We have read of that dramatic moment in the Gospel of John when Jesus first cleansed the temple. Having called his disciples to a more permanent relationship with himself, he left with them for Jerusalem to celebrate the first Passover as the acknowledged Messiah, the Promised One to come.
Jesus had been in Jerusalem many times during the years before his public ministry began. He had been to the temple and had seen many of the sights which he saw on this occasion, but he had taken no action in response. Now, however, he is going to Jerusalem as the Messiah, and he will fulfill Malachi’s prophecy about the Messiah, "The Lord whom you see shall suddenly come to his temple," (Malachi 3:1b), ... "and he will purify the sons of Levi," (3:3b). This is the background for what our Lord did when he arrived in Jerusalem.
John tells us what that action was.
In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the moneychangers at their business. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; 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; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade." (John 2:14-16)
Jesus is clearly angry at what he found in the temple. He takes drastic action to cleanse it, not only of trafficking in money-changing and selling animals, but also of the extortion and racketeering that went along with it.
Here we have an account of violent action and of evident anger on the part of Jesus at the beginning.
Note that John says this occurred at a Passover feast. Doubtless he wants to remind us that at the Passover, every Jewish household spent the day before the feast meticulously going through their house seeking out any kind of yeast or substance that could cause fermentation and cleansing every such manifestation from their home. Let there be no confusion: God never confuses us in his Word, and leaven ALWAYS signifies what is sin; what is unclean before a holy God.
Jesus was angry at the extortion and racketeering that was going on. Once a year, every Jewish male had to go to the temple and pay a temple tax. There was no escape; every male Jew was required to pay a half-shekel tax at the Passover season. Further, that tax could not be paid in Roman or Greek coin but had to be paid in a special temple coin. So it was necessary to change the Roman or Greek coins that were commonly employed into this special temple tax. That in itself was fine; money-changers were required for that. Having them available for the people was a convenience that was right and proper. But what was wrong was that there was an exorbitant price being extorted for making this exchange, so that sometimes almost as much as half of the value of the money being exchanged was paid to the money-changers for their service. The temple was making enormous revenues from this practice.
Furthermore, a sacrifice offered at the Passover season had to be made with an animal without blemish or imperfection. This meant that the only animals that could be offered were those which were bought from the temple herd that was kept in an open courtyard in the court of the Gentiles. These animals had already been approved by the priests. But again, a tremendously inflated price was demanded for those animals. In fact, a bird could be brought outside the temple for the equivalent of 15 pence of our money, but the same bird, bought within the temple from the authorized purveyors of animals, would cost as high as £15! This barefaced extortion, this demand for money from even the poorest of the poor was what aroused the flaming anger of the Lord Jesus Christ
Do not diminish or minimize the anger and the violence which Jesus manifested at this time. This is a different Jesus to the popular ‘Gentle Jesus meek and mild’ But this action clearly indicates that our Lord was angry. He drove these people out of the temple. He made the point, which was clearly: do not turn a place which is devoted to the worship of God and the cleansing of people, into a flea market. The word John employs is, literally, "emporium," a place where people are concerned about making a fast buck. The temple rather was the place where human values were to be considered supreme.
The climax of his action comes in what the disciples learned from it. Three lessons burned themselves unforgettably into the disciples’ minds as they watched our Lord. The first was an immediate impression, Verse 17.
The first lesson was about Jesus’ hatred of sin; especially corruption in religion
Can you imagine what the disciples felt while this was going on? How embarrassed they must have been by the actions of Jesus! They had not been with him very long; they did not know him very well..
But as they watched him do this, there came flashing into their minds a verse from the 69th Psalm. It is clearly evident that even at this early date the 69th Psalm was regarded as a Messianic psalm. The psalm describes the suffering and the agony of the One who was to be the Messiah. There came into their minds this one verse, "The zeal of thy house has consumed me" (Psalms 69:9) -- has burned me up, has seized hold of me and devoured me and made me to act. There came for the first time, perhaps, the quiet realization in these disciples’ hearts of the divine refusal to put up with inward impurities. They began to understand that God does not compromise with evil.
