THE CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE.
John 2:12-25.
John 2:12 provides a link between the miracle (sign) of the water being turned into wine in Cana (John 2:1-11), and the cleansing of the Temple in Jerusalem (John 2:13-22) = another sign of who Jesus is. In between these two signs, there was a brief interval when Jesus, His mother, His brethren, and His disciples were in Capernaum - which appears to have been Jesus’ main dwelling place when He was ministering in Galilee (cf. Matthew 4:13).
The reason for Jesus leaving Capernaum at this point was in order to attend the Passover in Jerusalem (John 2:13). Entering the Temple complex, Jesus found those who were selling sheep and oxen, and doves. Moneychangers sat at tables exchanging foreign currencies for the Temple shekel (John 2:14).
This was all taking place with the evident collusion of the priesthood. After all, (they probably reasoned) did not the people require animals for sacrifices, and money for the Temple tax? Jesus was disgusted to find such trading in His Father’s house, and He reacted accordingly (John 2:15-16).
There is, after all, such a thing as ‘righteous indignation’ (cf. Mark 3:5). Divine anger is always righteous anger, directed against sinful behaviour and human injustices. It is also tempered with mercy (cf. ‘in wrath remember mercy,’ Habakkuk 3:2).
The Lord’s actions in the scene before us are the most violent, and in some ways therefore the most shocking. To purposefully create a scourge of small cords (John 2:15) also suggests that He was in complete control of His emotions: as He was in His Passion throughout. We are not told whether the cords contacted flesh, human or animal: possibly the contrary may be true, as He was careful to protect the doves, commanding their salesmen to take them out of there (John 2:16)!
Saint John, the writer of this Gospel, anecdotally remarks (in John 2:17) that this put the disciples in mind of Psalm 69:9 - a verse which goes on to demonstrate the substitutionary mission of the Messiah: ‘For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee have fallen on me.’
After Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple, the Jewish authorities asked Him to show them a sign to legitimise the authority by which He was doing these things (John 2:18). This was somewhat ironic, since the turning of the water into wine, AND the cleansing of the Temple were indeed such signs! His answer referred them to another Temple: the temple of His body – but they did not, or chose not to, understand (John 2:19-21). This is perfectly in keeping with John’s theology of the incarnation, whereby the Word became flesh, and “dwelt” (or set up His tabernacle - or temple) among us (John 1:14).
When Jesus was risen from the dead, the disciples remembered what Jesus had said in John 2:19: “(If you) Destroy this temple, in three days I will raise it up.” Sometimes it takes a long time for us to fully understand what the Lord is teaching us.
Thus remembering, they believed: both the Scripture, and Jesus (John 2:22). Such truths should lead us not only into intellectual assent, but into faith and trust (cf. John 20:30-31).
The Apostle John rounds off this part of his account with the observation that many “believed” or “trusted” in the name of Jesus when they saw the miracles (signs) which He did (John 2:23). But Jesus did not “commit” (or “entrust”) Himself to them “because he knew all men” (John 2:24), and "needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man” (John 2:25).
Jesus knows our hearts, better than we do ourselves.
