136. Jesus Christ--Cleansing the Temple

Jesus Christ--Cleansing the Temple

John 2:13-17. And the Jews’ passover was at hand; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money, sitting: and when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

Besides the usual, universal, and fixed measurements of time, all men have a particular and personal standard of calculation and reference, namely, certain incidents of their own lives, to themselves inexpressibly momentous, however uninteresting to the rest of mankind. Thus a mother with much accuracy and distinctness, refers every other event, of whatever magnitude and importance, to the respective dates of the birth of her children. The expiration of his time, as it is called, that is of his clerkship, or apprenticeship, forms an important epoch in the existence of a young man; and the fate of princes, and the revolutions of empire acquire, to his eyes, a peculiar consequence from their relation, in point of time, to that grand revolution in his own little state. The consecration of prelates and the inauguration of kings are, at once, public and private measures of duration. Every act of the state is dated by the year of the sovereign’s reign. But human life admits not of a repetition of those more distinguished periods. They are remembered and referred to because they are rare. Were every day to exhibit a state-trial, hardly any, except the parties and their connections, would care to attend it, or think of setting a mark upon it.

There is one life, however, of which every hour is an epoch, of which every act is decisive, of which every event is highly and universally interesting, and of which ever period is a “fulness of time.” Of this life each instant, each incident, every progressive step furnishes a theme for the tongues, for the pens, of thousands of thousands of men and angels, and, when their stores are exhausted, it presents a subject as new, as important, as unbounded as it was at the beginning. The beloved disciple, having thrown his mite of information into the public treasury, concludes his gospel with declaring his belief, his deliberate conviction that the history of the life and actions of his divine Master was a subject infinite and inexhaustible. “There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written everyone, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written;” meaning undoubtedly, that the things which Jesus said and did were so many, so extraordinary, so significant, so efficient, as infinitely to exceed human comprehension and belief. But wherefore should the expression of the evangelist be considered as hyperbolical, when we are told that these are the “things which the angels desire to look into;” and when we reflect on the burden of the eternal song of the redeemed in heaven, “I heard,” says John “the voice of many angels roundabout the throne, and the living creatures, and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands: saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.” From the marriage in Cana of Galilee, Jesus again “went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days.” How those days were employed we have seen in the preceding Lecture: in conducting the service of the synagogue, in cultivating the charities of private life, in secret devotion, in healing the sick, in casting out devils, in preaching the kingdom of God. Having made a progress of teaching and preaching over the cities and synagogues of Galilee, He now, for the first time since he assumed a public character, went up to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of passover. Preserving the order of events as accurately as an attentive comparison of evangelist with evangelist enables us, we are now to contemplate an incident in our Lord’s history marked with very peculiar features, and presenting a new and instructive opening into his character, namely his purgation of the temple from the impurities with which it was profaned by an impious and infamous traffic. From his earliest years the commanded solemnities of that sacred place were punctually observed. Whatever the law enjoined was to his infant state duly performed. While under parental authority, particularly when it led to the house and worship of God, He respectfully submitted to it. In the maturity of age, voluntary and cheerful obedience to the ordinances of heaven distinguished the great exemplar of decency and order. Through the goodness of God, we are delivered from all burdensome and costly attendance on the service of the temple. We are not called to wait upon God with rams and calves of a year old. Our husbandmen, manufacturers, and merchants are not summoned, under severe penalties, several times in the year, to join in the worship of the metropolitan church, at a great expense of time and substance. Is therefore the service of the Christian sanctuary worthless and contemptible? Do we therefore requite the Lord of the sabbath with neglect and ingratitude? Do we therefore snuff at his bloodless sacrifices, and say, “Behold, what, a weariness is it? and bring that which is torn, and the lame, and the sick for an offering?” Dare Christian parents set the example to their children and dependants of irreligion and profanity, and, because they are set free from a costly ceremonial, and a superstitious observance of the sabbath, will they claim and assume an exemption from the offices and the spirit of piety, devotion, and gratitude? Liberated from an intolerable yoke of iron, disdain they to wear the honorable, the golden chains of love? The Jewish ritual was at this period vilely profaned, and was rapidly hastening to dissolution. But so long as it is in force, our blessed Lord condescends to be the pattern of attention and respect to it. And yet, what a scene did the house of God then present! The forms of religion remained, but the power and glory had departed. The letter of the law was still held in affectedveneration, but the spirit was completely evaporated. The sacrifices of the living and true God were shamefully prostituted to gratify the most sordid of human passions, godliness was perverted into a mere instrument of filthy lucre, and the house of prayer was degraded into a den of thieves. And such is the fearful progress of moral corruption. Fervor gradually subsides into luke-warmness, and luke-warmness into cold. Indifference soon becomes mere formality, and formality is but a step from total neglect. Neglect degenerates into hatred and aversion, and an unhallowed zeal at length attempts to destroy what a zeal according to godliness once endeavored to buildup. What can be more opposite and unlike than devout worshippers engaged in a holy contention of gratitude, praise, and love, striving who should present the most acceptable sacrifice to the Father of Spirits; and carnal, worldly minded formalists trying to overreach one another; the one eager to purchase the ox or the sheep for his offering at as cheap a rate as possible, and the other to sell it at the highest price. And the very court of the temple is made the open theatre of this abominable commerce.

