Passion For The Temple
Text: John 2:13-22
Introduction
1. Illustration: Daniel Webster offered excellent advice, saying, "If we work on marble it will perish. If we work on brass, time will efface it. If we rear temples, they will crumble to dust. But if we work on men’s immortal minds, if we imbue them with high principles, with just fear of God and love of their fellow-men, we engrave on those tablets something which time cannot efface, and which will brighten and brighten to all eternity.
2. In our text today we see Jesus passion for the Temple. However, we see much, much more. We see an understanding that would revolutionize the early Christian church and should exemplify our view of the church.
3. Jesus shows us that...
a. The church is about people
b. The church is people
4. Let's stand as we read John 2:13-22
Proposition: We are the church because we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us.
Transition: First we need to understand...
I. The Church Is About People (13-17).
A. Marketplace
1. As our text begins we see that Jesus was like any other ordinary Jew in his day. For "It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration, so Jesus went to Jerusalem."
a. The Passover celebration took place yearly at the Temple in Jerusalem.
b. Every Jewish male was expected to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem during this time, so Jesus went.
c. This was a week-long festival—the Passover was one day, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread lasted the rest of the week.
d. The entire week commemorated the freeing of the Jews from slavery in Egypt (Barton, Life Application New Testament Commentary, 381).
e. John mentions the festival much more than do the other Gospel writers, and this may well be part of his plan to bring out the messianic significance of Jesus.
f. What was foreshadowed in the great Passover deliverance of old was brought to its consummation in the sacrifice of Jesus (Morris, The New International Commentary on the New Testament – The Gospel According to John, 169).
2. However, when Jesus got to the Temple he shows that he was not your typical Jew. John tells us, "In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; he also saw dealers at tables exchanging foreign money."
a. The Temple was on an imposing hill overlooking the city. Solomon had built the first Temple on this same site almost one thousand years earlier (949 B.C.), but his Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians.
b. The Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C., and Herod the Great had recently remodeled it.
c. God had originally instructed the people of Israel to bring from their own flocks the best animals for sacrifice.
d. This would make the sacrifice more personal. But the Temple priests instituted a market for buying sacrificial animals so the pilgrims would not have to bring their animals on the long journey.
e. In addition, the merchants and money changers were dishonest. The businesspeople selling these animals expected to turn a profit. The price of sacrificial animals was much higher in the Temple area than elsewhere.
f. In order to purchase the animals, travelers from other lands would need local currency, and the Temple tax had to be paid in local currency; so money changers exchanged foreign money, but made huge profits by charging exorbitant exchange rates.
g. Jesus was angry at the dishonest, greedy practices of the money changers and merchants, and he particularly disliked their presence on the Temple grounds.
h. They had set up shop in the Court of the Gentiles, making it so full of merchants that foreigners found it difficult to worship—and worship was the main purpose for visiting the Temple.
i. With all the merchandising taking place in the area allotted for the Gentiles, how could they spend time with God in prayer? No wonder Jesus was angry (Barton, 381).
3. So he sprung to action. "Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables. Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”
a. Jesus made a whip of "ropes" and proceeded to drive the traders from the Temple with their goods.
b. It is clear that it was not so much the physical force as the spiritual power he employed that emptied the courts.
c. "It was surely the blazing anger of the selfless Christ rather than the weapon which He carried which really cleared the Temple Courts of its noisy, motley throng" (H.E.W. Turner).
d. He overturned the tables used by the money changers and poured out their money.
e. He commanded the dove sellers to take their birds away. His words to them are important, for they give the reason for his whole action: "How dare you turn my Father's house into a market place!" (Morris, 171).
4. This event has a significant impact on the disciples. Look what happens, "Then his disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: “Passion for God’s house will consume me.”
a. The effect on the disciples was to remind them of Psalm 69:9.
b. The action of Jesus gave evidence of a consuming zeal for the house of God.
c. The ancient Scriptures found their fulfillment in what he did.
d. "The action is not merely that of a Jewish reformer: it is a sign of the advent of the Messiah" (Hoskyns).
e. We should not miss the way this incident fits in with John's aim of showing Jesus to be the Messiah.
f. All his actions imply a special relationship with God. They proceed from his messianic vocation.
g. The citation from Scripture is important from another point of view, for it accords with another habit of this Apostle.
h. While John does not quote the Old Testament as frequently as do some other New Testament writers, it is still the case, as Richard Morgan says, that "the Old Testament is present at every crucial moment in the Gospel."
i. It is one of John's great themes that in Jesus God is working his purposes out (Morris, 172).
B. People Business
1. Illustration: Have you ever been to a church where you didn’t feel welcome? You went in and looked around the foyer area and no one greets you. You proceed through the doors into the sanctuary and find yourself a seat in the back row and begin to prepare yourself for the worship time. People come filing in and many are talking with one another, because it seems they all know each other, but still, no one offers a hand to be shaken or says hello. As you look around, you even notice some making eye contact with you and when they notice you seeing them, they turn away quickly or pretend they are looking beyond you at something else. The service goes by and when it is done, you linger around for a while in the foyer area again, reading some of the bulletin boards to see what things the church is involved with and still no one says boo to you. Finally you leave, feeling a bit slighted, and tell yourself you will never visit this church again. No one should ever feel that way in church, and heaven forbid anyone would feel that way at New Life.
