My Father’s House is not an Emporium: An Exposition of John 2:13-25
Jesus had just finished His first sign which was the turning of water into wine. This He had done in response to His mother’s request. When we sntudied the passage, we had to deal with the cryptic statement: “My time has not yet come.” We saw that in Chapter 19 at the cross, Jesus again addressed His mother as “woman.” This says that Jesus was telling the world that He was to fulfill the will of His heavenly Father and not His mother. After the miracle, Jesus went home and stayed with His mother, his brethren and his disciples.
This passage is introduced with the phrase: “The Passover, the feast of the Jews was near.” John mentions several feasts of the Jews in the Gospel, and He mentions the Passover three times. This implies that the ministry of Jesus extended for over two years to cover these three Passovers. The mention of the cleansing of the Temple immediately brings up a hard to answer question. How many Temple cleansings were there, one or two? There is a Temple cleansing in the other gospels, but it happens in the last week of Jesus’ life. If we treat John’s account as the next event chronologically, this event happens at the very beginning of His ministry.
If there was only one cleansing, why does John have the account here. If John has located this here other than there were two cleansings, it would have had to have been so deliberately. John’s gospel is full of time markers, but John’s sense of time does not strictly seem to be linear. We have already noticed how John uses the time term “Hour.” He uses it to say that it was the “tenth hour” or four o’clock in the afternoon in a literal sense. But he also uses the same “hour” in “my hour has not yet come” referring to the time Jesus would be crucified. John has used the time markers “on the next day” and “on the third day.” He uses the term “the feast of the Jews” as another marker of time. We can never be sure if time markers are historical, figurative or both. Context does help us in some cases, but I think John likes to keep us in suspense. He does this in recording Jesus’s dialog with Nicodemus about being “born again.” This term also means “born from above.” He uses a play on words with the Greek word “pneuma” to refer to “wind” and “Spirit.” In John, Jesus says “If I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.” Here the Greek “Hupso” can mean “exalt” or “crucify.” These examples show that we are always a little disoriented by John. John uses the idea of disorientation in Revelation as well. In chapter 4, the heavenly throne is bedazzled by color, brightness and sounds. When John sees the vision of Jesus in chapter 2 of Revelation, he falls out as dead. John deliberately breaks the language using the preposition “apo” with the genitive. In other words, when man meets God, everything becomes disoriented, including time.
The study of time in John would be a major work in its own right. Let it be sufficient here to say that John’s timing of this event is deliberate, possibly, but not necessarily chronological. So perhaps it might be profitable to see what John is saying here. We had just seen His first sign. If this cleansing chronologically occurred at the end of Jesus’ ministry, then Jesus’ statement in this passage of “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” makes more sense as Jesus was accused at His trial that He was going to destroy the temple. This was Jesus’s answer for a sign. Jesus meant by this that if they killed Him, on the third day He would rise from the dead. The cross then serves as the last sign. Then John would be juxtaposing Jesus’s first sign at Cana with His last and final sign. These points could be made without necessarily saying that there was only one cleansing, however.
Getting back to the text, it says that when Jesus went up to the Temple, He was disturbed by merchants conducting their business in the Temple area. The Temple had an outer court and several inner courts. The Gentiles were only allowed into the outer area of the Temple. This is where the merchants selling oxen and doves were. Also the money exchangers were there, exchanging Gentile money for holy money that was needed to pay the Temple tax, for which the moneychangers received a profit. This is where the Gentiles had to pray, in the busy and noisy market. Women could go into the next court where the treasury was. Jewish men could go into the next court. At the end of the Temple was what was called the “naos” or “holy place.” The priests went here in their daily service. The last part of the shrine was “the “Most Holy Place” which was forbidden to all except the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. There in the darkness was the symbolic presence of God. In saying “symbolic” I am not saying that it wasn’t the real presence of Yahweh, but Yahweh is omnipresent and not restricted to the “Holy of Holies.”
We can see here several degrees of separation from God. The Gentiles as we have seen were quite remote. The women were remote, the men less remote, and the priests even less remote. But all were separated from God by at least one curtain or wall. This was the old economy. I used this word because in Greek in means “House Rules” or the code a household was to live by. What household rules did God make for His own House? Obviously is was not what Jesus saw.
The other Gospels make mention of the rule that the Temple was to be a house of prayer for “all nations.” In John this is not mentioned directly but implied by his saying: “Stop making my Father’s house an emporium.” How could the people from all the nations pray in the stench of offal, the bleating of sheep, the cooing of doves, the haggling over prices and the clinking of coins? Could not these things have been sold outside the Temple grounds? This implies that Jesus saw the entire temple, grounds and all, were holy and to be reverenced, not just the sanctuary.