Before thou liftest up thy hand, O man, to scourge out those impious, sordid, profane Jews, pause, and look into thine own heart. Is no unholy traffic going on there? Knowest thou not that thine own body is the temple of the living God? Whose altar, then, is reared up in that sacred edifice of God’s own building; and what incense smokes upon it? Say, is the name of Mammon inscribed there? Does sensuality there celebrate no nocturnal revels? What, shall the palace of the great King be transformed into “a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” Or, with the superstitious Athenian, art thou ignorantly bowing down before an “unknown God?” Thou regularly observest the hour, and frequentest the house of prayer; but is there no table of “the money-changer” lurking is some obscure corner? Didst thou leave the world at the door on coming in? Why wander these eyes abroad over thy neighbor’s garb and appearance? They ought to be fixed on “thy Father who is in secret,” and who “seeth in secret.” Dost thou too “offer the sacrifice of fools?”--Darest thou approach the altar of God, conscious that thou art not yet reconciled to thy brother? The gift in thy hand is polluted; presume not to offer it. “Leave it before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”

It was the court of the Gentiles which this scandalous trade thus shamefully profaned, by the buying and selling of sheep, and oxen, and doves; and by the exchange of foreign for current coin, and of money of a higher for that of a lower denomination. And thus not only was the worship of the great Jehovah debased and perverted, but the minds of decent and devout strangers, who “had come to Jerusalem for to worship,” must have been grievously shocked and scandalized, to the utter extinction of every serious and devotional impression. This it was which excited a holy and just indignation in the Son on of God; in beholding the temple violated, the sacrifices of God defiled, and a stumbling block laid in the way of proselytes, by men invested with a sacred character.

“And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise.” This discloses a new and singular exhibition of our blessed Lord’s spirit and temper. No personal injury or insult could provoke one expression of resentment. He “gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: he hid not his face from shame and spitting:” you have heard of the meekness of Moses, and of the patience of Job. But what are they to the patience, meekness, and gentleness of Christ? Nevertheless these gracious qualities have a boundary. There are occasions where the exercise of them would cease to be virtue, and where a man would “do well to be angry.” Wanton, deliberate profanation of the name, the day, the house of the Lord, is one of those occasions which justify severity. A commanding dignity, an irresistible glory must have occasionally bearded from the person of our Lord, which overawed and intimidated the beholder. How is it possible otherwise to account for the quiet submission of those men to corporal chastisement. They were many in number; they had a common interest to bind them to each other; they were in hitherto unquestioned possession of the ground; their property was concerned; they had the connivance at least, if not the permission of the higher powers. He was alone, unknown, unconnected, unsupported. But they cannot stand the lightning of his eye, his voice strikes horror into their guilty consciences. They presume not to reason or to resist, but tamely give up their painful traffic abashed and confounded. Thus the multitude that came with Judas to take Jesus, though furnished “with lanterns, and torches, and weapons,” were so overwhelmed by the majesty of his appearance, that “as soon as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground.” And if such were the glory with which he sometimes invested himself, in his state of humiliation, what must be the glory of his second coming, “with clouds,” when “every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him?”