2. Church is for people, and it should be a place for ALL people to feel welcome.
a. Mark 11:17 (NLT)
He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”
b. Yes, we refer to the church as the "House of God," but God's house should be a place where all people feel welcome, loved, and accepted.
c. Jesus was in the people business, so we should be in the people business.
d. Church should never be a place where you feel alone and unwanted.
e. Church should not be a place where certain people get there way and everybody else just has to live with it.
f. Church should be a place where you are accepted for who you are and where your at.
g. Church is a place where we are all family!
Transition: The reason church is about people is that...
II. The Church Is People (18-22).
A. He Meant His Own Body
1. As you might imagine the ones who set up this whole marketplace fiasco weren't very happy about what Jesus did. So they confronted him saying, “What are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.”
a. Jesus' actions in the Temple were startling to say the least. It had ramifications not only for the condemnation of the Temple traders, but also for the Person of Jesus .
b. It was a messianic action. The Jews demanded that Jesus prove his authority by producing a "sign."
c. Interestingly they did not dispute the rightness of his action. They were not so much defending the Temple traffic as questioning Jesus' authority.
d. Their demand arose from the facts that the Jews were a very practical race and that they expected God to perform mighty miracles when the messianic age came.
e. Thus their test for anyone claiming to be the Messiah was, Can he do the signs of the Messiah (Morris, 173)?
f. The hardhearted people of Jesus’ day continually required Jesus to give them some miraculous sign to prove his authority from God.
g. However, Jesus would not give his generation the kind of sign they demanded; he himself was the sign, for he was the Son of God come from heaven to earth.
2. So Jesus responded, “All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
a. Jesus usually refused to give a sign when asked for one. He complains that, though his enemies could discern the weather signs in the heavens they were unable to recognize more important signs, "the signs of the times," when they were before them.
b. But in the other Gospels he regularly pointed to his resurrection as the only sign that would be given to these people.
c. "Destroy" is literally "loose." The verb is often used of untying.
d. It can refer to the loosing of the component parts from one another.
e. The imperative here seems equivalent to a conditional clause, "If you destroy ... I will raise up."
f. There is irony in the fact that ultimately the Jews themselves were to be the means of bringing about the sign they asked Jesus to produce, and which they did not recognize when it came.
g. There is further irony in that to put Jesus to death was to offer the one sacrifice that can truly take away sin, and thus doom the Temple as a place for the offering of sacrifice (Morris, 175).
3. Look at what happens next, they say, “What!” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?”
a. The Jews explode in a cynical question. Their temple was a magnificent structure.
b. Herod had commenced its rebuilding partly to satisfy his lust for building, and partly in an attempt to stand well with his Jewish subjects, among whom he was very unpopular; for both reasons it was important that the building be outstanding.
c. Work was still going on at his death, and for that matter, for long after. The Temple was not completed until A.D. 63.
d. The Jews accordingly mean here that the work has been proceeding for forty-six years.
e. The fact that it was still not complete would heighten their amazement at a statement that they understood to mean that Jesus claimed the power to build one just ilike it in three days.
f. Though they had asked Jesus for a sign they mocked the suggestion that he of all people could do such a thing (Morris, 175).
4. As usual, however, the religious leaders didn't get it. John tells us, "But when Jesus said “this temple,” he meant his own body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said."
a. John gives his own comment. Jesus was not talking about the temple of stones and mortar that they saw about them. He was talking about his body (Morris, 177).
b. John does not say that the saying was obvious to "his disciples."
c. But when Jesus was raised they remembered it, and it was then a strengthening of faith for them.
d. John tells us that they then "believed the Scripture." The disciples believed not only "the Scripture" but also "the words that Jesus had spoken."
e. They may well have reasoned, "Obviously he cannot mean a rising from the dead in a literal sense. What then does he mean?"
f. But when the resurrection took place they saw the meaning of the words, and they believed them (Morris, 179-180).
B. Temple of the Holy Spirit
1. Illustration: According to the Puritans, "all professions are spiritual to the Christian, not because of the nature of the work but because of the presence of God. …When a Christian – the temple of the Holy Spirit – walks into an office at IBM, IBM becomes a spiritual place." (Tim Downs, Finding Common Ground (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 170).
2. The Church is people because we are all Temples of the Holy Spirit.
a. 1 Corinthians 6:19 (NLT)
Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself,
b. If you have given your life to Christ you are a temple of the Holy Spirit because he lives inside of you.
c. The true church is not an institution.
d. The true church is not a building.
e. The true church is not a denomination.
f. The true church is followers of Jesus walking in faith, hope and love.
g. The true church are those, who like the disciples, read the Scriptures, understand them, and live by them regardless of the price.
h. The true church are those who walk by the Spirit.
Transition: Are you walking by the Spirit?
Conclusion
1. In our text today we see Jesus passion for the Temple. Howver, we see much, much more. We see an understanding that would revolutionize the early Christian church and should exemplify our view of the church.
2. Jesus shows us that...
a. The church is about people
b. The church is people
3. Are we a church that is about people?
4. Are you walking in the Spirit?
