Understanding Easter: Cleansing the Temple

This week marks the second week that we are spending in unpacking some things that we may have thought we understood, or perhaps taken for granted about the Passover and Easter. Last week we took some time in understanding the name or title “Son of Man”. This week, rather than taking something like a title, I want to spend some time on a specific event in Jesus’ ministry. Turn with me if you will to John chapter 2.

John 2:13–25 ESV

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 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. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 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. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

There is some debate about why John’s account doesn’t seem to match the timeline of the other Gospel accounts. Colin Kruse explains, “The evangelist places his account of the temple cleansing early in Jesus’ ministry during this first Passover festival, not during the Passover in the last week of Jesus’ ministry as the Synoptic Gospels do. There are a number of possible explanations for this. Because the Synoptic evangelists do not record Jesus’ earlier visits to Jerusalem for the other four festivals, they could only include the temple cleansing in their account of the final Passover visit. Alternatively, the fourth evangelist may have brought forward his account of the temple cleansing for theological or literary reasons. In that case, the arrangement of his material was not meant to be chronological but thematic. A third possibility is that there were two temple cleansings, one at the beginning and another at the end of Jesus’ ministry. While many scholars reject this alternative, it cannot be ruled out altogether” (Colin G. Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4 [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003], 99–100, Logos). Merrill C. Tenney suggests, “Either John is right and the Synoptics mistaken, or the Synoptics are right and John mistaken, or John has transplanted the account for topical or theological purposes, or there were two such occasions, only one of which was recorded by John and the other by the Synoptics. While each of these theories has been argued with some degree of logic, the last seems the best” (Merrill C. Tenney, “John,” in John and Acts, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary 9 [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981], 44, Logos).

Making Church A Trade

John 2:13–16 ESV

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 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. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”

Lent is a season when we focus on the death of Jesus—a death that was shocking then and now. Jesus’s interaction with the temple authorities and, subsequently, the audience who watches pushes both groups to consider the meaning of his coming for the religious world. Twenty-one centuries later we wrestle with what Jesus was doing when he pronounced his authority over worship. “The evangelist explains what Jesus meant: But the temple he had spoken of was his body. Jesus was not saying to the authorities, ‘You destroy the Jerusalem temple, and I will rebuild it in three days’; rather, he was offering them the sign of his death and resurrection as proof of his authority: ‘You destroy/kill this body of mine and I will raise it up in three days’” (Kruse, John, 102). Kruse adds, “The evangelist shows how this led the disciples to believe ‘the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.’

Trade - the business of buying and selling or bartering commodities

Commodity - a mass-produced unspecialized product

In this way the inclusion of this story contributes to the overall purpose of the Gospel, i.e. to lead readers to a similar faith in Jesus, so that they too might have eternal life. There may be a secondary purpose involved as well. As Jesus superseded Moses (1:17: ‘the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’) and the blessings of the kingdom supersede the ceremonial washings of the old covenant (as exemplified in the miracle at Cana), so now the temple of Jerusalem as the dwelling place of God is superseded by Christ himself” (Kruse, John, 102–3). 3. T

he Lenten season should always leave the believer considering the implications of Jesus’s death and resurrection for themselves. The Gospel accounts all point to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for the remission of our sins. We must be willing to deeply consider the cost that Jesus endured for our sake at the cross—not to speak of his becoming a human being. John 2:22 instructs the reader that even the disciples who were present for Jesus’s ministry didn’t quite see this until after the resurrection. Tenney explains, “The author’s comment indicates that from the first of his ministry Jesus had the end of it in view. One can hardly escape the conviction that the fourth Gospel depicts the career of Jesus as a voluntary progress toward a predetermined goal. The allusions to the destruction of the temple of his body (2:22), to the elevation on a cross (3:14; 12:32–33), to the giving of his flesh for the life of the world (6:51), to his burial (12:7), and the announcement of his betrayal and death to his disciples (13:19, 21) attest to his consciousness of the fate that awaited him in Jerusalem. Though the disciples did not comprehend the situation during Jesus’ career, the Resurrection placed the memory of his sayings in a new perspective. The author’s note illustrates the principle that the Gospel presents the life of Jesus in the light of the Resurrection and of the apostolic experience based on the results of that event” (Tenney, “John,” 45).

How Does the Cleansing of the Temple Impact our Worship

John 2:17 ESV

His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

Psalm 69:9–10 ESV

For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach.

The key to the Lenten season is a heart open and even broken to hear the call of Jesus to trust in him alone. He must be the center of all our worship. Bruce Milne says, “The temple will pass into oblivion, not only because it is physically razed, 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. ‘The action of Jesus is more than an example of prophetic protest against corrupt religion: it is a sign of the end of all religion’ [Lesslie Newbigin]”

Barry Jones explains the significance of Lent when he says, “In Lent we are invited to stop playing and to take our faith seriously, to enter into a focused time of spiritual reflection and renewal, asking God to help us uncover the junk in our lives that chokes our souls, that weighs us down and trips us up”

“Lent is a time for detoxification from the personal and cultural influences that may be out of balance. It is a time to corporately lament the things in our world that are out of sync with God’s eternal plan and purposes. It is a time for self-examination, for learning what areas of sin still seem to hold sway in your life. It is an opportunity to know yourself anew—your strengths, your weaknesses, your propensities. Lent offers a chance to examine what areas of your life need healing so that, as you approach the time of Christ’s death and glorious resurrection, you can understand and experience the way that the light of Christ penetrates all areas of the darkness”

For the Lenten season to really confront us, we need to examine the heart of our worship. We must be willing to ask God if our worship is true and right. We must accept that if Jesus was serious enough twenty-one centuries ago to go into the temple courtyard and turn over tables because of unfaithful worship, then he will continue to do so in the courtyards of our souls today.