What a severe reproof was this action of our Lord, of the carelessness and indifference of the high-priest, and of the other ministers of religion? To them it belonged to guard the sanctity of the temple and of its worship. The dignity of their own station and character suffered, when the house of God was violated. Is it doing them injustice to suspect that they partook of the profits of this illicit trade? If this suspicion be well founded, the grossest enormity is immediately accounted for. When the love of money has once taken possession of the heart, no tie of religion or morality is binding. Conscience, sense of honor, sense of decency, sense of duty, all, all is sacrificed at the shrine of this insatiate demon, which never says “it is enough.” At those seasons the demand for cattle to be offered in sacrifice must have been very great. Josephus, in his Wars of the Jews, informs us, that no less than two hundred and fifty-six thousand and five hundred victims were presented at one passover. A small share of the gains upon such an extensive consumption, must therefore have amounted to a very large sum. What a confederacy, then, had the zeal and intrepidity of Christ to encounter! a whole host of inhuman, unfeeling dealers in flesh, actuated by the basest and most unrelenting of human passions, and leagued with a time-serving priesthood who put everything up to sale.

We have before us a striking and an encouraging instance of the power and influence of one person of inflexible integrity, in a corrupted state of society. He may singly and successfully oppose a torrent of iniquity. Vice is timid when directly attacked. “The wicked flee,” saith the wise man, “when no one pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” Irresistible is the three of truth and conscience. “Is not my word like as fire? saith the Lord: and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces!” “The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” This is the weapon which our Master wielded, together with the “scourge of small cords.” Smitten at once in their persons and in their consciences, they retreat with shame from the field, acknowledging, feeling the superiority of real goodness. Thus then learn, O man, to arm thyself, and say, “the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded; therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.” From the inexhaustible stores of Scripture draw thy resources for the warfare, and thou shalt find thyself invincible. What has he to fear, who is conscious of the goodness of his cause, who employs “the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God,” and who goes forth conquering and to conquer in full confidence of divine conduct and support.

It is evident from the censure pronounced upon the violators of the temple, that their trade was every way unlawful. This transaction is recorded by all the four evangelists with little if any variation. And by comparing them together we shall find, that the abuse exposed and condemned was a horrid mixture of impiety and dishonesty, of contempt of God, and robbery of man. Not only was “the house of prayer for all nations” abominably polluted by what fell from the flocks and herds for sacrifice, but it was literally perverted into “a den of thieves,” who had entered into a wicked combination to prey upon the public, by enhancing the price of an article which was at once a necessary of life and of religion. These two enormities, however, generally go hand in hand. If there is no fear of God before a man’s eyes, his neighbor has but a slender hold upon either his veracity or integrity, when the falsehood may be uttered, or the fraud committed without danger of detection. And, on the other hand, he who deliberately practices deceit upon “his brother whom he hath seen,” cannot have a very high degree of reverence for “God whom he hath not seen.”

