is oikodomō, ‘build’ (Matt. 26:61; Mark 14:58), but in John the word is egeirō, which means both ‘erect a building’ and also ‘resurrect’
The claim to rebuild—‘in three days I will resurrect it’—is then nuanced with the explanation: ‘But he spoke of the temple of his body’ (v. 21), an insight given to the disciples only after the resurrection. The Christian community came to describe themselves as both the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27) and as the temple in which God’s Spirit dwells (1 Cor. 3:16). They were the new temple built of living stones, the place where spiritual sacrifices were offered (1 Pet. 2:5). Jesus said this to the Samaritan woman (4:23). The risen LORD in Revelation promised that the faithful Christian would be a pillar in the (new) temple, and Paul told the Christians in Ephesus that they were being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets into a holy temple in the Lord, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20–21)
Westcott assumes that there were two distinct cleansings, though not all scholars agree with this position
The Temple rulers had cornered the market for sacrificial animals, were charging exorbitant prices, and demanding payment in temple currency for which the people had to pay a high rate of exchange. Worship had become big business.
The sin of these merchants, it seems, was a blunted sense of reverence for God and perhaps a dulled sensitivity toward the needs of others as they sought God.
“I will raise it again,” (my emphasis) which goes somewhat beyond “It [my body] will be raised [by God] again.” Jesus claimed power of self-resurrection, the authority over life itself—an authority resting in God alone. If this were the level of His authority, then His actions in the Temple would seem but a small matter and completely within His right.
When all is considered, Jesus offered himself as the new and final Temple of the living God, not by threatening to destroy the Jerusalem Temple, but by fulfilling its greatest purpose in himself.
To smooth over the contradiction between John and the Synoptics, the church fathers posit two “cleansing” events (Elowsky 2006, 101). Augustine uses the occasion to chastise “those who seek their own interests in the church rather than those of Jesus Christ” and warns: “Let them beware of the scourge of ropes. The dove is not for sale; it is given gratis, for it is called grace” (Tract. Ev. Jo. 10.6.1–3; Elowsky 2006, 101).
But there is no doubt what John thinks it all means. It is Passover time; he has already told us that Jesus is God’s Passover lamb, and now he goes to Jerusalem at the time when liberation, freedom, rescue from slavery was being celebrated. Somehow, John wants us to understand, what Jesus did in the Temple is a hint at the new meaning he is giving to Passover.
But the meaning that begins to grow here, like a seed putting out the first shoots that show what sort of a shrub it’s going to be, has to do with Jesus’ own fate. When they ask what he thinks he’s up to, and request some kind of sign to show them what it all means, he speaks, very cryptically, about his own death and resurrection.
He is the true temple: he is the Word made flesh, the place where the glory of God has chosen to make his dwelling.
Jesus takes the traditions and applies them to himself. He is the reality to which the Temple itself points. His death and resurrection will be the reality to which the whole Passover celebration points.
In the two vivid scenes of chapter 2, John has introduced us to almost all the major themes of the gospel story, and has given us food for thought about where it’s all going. But, as so often, he ends with a hint as to how people should respond. If you see the signs Jesus is doing, then trust him. Believe in him. Jesus, after all, is the one who knows you through and through.
the “temple” was the place where God’s people could access the presence of God, the Old Testament temple building was always about pointing to Jesus himself.
this is the kind of Jesus who hates fake religion. He cannot stand it.
Jesus hates fake religion. And the reason for that is because it blocks access to God.
Church, as the Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple once said, is the one institution that exists for the benefit of its non-members
If Jesus had damaged someone or something, we can be sure they would have brought that up in their accusation. But, no, their charge is not that Jesus had wounded anyone but that what he had done was displaying the kind of authority which they did not believe he rightfully possessed
For example, seest thou a brother rushing to the theatre? Stop him, warn him, make him sorry, if the zeal of God’s house doth eat thee up. Seest thou others running and desiring to get drunk, and that, too, in holy places, which is not decent to be done in any place? Stop those whom thou canst, restrain whom thou canst, frighten whom thou canst, allure gently whom thou canst: do not, however, rest silent. Is it a friend? Let him be admonished gently.
as God grants an entrance, as He opens a door for His word, do not cease to win for Christ; because you were won by Christ.
