LUKE 19: 45-48 [JESUS’ LAST WEEK SERIES]
THE PRIORITY OF TRUE WORSHIP
[Malachi 3:1-6]
The expelling of the traffickers from the Temple was on the day after Jesus’ triumphal entry. Jesus comes into the temple, the ultimate place of religious significance in all Jerusalem, and finds worship being disrupted and disregarded by the business transactions taking place so He once again tries to bring restoration and renewal. [Apparently Jesus cleansed the temple twice—once at the beginning of His ministry (John 2:13–22), and again at the very close of His ministry (Matt 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17).]
His strong reaction points out not only the Sanhedrin’s resistance to change their money-making schemes but also to its importance to Jesus as it was one of His final public act on earth. We may learn from the repetition of this cleansing: that outward reformation of religious corruptions [though of small and passing worth] is necessary so that nothing hinders true worship. The solemn lesson is that God desires pure worship in the inner most man (C.I.M.).
The area of the temple appointed for the Gentiles to worship God had become a den of thieves rather than a place where contemplative prayer was stimulated. Jesus then put the temple to its proper use, teaching daily amid increasing opposition from the authorities and strong receptivity from the crowds. The people were amazed at His teaching and liked to listen to Him, whereas in contrast the chief priests, leaders, and teachers of the Law wanted to kill Him.
[Luke’s record of the cleansing of the temple lacks the vivid detail in Matthew 21:12–13 and Mark 11:15–17. He mentions the importance of the temple as a house of prayer (v. 46), though he omits the reference to the nations (Mark 11:17). Verses 47–48 are not in Matthew and are different in form from Mark 11:18–19.]
I. JESUS CLEANSES THE TEMPLE, 45-46.
II. JESUS’ TEACHES IN THE TEMPLE, 47-48.
In verse 45 Jesus intentionally purges the temple so that He may return it to its intended purpose of prayer, worship, and teaching. “And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling,”
As the first cleansing was on His first visit to Jerusalem (Jn 2:13–22), so this second cleansing was on His last. The temple area was always crowded during Passover with thousands of out-of-town visitors. The religious leaders crowded it even further by allowing money changers and merchants to set up booths in the court of the Gentiles (Mk. 11:17). They rationalized this practice as a convenience for the worshipers and as a way to make money for temple upkeep.
The temple tax had to be paid in local currency, so foreigners had to have their money changed. The money changers often would charge exorbitant exchange rates with commissions being 12 ½ per cent (John, F. F. Bruce, p. 74). The people were also required BY Mosaic Law to make substitutionary sacrifices as offerings for theirs sins. “Those who were selling” refers to the sale of animals for sacrifices (Mark 11:15). Because of the long journey, many could not bring animals. Some who brought animals would have them rejected for imperfections. So animal merchants had a thriving business, a business they were permitted to move into the temple court yard.
It was profitable to the sellers, and no doubt to the priests, who were probably silent partners in the concern, or received rent for the ground on which the stalls stood. And so, being convenient for all and profitable to many, the thing became a recognized institution.
The religious leaders did not seem to care that the court of the Gentiles was so full of merchants that foreigners found it difficult to worship. And worship was the main purpose for visiting the temple. It was the one place that Gentiles could come and pray but there was no atmosphere nor room for prayer. They turned worshipers into attenders and the place of worship into a place of worldliness. No wonder Jesus was angry!
Jesus was angry at the dishonest, greedy, practices of the money changers and merchants, and He particularly disliked their displacement of worship in the temple grounds. They were making a mockery of God’s house of worship. Jesus’ decisive and strong actions reinforced His rebuking words.
Jesus was obviously angry at the merchants who exploited those who had come to God's house to pray and worship. There is a difference between uncontrolled rage and righteous indignation, yet both are called anger. We must be very careful how we use the powerful emotion of anger. It is right to be angry about injustice and sin; it is wrong to be angry over trivial personal offenses.
[This system of buying and selling animals for sacrifice didn’t just make the temple a den of robbers. It also led the people into mere formalism. “A pilgrim traveling to Jerusalem could go to the temple, buy an animal, and offer it as a sacrifice without ever having anything to do with the animal. This led to an impersonalization of the sacrificial system. The commercial system was apparently set up in the area of the temple which had been designated for devout Gentiles to pray and so was disrupting Israel’s witness to the surrounding world.”] [Martin, J. A. (1985). Luke. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 254). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.]
In verse 46 Jesus once again quotes Scripture to explain and justify His beliefs and actions. “saying to them,“It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”
Jesus quotes from Isaiah (Isa 56:7) where the temple is called “a house of prayer.” This act of devotion is the temple’s true purpose; it is to be a place where people communion with God.
The Isaiah verse expresses God’s desire that the temple will be a house of prayer for the nations. And though the nations have come, they cannot peacefully pray.
