044. Chapter 23 - The Cleansing of the Temple

Chapter 23 - The Cleansing of the Temple

John 2:18-22 Jesus in Capernaum

After the wedding feast at Cana “Jesus and his mother and his brethren and his disciples” went to Capernaum. Peter had a home in the city which became a sort of headquarters for Jesus and His disciples. The fact that His mother and brethren followed Him to Capernaum seems to indicate that they either had relatives here, or their intense interest in Jesus, to see what further miracles He would perform or what course He would follow, led them to move to Capernaum for a time, when He went there instead of returning to Nazareth. John’s Gospel does not indicate how Jesus spent this brief period of residence at Capernaum. The miracle at Cana would have been noised abroad, and it may have been that He began in a quiet way to teach and heal the people during this period. But a tremendous event was at hand which completely overshadowed these quiet weeks at Capernaum. The real opening of His ministry was to be in Jerusalem, and in such dramatic fashion as to stir the entire nation.

Jesus in the Temple The Passover is at hand. All the nation throngs the capital city. At the age of twelve, Jesus had startled the great scholars of the nation in His discussions with them in the temple. But now He comes in the fullness of divine authority and power. The outer court of the temple is filled with a motley crowd. All is hubbub and confusion. Merchants and worshipers in holiday attire present a riot of color. The lowing and bleating of the animals mingle with the raucous cries of the drivers. The holy temple of God has been changed into a market-place! Into this scene a lone figure enters carrying a whip, the symbol of authority and of punishment. A little group of bewildered disciples follow at a distance. Suddenly He mounts to a place where all can see, and, with a single fearful gesture, commands the startled attention of the entire multitude. The divine wrath of the Prophet from Galilee electrifies the multitude and drives them headlong from His presence as He hurls His thunderbolt of denunciation at their prostitution of God’s house. The boldest slink away with smoldering defiance in their faces. Wielding the whip, Jesus drives the dumb animals, the sheep and the oxen, before Him and peremptorily commands those who had charge of the cages filled with doves to take them out. With indignant sweep, He overturns the tables of the money-changers and scatters their coins over the temple pavement. The disciples, standing apart in an awed group, suddenly are reminded of that notable prediction concerning the Messiah found in the sixty-ninth Psalm: “The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up.” Surely Jesus will be consumed by the jealous fires of hatred He has stirred this fearful day. Yet it is His zeal and devotion for God’s house which have led Him thus to boldly challenge the hypocritical leaders of the nation and publicly denounce their corrupt management of the temple. These leaders gather for an assault, and demand of Jesus a miraculous sign to prove He has the right thus to override the high priest and all the legal overseers of the temple! A single man with whip in hand drives a whole multitude out of the temple! What greater sign could be had than this? Yet they ask a sign. Blind leaders of the blind, they ask “a sign of a sign.” Jesus answers their demand with an enigmatical prediction which they cannot fathom or overturn: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They understand Him to predict the destruction of the temple and deny His ability to erect it in three days. But He spoke of His crucifixion — the inevitable tragedy which this day’s work presages. The Temple Cleansed Twice The Gospels describe two such cleansings of the temple. John tells of Jesus’ driving Out the merchants and multitude at the very opening of His ministry; the Synoptics represent Jesus as opening the final week of furious combat with the Pharisees and Sadducees in this manner. The gratuitous charge of the modernist is that there was but one cleansing, and that the Gospel writers got tangled up as to the time it happened. But, laying aside the question of inspiration, it is impossible that eyewitnesses could have been so confused as to such a thrilling and all-important event. Why, then, if there were two cleansings, are they not both recorded by all the Gospels? This is because Matthew, Mark, and Luke omit entirely this early Judaean ministry to abbreviate their account, and so could not introduce this first cleansing into their biographies, while John omits many of the events of the last week, such as the cleansing of the temple and the institution of the Lord’s Supper, because these have already been recorded by the Synoptics. The accounts of the two cleansings are quite different. The one comes as a bolt out of a clear sky and starts the terrific conflict with the religious leaders. The other comes at the close of Jesus’ ministry as another incident in the controversy which is gradually growing more bitter and deadly. In the first cleansing, Jesus “made a scourge of small cords,” which He used in driving out the animals. This is not mentioned in any of the accounts of the second cleansing. In John’s account, Jesus bases His action on the fact that His Father’s house is being made a place of merchandise. In the last cleansing He makes the charge that they have turned the temple into a lair of robbers. There is nothing incongruous in the fact that Jesus cleansed the temple twice. The priests and their follow mg would be likely to fall back into such traffic, since it was tremendously profitable. Edersheim figures they made as much as $300,000 a year from this market. The Sadducees would be glad to show their contempt for Jesus by re-establishing the market during His long absence from the city.

