January 27, 2013 AD, by Pastor Ben Willis

According to John 2:12-25 [NLTse]

13 It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. 14 In the Temple area He saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; He also saw dealers at tables exchanging foreign money. 15 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. 16 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!”

17 Then His disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: “Passion for God’s House will consume Me.”

18 But the Jewish leaders demanded, “What are You doing? If God gave You authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.”

19 “All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

20 “What!” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and You can rebuild it in three days?” 21 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.

23 Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in Him. 24 But Jesus didn’t trust them, because He knew human nature. 25 No one needed to tell Him what mankind is really like.

The Passover celebration took place yearly at the Temple in Jerusalem. (Every year at just about Easter time, we might think of it.) Every Jewish male was expected to make a pilgrimage to the Holy City to honor God and worship. (Deut. 16:16) This was a week-long festival: The Passover was one day, and the Festival of Unleavened Bread lasted the rest of the week. The entire week commemorated the freeing of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. (Ex. 12:1-13)

The outmost court of the Temple, called the Court of the Gentiles, was always crowded during Passover with thousands of out-of-town visitors. The religious leaders crowded it further by allowing bankers to set up shop there who could exchange foreign and Galilean currencies into the coins used by those selling approved sacrificial animals, and then crowded it even further by allowing those who actually sold the sacrificial animals to be there, as well, with their cages and pens of pre-approved sheep, cattle, and doves. The leaders seemed to rationalize the practice because of the convenience for those Jews who’d come from distant lands to worship and because it was such a good way to make some extra money for Temple upkeep. Yet, as a result, the Court of the Gentiles was often so full of merchants and worshipers-waiting-in-line and pens and stalls and cages, that the non-Jewish “God-fearing Gentiles” (they were called) who came seeking the Lord – who were only allowed in that area, the Court of the Gentiles – would often find it difficult, if not impossible, with all the shouting and bleating and pushing and crowding, to pray and worship. And worship was the main reason they’d come to the Temple!

Add to that the fact that by Jesus’ day the money-changers often were charging exorbitant exchange rates, and that the animal merchants’ could charge higher prices in the Temple than they could get away with elsewhere, and it’s no wonder the Son of God drove all these business people and their wares out! And John tells us that the Lord Jesus did these things, His disciples realized, because the Psalms said Messiah would be zealous – passionate – for God’s House.

After Jesus was raised from the dead those first disciples realized what many of us already know, that one of the reasons Jesus came was to put an end to that faulty and corrupt Temple so He might raise up a new Temple, a living Temple, His Own Body – the Body of Christ – as the new and eternal dwelling place for God’s Spirit among the people of the Earth.

As the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians: “Don’t you realize that all of you together are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys this Temple! For God’s temple is holy, and all of you together are that Temple.” (3:16-17) And in 2 Corinthians, “we are the temple of the living God. As God said: “I will live in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be My people.” (6:16) And to the Ephesians, “Together, we are God’s house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus Himself. We are carefully joined together in Him, becoming a holy Temple for the Lord.” (2:21) And to which the apostle Peter added: “You are coming to Christ, Who is the living cornerstone of God’s Temple. He was rejected by people, but He was chosen by God for great honor. And you are living stones that God is building into His spiritual Temple…” (1 Peter 2:5)