It says that Jesus made a whip of cords and went to work. He drove out the sheep and oxen. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and told those who sold doves to leave. John says this display of zeal was a fulfillment of the Scripture (Psalm 69). The prophet Malachi also prophesied the Lord would come suddenly into His Temple and that He would thoroughly purge the sons of Levi. The House of God was to be restored to Jeremiah's vision as being a house of prayer for ALL nations. By doing this sign, Hw was fulfilling the will of the Father as recorded in Scripture.
When one considers what an economic boon Passover was to Jerusalem, it is easy to see that the priests would be indignant. Conservatively, many thousands of Jews came up to Jerusalem for the Passover, many from all parts of the Roman Empire. The ones who came from abroad tended to be wealthy amd spent a lot of money there. Lodging was sold. Temple taxes were paid. Food had to be purchased. Sheep for the Passover were usually purchased there. People do not like their livelihood threatened. So they confront Jesus about it. They demanded a sign to show He had the right do disrupt things. It is a shame that the priests saw what should have been a divine calling as a human opportunity to make money from religion.
Jesus’s answer pnly infuriated them the more. To them it sounded like He not only disrupted the Temple, but He was going to destroy it. They heard Jesus, but they did not understand Him. They answer back that the shrine had been in building for 46 years. How could this man have the audacity that He could build it in only three day? John has to even tell us that Jesus was talking about the temple of His body. We know that Jesus was able to destroy the temple by speaking the word. And He who spoke all creation into existence in six days could have rebuilt the same structure in three. But the use for a Temple which King Herod, who was not even a Jew was finished. Jesus had a completely new Temple in mind, that of His body. No longer are people separated by walls from the presence of God. They are only separated by walls of unbelief. God invites all to become members of Jesus’s body, the new and universal Temple for all nations.
John tells us that the disciples did not understand what Jesus meant until after the resurrection. Then they believed both the words He spoke as well as the testimony of Scripture which places the words of Scripture (Old Testament) and the words of Jesus on par. If we consider that Jesus is the Yahweh of the Old Testament, this is no surprise. The disciples remembered and believed. The believers see and understand the sign.
In verse 23, it says that Jesus was at the Passover feast. Was this the same Passover as earlier? If we see the cleansing before the feast itself, it would say as a result of Jesus’ actions that many believed on Him as a result of this cleansing and other signs which He was doing. They stood in amazement of Him. The next verse throws ice water on this though. Even though they claimed to believe and trust on Jesus, Jesus did not trust them. He already knew what was in their hearts. He knew that many who believed on Him would turn away when the going went rough. John as a whole places emphasis on the ones Jesus chooses over those who choose Jesus, especially if this means choosing Jesus on their own terms and not His. Jesus did not chose upon the recommendations of others. He was fully competent to choose for Himself because He knew all people, inside and out.
When we look at our churches today, which temple do we see? Do we see the church as a business or a house of prayer for ALL nations. In the economy of Jesus’s day, the sacrificial animals had to be purchased. There was the Temple tax. There were other necessities as well. Are all these things wrong? It can’t be wrong in and of itself if they are necessary for the conducting of worship. The Bible says that those who serve at the altars are to be provided for. Some have been called apart from their old business and way of life to dedicate his/her life to service. One has to make sure they are called, and the church needs to confirm this calling.
Today, when I see the church at large, I am concerned how much of a business it has become. People are selling their books, music and videos for profit. Some have become enormously wealthy as a result. We are worried about copyrights and royalties. Are you called by God? Is what you preach from the Holy Spirit and based on the Bible? If it is, how can you copyright what is the gift of God. If it is just your ideas, is it worth copyrighting? God knows that the ministers need to be provided for, and the churches they serve have a holy obligation for providing their reasonable support. This is Scriptural as Paul says the ox grinding the corn needs not be muzzled. What would Jesus do if He were to physically come into your church, would He praise you? Or would He get a whip of cords and clean house. Regardless, the Lord is present everywhere including your church, and He is taking notes. We need to make our church (the people, not just the building) a holy place of prayer. This is what the world needs to see in us if they would be drawn to Jesus.
Furthermore, the church of prayer for all nations needs to be inclusive of people from all backgrounds. This does not mean we accept non-biblical lifestyle choices, but it does mean we must be multi-racial, multi-national and reach people of every economic condition. Our churches are much too segregated.
Lastly, we must be faithful to the Gospel and not short cut or water it down. When we make too much of our free choice, we run the risk that the people who “believe” are believing on their own terms and not the terms of the Gospel. Salvation is not a little deal we cut with God. God knows the hearts of people. If Jesus does not trust the person back, then they have made a false confession. The deal is not the deal until Jesus says so. This is why we must come on His terms. We can never understand the truth unless He opens our eyes to it. So we must come, and others must come, with a truly humble and repentant heart. Salvation is not a business relationship but a intensely familiar one.