While we contemplate with shame and sorrow the corruptions which disgraced the Jewish Church, is it possible to refrain from lamenting the equally deplorable corruptions which have disfigured the hallowed form of Christianity! Did not all history attest the truth of it, who would believe that there was a long period, not yet quite expired in some parts of Christendom, and that there was a succession of priests, called Christians, who presumed, for a piece of money, to grant a man indulgence to commit every species of wickedness, which his corrupt heart might suggest, and for any given period, with complete impunity? Who could believe that this priest, in consideration of something cast into his treasury, would take upon him to issue a pardon of the most atrocious offences, and thereby screen the vilest of offenders from punishment; nay, confer the power of pardoning on stone walls and lifeless altars? The murderer who smote his brother to death in the open street, in broad day, had but to step into the next church, and it stood always open on purpose, to be protected from the vengeance of the law. Who could believe that a present or bequest to the Church was considered as a full compensation for all the crimes of a life of violence, and rapine, and blood, and as a fair passport to the kingdom of heaven? That such things should ever have existed is most wonderful; that they should have maintained their ground over all Europe for many centuries together is most wonderful. But the scandalous usurpation is hastening to a close. And with the downfall of popery, may every remaining error in the doctrine, discipline, and practice of the churches of the Reformation finally terminate. The disciples of our Lord possessed one great preparatory qualification for the exercise of their future ministry, acquaintance with the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Struck with this display of their Master’s zeal for the honor of God, and for the purity of temple-worship, they call to remembrance a text from the Psalms of David, which appeared to them a prefiguration of what had just passed. “And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” We pretend not to affirm that the words of the Psalmist amount to a prediction of what Christ felt, and said, and did upon this occasion. David unquestionably uttered his own feelings, though there was as yet no temple at Jerusalem dedicated to the most High God. But the expression amounts to this: Whatever affects the character and worship of Deity, I make my personal concern. “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up:” ardent regard for the honor of thy sanctuary, like a secret flame pent up in my breast, must either have vent or consume me: and the sequel is in the same spirit, “and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.” But though we may not have here a direct prophecy of a future event, we have a powerful assimilation between two most eminent personages, at very distant periods, breathing one and the same spirit, aiming at one and the same end: and this similitude partakes of the nature of prophecy. And the whole leads us to this conclusion, that there may be predictions, resemblances, analogies in Scripture, hitherto concealed even from the wise and prudent, to be hereafter unfolded, or perhaps reserved for the instruction and delight of the kingdom of heaven, when there shall be in Scripture nothing obscure, or hard to be understood. What a motive is this, now to listen to the command of Christ. “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” In this passage of our Lord’s history, as in all Scripture, we have many things “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”

1. We have a humiliating view of the treachery and deceitfulness of the human heart. The very persons who considered it as a crime to “eat bread with unwashen hands,” could quietly digest the profanation of the temple and of the worship of God. Such self-elusion do men practise every day. They treat their own infirmities as some mothers do very homely, wayward, or even deformed children, who not only show them all possible indulgence themselves, but are offended if others adopt not their fond ness and partiality. At the same time, the slightest blemish to the character of another is quickly seen and severely censured. The deception is frequently carried much farther. A man shall actually discern and rigidly condemn in his neighbor, the very fault to which he himself is notoriously addicted. The proud person can endure no one’s pride but his own; the passionate stand astonished at the transports of those who are hasty like themselves: and who are so severe upon hypocrisy as the hypocritical? Every lesson taught by the great Teacher has a foundation in human corruption, and has a tendency to correct it, and this is an important one “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye: and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shale thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” To which I subjoin the prayer of the Psalmist: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

2. If such were the dignity which the Son of God assumed, and the authority which he exercised, while he tabernacled with men upon earth, attended by a few simple Galileans, is it not a matter of very serious concern to meditate on the majesty and importance of his coming to judge the quick and the dead? If his presence was thus awful and tremendous when armed with only “a scourge of small cords,” what must it be, when “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” In this judgment to come we are all equally interested, and we are furnished with a present rule of judgment in the decisions of conscience and the dictates of the word of God. Happy is that man who understands, believes, and improves the testimony of those faithful and true witnesses; who, knowing the terrors of the Lord, is persuaded to flee from the wrath to come, and to lay hold on eternal life. “He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already; because ho hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.” These last words open a brighter prospect, and disclose to us “the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory, and sending his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Then shall he be “glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe.” Thus are good and evil, death and life, the blessing and the curse set before us. Thus all that is terrible in justice, armed with almighty power, addresses itself to our fear, and all that is amiable and alluring in unbounded goodness and love, expands to our hope, “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.” May we this day know him as a Savior whom we must in that day meet as a judge. May we have wisdom to comply with the counsel of him, as a friend, whom it is certain and utter ruin to encounter as an adversary. “Behold, now is the accepted time: behold, now is the day of salvation.”