The second part of Jesus’ statement a “den of thieves” or a cave of robbers is a phrase from Jeremiah [In Jer 7:11 they had banded together for plunder and indicated reckless.]. In Jeremiah’s original passage (7:1-15) he scathingly condemned those who desecrated the first temple and calls the Jewish leadership robbers just as Jesus here does. [The mild term “house of merchandise,” that was used on the previous cleansing (Jn. 2:16), was now unsuitable.]
Worldly minded leaders in God’s house were exercising worldly wisdom in order to get worldly riches. God's temple was being misused by people who had turned it into a marketplace. They had forgotten, or didn't care, that God's house is a place of worship, not a business nor a place for making a profit. Our attitude toward the church is wrong if we see it as a place for personal contacts or business advantage. This rebuke calls for reflection on our part. Make sure you attend church to worship God.
II. JESUS’ TEACHES IN THE TEMPLE, 47-48.
Following this dramatic cleansing Jesus began to teach every day in the temple as verse 47 indicates. “And He was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy Him,”
Jesus now puts the temple to the best use that it was ever used, for He taught in it daily. The Temple was “His Father’s house” (2:49) and served as a classroom for Jesus’ teaching as well as for the teaching of the early church. The wording of the text [“was teaching & “every day”] emphasizes the continual nature of Jesus’ teaching in the temple. In a few days, Jesus knew Annas and the chief (or ruling) priests would get revenge. Until then, He would keep teaching. It is not enough that the corruptions of a church be purged out, but the preaching of the gospel must occur.
Jesus thus kept on teaching in spite of the fact that the religious leaders “were seeking to destroy Him.” The wording indicates that they continually sought, that is, daily, as He taught. A few days later they would success of course. The rulers have plotted against Jesus for some time (Lk 11:53), but after Jesus challenged their authority by cleansing the temple, they took vigorous steps to destroy Him.
Several factors likely contributed to the religious leaders’ desire to kill Jesus: They viewed Him as a messianic pretender and a blasphemer, they were losing control of the masses due to His popularity, and they feared that civil unrest during the Passover festival would lead to violent reprisals from Rome.
Tragedy upon tragedy. The chief priests and scribes, and the ruling counsel of the people, the great Sanhedrin, who should have assisted Jesus, and summoned the people too to pay attention to Him, sought to destroy Him, and put Him to death.
Verse 48 clearly distinguishes between Israel’s leaders hate and the receptive attitude of the Jewish people. “but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on His words.”
Jesus taught daily in the temple to the delight of the crowds. The authorities could not find a way to do away with Jesus because He was surrounded by too many people. The religious leaders wanted to kill Him, but the people hung on His every word. Since “all the people” were very attentive to hear Him fearing the response of the crowd, the religious leaders took no immediate action against Jesus.
How respectful the common people were to Jesus. They were very attentive to hear Him. He spent most of his time in the country, and not in the temple, but, when He did teach there, the people paid Him great respect, listened to His preaching with diligence, and let no opportunity slip of hearing Him, attended to it with care, and would not lose a word.
Till His time was come His interest in the common people protected Him; but, when his hour was come, the chief priests’ influence upon the common people delivered him up.
IN CLOSING
Christ cleared the temple of those who profaned it. He went straight to it and cast out the buyers and sellers. Though He was represented as an enemy of the temple, and that was the crime laid to His charge before the high priest, He had a truer love for the temple than those who had such a veneration for its corban and saw its treasury as a sacred thing. Jesus understood its purity was more its glory than its wealth. Christ’s reason for booting out the temple-merchants was because the temple is a house of prayer, set apart for communion with God and nothing was to distract those who came there to pray and worship. [Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 1896). Peabody: Hendrickson.]
The real temple, the real place God wants to live, the real place of worship and prayer -is the human heart. If Jesus took such zeal to cleanse a temporary earthly temple which used a passing & soon to be outmoded religious system, imagine the zeal He experiences in giving God a proper place of worship in your life. He has a passion that your heart not be clutter with the world but be set aside as a place of prayer and worship.
The only way to keep the world out of my heart is to have Christ filling it. If we will ask Him He will come to us. And if He has the scourge in His hand, let Him be none the less welcome to use it in our life. Ask and He will come, and when He enters, it will be like the rising of the sun, when all the beasts of the forest slink away and lay down in their dens. It will be like the carrying of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of the whole earth into the temple of Dagon, when the fish-like image fell defeated and prostrate on the floor. If we say to Him, ‘Come O Lord, make this place Yours, a place of prayer and worship,’ He will enter in, and by His entrance will ‘make the place of His feet glorious’ and undefiled. And His praise in us will be purposeful, powerful, passionate, and pure. “Even so, come Lord Jesus!”