This touches one of the great paradoxes of our Christian faith. Throughout this Gospel of John we will see plainly how anyone can come to Christ, no matter what his background, no matter how far he has gone wrong, no matter how evil he has been -- murderers, prostitutes, swindlers, liars, perverts, drunkards, self-righteous prigs, bitter, hard-hearted cynics, religious hypocrites, proud self-sufficient snobs -- anyone who realizes there is something wrong in his life, that something has seized him, gripped him and introduced evil, hurt, pain and heartache, anyone who wants to be free can come to Jesus. "Come unto me all you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest," Jesus said (Matthew 11:28). Anyone can come. But now the disciples understand, perhaps for the first time, that if you come, be assured that Jesus is not going to leave you the way you are.
Many Christians can be like the Pharisees, make their outward actions look good, but allow sinful habits -- pornography, a bitter, unforgiving spirit towards another, an evil lustful habit, a private indulgence, a compromise with expediency in business -- to be hidden in their lives. As surely as people do that, one day they will discover that their Lord has changed his attitude towards them. He is no longer tolerant, understanding and patient. His eyes are aflame; and he means business -- and their life begins to fall apart. All the evil they thought was hidden is exposed.
Then they learned that Jesus was bringing a new meaning to the word ‘Temple’
It is amazing how blind everyone was at first to the meaning of this event! The Jews expected the Messiah to give them certain signs, and one of the signs the prophet Malachi prophesied was that the Messiah would suddenly come to his temple and purify the sons of Levi. The Messiah had just done that, but they did not recognize him. Instead, they said to him, "What sign do you have that you are the Messiah?" Our Lord’s answer, of course, was to give them the only sign that would have any meaning to them -- the sign of his own resurrection. Only after the event did the penny drop.
Buildings have always been but pictures of the house of God. The real temples are bodies -- human beings -- of body, soul, and spirit. That is where God has created a place where he can dwell. The Apostle Paul caught this truth. In the 6th chapter of First Corinthians he reminds us, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have from God? You are not your own;" (1 Corinthians 6:19). You do not have the right to run your life, to regulate it and make all the ultimate decisions as to what you ought to be or where you ought to go. Paul continues, "You are not your own, you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body," (1 Corinthians 6:19b-20). That is where God is glorified.
There is further significance to this in the fact that John puts this account back-to-back with the miracle of the changing of water to wine. Jesus here says the opposite. Let human beings do their worst, let them oppose God, let them destroy the temple of God, let them carry out their rebellion to the utmost, and when they have done everything they can, God will touch it and will change it; he will work and it will still accomplish his purpose.We need to understand that the God to whom you have come, that loving, healing Lord with the warm, accepting and understanding eyes who touches you with forgiveness and cleansing is nevertheless unwilling to put up with the continuance of sin; he will cleanse his temple whether you like it or not. Hebrews tells us that if the Father loves us he will scourge us and chasten us out of his love until we begin to be what he designed us to be. Some get upset at God for this. We feel he ought to settle for what we think is holy enough, but he does not. He has in mind a temple where he can be glorified, where our deepest human desires will find satisfaction and fulfillment, and that requires cleansing. He will bring that about.
Then, third, they learned Jesus is not mocked by shallow belief, founded on miracles
As the disciples watched him doing miracles; they noticed that, though many were believing in Jesus because he was the miracle worker, Jesus did not seem to commit himself to them. That is a strange phenomenon in the Christian world yet. How many people come to Christ and ask him to be their Lord, yet they do not seem to be changed; there is no reality about their Christian living; they go right on much as they were, even, eventually, drift away, and never come back. Why is that? John explains it here. He says it is because Jesus knew Man, therefore he knew what a man or woman was like
Jesus deals only with realities. He sees through the facades and the illusions, deeper than we ourselves can see. He refuses to compromise with it, or put up with it, and forced the issue so people saw what God saw when he looked at the temple. This is what John wants us to remember. We are dealing with a God of reality, a God who cannot be fooled, a God who will always deal in loving forgiveness with anyone who does not defend his evil. When we admit it, when we come asking to be cleansed, and freed, he never turns us away, he never deals with us harshly. But when we come justifying our actions, excusing them, fooling ourselves, we find him refusing to commit himself to us.
Thus the disciples learned in this account very wonderful things about God. They learned to fear God, to realize that though he is a God of mercy he is also a God of majesty. They looked at our Lord with different eyes as they walked away from this scene. They felt the full warmth of his acceptance, but they felt the thrust of his justice and his majesty as well. That is what being a disciple must come to mean.