3. Take care, frail, ignorant, erring man, how thou proposest to thyself the purifier of the temple as a pattern of zeal. “It is good,” saith the apostle, “to be zealously affected always in a good thing;” but unless zeal be directed by prudence and knowledge, it may produce incredible mischief. There is a zeal about trifles, which diverts the mind from objects of serious importance. Battles have been fought, and volumes written to determine the posture in which the sacrament ought to be received, and the habit to be worn by the priest in reading the service of the church. While contention about such non-essentials waxed hot, the spirit of piety and prayer grew cold. There is a zeal which is the offspring of prejudice and habit. It actuated Saul of Tarsus, when “he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and hailing men and women, committed them to prison;” and while he “yet breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord:” and when, speaking of himself; he says: “I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem; and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests: and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.” There is a vainglorious, ostentatious zeal, which cannot bear to pass unobserved, which must be fed with public attention and admiration. Such is that which inspired Jehu, when he exultingly challenged applause: “Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.” There is a malignant, intolerant zeal, which pities not, spares not. Even the disciples James and John were under its influence, when a village of the Samaritans refused to receive their Master, “Lord,” say they, “wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?” and it received a just and severe reprehension from the mouth of Christ: “He turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” The disciples themselves became the victims of this fiery, exterminating zeal, as Christ predicted concerning them. “They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” Thus the hard measure which they would have meted to others, was measured out unto themselves. But there is a zeal, as well as a doctrine, “which is according to godliness:” a pure and lambent flame of love to God, which admits of no mixture of human passion, which views every object through the medium of Deity, and aims but at one end, that God may be glorified. This excellent spirit will never think of doing God service, by showing unkindness or cruelty to man. But it is so rare and so easily counterfeited, that even its emotions are to be regarded with a jealous eye, for there is no small danger of a man’s mistaking the ebullitions of his own mind, for the impulse of God’s spirit, especially in cases where guilt is to be condemned and vengeance executed. David made a wise and happy choice, when constrained to submit to one of three great evils. “I am in a great strait;” said he, “Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, (for his mercies are great) and let me not fall into the hand of man.” I like not to see the scourge, the sword, the torch voluntarily assumed by one of like passions with myself. In vehement attempts to reform abuse, I should tremble to think of their degenerating into a rage to destroy. The tremendous attribute of vengeance, God will confide to no hands but his own, but he permits man to carry the imitation of divine mercy as far as he can. “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

4. Mark the power of conscience, and learn to secure its testimony in your favor. What made cowards of those gross and brutal men? An ill conscience. What chased away a multitude before one man? An ill conscience. What overawed a rapacious priesthood and a licentious populace? An ill conscience. Conscience drove our guilty progenitors to seek concealment “from the presence of the Lord God, amongst the trees of the garden.” Conscience sent out murderous Cain “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth,” under the dire apprehension that everyone who found him would slay him. It is conscience that dictates the unavailing cry to despairing wretches, who in, bitterness exclaim “to the mountains and rocks, fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” But what, in opposition to this, is the source of a Christian’s composure and satisfaction? “Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world.” Herein consisted the triumph of the apostle over the fear of the Roman governor, and over the oratory of Tertullus: “Herein do I exercise myself; to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men.” And this constitutes the triumph and the security of every believer in Christ Jesus: “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.”

Though the buyers and sellers were abashed and put to flight, some of the consequential cavilers, who are to be found in every age, and in every society, maintain the ground, and call for the commission under which Jesus acted. “Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, what sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?” This furnished him with a fair occasion of bringing forward the peculiar and distinguishing doctrine of his religion, the resurrection of the body, which was soon to be exemplified in his own resurrection from the dead, as “the first fruits of them that sleep.” This will accordingly constitute the subject of the next Lecture. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection, on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ.”