Modernistic Attack An instructor in an Eastern university offers the following explanation of why Jesus cleansed the temple: “Jesus was a poor, country yocum who had been raised in the sticks up in Galilee, and had never been to the city before in his life, and did not know that this market was necessary for the temple worship. Therefore, when he saw the traders in the temple, he became indignant and drove them Out.” This explanation, with its malicious delight in attempting to belittle Jesus, has the same shallow and flimsy foundation which is characteristic of modernism. The reasons why this theory cannot hear investigation are numerous: (1) The statement He had not been to the temple before falsifies the Gospel of Luke, which tells He was there at the age of twelve. He might have been there many times during His youth. (2) Galilee was a province, but even the most ignorant provincials could see at a glance that while the market was necessary for the worshipers, it was not necessary to have the market inside the temple. The city itself could furnish numerous suitable locations. (3) If Jesus was a poor, country yocum,” why did the Jewish leaders yield to Him? The professor did not pause to explain how a poor, young ignoramus from Galilee managed to drive the whole multitude, including the leaders of a nation, from the temple with nothing hut a whip in His hand.

Declaration of Deity

Back of this scene lies the principle that right makes might. The fact that Jesus was right, and that the Sadducees and Pharisees were wrong, tended to enfeeble them and give Him power. But among so many there were those who were utterly depraved and cared only for profit and graft. Nobler motives would not count for much with them. Why did they not kill Him on the spot? It is impossible to understand the scene except as an exhibition of the supernatural power of Jesus. His assumption of authority proclaims it and His amazing feat proves it. Right at the outset of His ministry He assumed divine authority and declared by His action: “Behold, a greater than the temple is here.” He towered above the Sadducees and Pharisees and condemned their commercialized management of the temple on the ground that they had defiled “my Father’s house.” A clearer assertion of His divinity would be hard to find. The Jews realized He was making claim to be Messiah by His action. This is the meaning of their challenge to Him to show an overpowering sign from heaven. However, they refused to see or believe His supernatural character.

Results of the Cleansing

What were the results of this cleansing? The reformation in the practices of the temple was not permanent. They drifted hack again into the old ways. But their greed and lack of reverence had been publicly denounced and the mind of the common people must have been deeply impressed. A new ideal for God’s house had been set up in the mind of the nation. Jesus’ action was like a charge of dynamite which started to shake loose the strangle hold which these false leaders had on the hearts of the multitude, and was the first step in trying to wrest them free from such corrupt leadership.

One of the very apparent effects was the sudden impetus given to the inevitable controversy which loomed between Jesus and the religious leaders of the nation. It is customary to declare that the controversy which led to the death of Jesus had its inception in discussions over Sabbath — breaking and failure to keep the traditions of the elders. But here in the cleansing of the temple it took its rise. The scorn of the Jewish leaders for John the Baptist was in itself a rejection of Jesus in the person of His forerunner. The struggle between Jesus and these leaders was in a sense inherited from John’s ministry. The Sadducees were in charge of the temple, but the Pharisees must have been in sympathy with their policy as to the market, for they raised no objection. And now the undying hatred of these malignant foes was raised. They were cowed, but not convinced. They had been publicly rebuked, but were not repentant The scene gives an insight into why Jesus spent so little time in the temple during His public ministry. He was in the temple more during the last week of His ministry than all the rest of the years combined. And His death followed immediately this protracted week of instruction in the temple! He is never pictured as going up to the temple to pray. He went to the desert, sea, and mountain; to the fresh and unsullied world of nature for communion with God, and relief to His overburdened soul. The ungodly hypocrites, who had gained possession of the temple and the whole machinery for the government of the nation, had developed such an atmosphere of selfishness, greed, and dishonesty that Jesus would not bow His neck to their yoke, but rather threw this thunderbolt into their midst and departed into the free air of the provinces. How His deep devotion for His Father’s house, defiled and turned into a den of robbers, contrasts with their pious, hypocritical use of the temple to fill their own greedy purses!

Revelation of the Character of Jesus The revelation of the character of Jesus in this dramatic opening of His ministry is so startling and decisive that it is strange that it can have been so overlooked. The artists’ pictures of Jesus are so often effeminate in character, and the word — pictures of the pulpit often follow suit. “The sweet spirit” of Jesus is often emphasized so exclusively that His absolute and complete manliness, as shown in this moment of fearful wrath, is overlooked. Our Christ endured personal insult and injury; yes, even death “as a lamb that is led to the slaughter dumb,” but for the outraged house of His heavenly Father He dared to issue a thundering challenge which shook the whole nation to its foundations.