John 2:13-22: Razing and Raising the Temple

(1) Bible Study Questions

Discuss: It is said that you begin to know someone when you know what makes them passionate or zealous. What gets you passionate or zealous?

1. When in the timeline of Jesus’ ministry and where in the geography of Israel do these events occur? (v. 13) In the context of John, what might be the significance of these observations?

Note: At the time of Jesus, the structure built by Solomon (c. 950 BC) no longer existed, having been destroyed by the Babylonians. Under Zerubbabel, Haggai, and Zechariah, a much more humble replacement had been completed (538-513BC). By the time of Herod the Great, extensive construction works expanded the complex had been commenced (20/19BC), and were only completed in AD 63 (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 15:380 at http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg001.perseus-eng1:15.380 accessed on 9 January 2018). This so-called ‘Second Temple’ was utterly destroyed by the Romans seven years after its completion in accordance with Jesus’ words (e.g. Mark 13), and has not been rebuilt to this day. The site is known as the ‘Temple Mount’ in Jerusalem. The expansions of the temple complex included the so-called ‘Court of Women’, and ‘Court of Gentiles’. These were features of the temple about which Exodus hadn’t spoken. It is thought that the markets were conducted in the ‘Court of the Gentiles’.

2. What service do you think the sellers and coin-changers (v. 14) were there to provide?

3. Think about the things that Jesus actually did. How would you describe those actions? (vv. 14-17)

4. Which of the following reasons might conceivably have motivated Jesus’ actions that John records here (cf. vv. 16-17; cf. 1 Kgs 8:41-43; Isa 56:6-7; Zech 14:16-17, 21):

• Jesus rejected Sabbath trading to keep the Sabbath Holy
• Jesus wanted Gentiles to have space in the Jewish temple
• Jesus didn’t want the temple to be used for monetary gain
• Jesus didn’t want the animals to be slaughtered

Note: The currency changing was required to pay the annual half-shekel tax that God had commanded Israel (Exod 30:13). A particular coin was required because of the silver content, and because it avoided having pagan idolatry in the temple in the form of Roman money. These markets and financial arrangements enabled the Jews to fulfil God’s commands. It was actively collected during New Testament times (cf. Matt 17:24-27). Josephus records that around the end of the fourth decade AD, tens of thousands of Jewish men escorted the half shekel temple tax contributions of the diaspora Babylonian Jews (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 18.313 at http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg001.perseus-eng1:18.310 accessed on 9 January 2017).

5. What implicit authority does Jesus claim to do this? (v. 16)

6. What’s your guess for when the disciples remembered what was written? (v. 17, cf. v. 22)

7. What is the ironic thing about the Jews’ question in verse 18? (cf. John 2:23, 3:2) What might this suggest?

8. Did Jesus’ answer, challenge, and promise of a sign make sense at the time? (vv. 19-22) Why or why not?

9. What does verse 22 implicitly suggest about Jesus’ words?

10. Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that Jesus did a similar thing on his final Passover visit, two years later (Matt 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-46). What does this suggest about Jesus’ actions?

11. How can we copy the zeal or passion of Jesus in our situation?

(2) Sermon Script

Introduction: Jesus the Sheriff and the Tenants From Hell

A pretty typical current affairs story is the ‘tenants from hell’ story. Take for example, one I saw some time ago: an elderly landlord was not being paid his rent, and the tenant with an attitude inevitably turns to violence, so the elderly landlord gets pushed over in the melee. And moreover, the tenant’s heavy decks the reporter’s sound boom operator.

Repossession often involves the use of force, forcible expulsion, and the sheriff changing the locks. To bring about justice, some form of controlled aggression and physical restraint is often necessary. This is one reason why men have testosterone. In a fallen world, aggression is not always bad. It makes things happen, rights wrongs, restrains evil and prevents injustice. But it must be under control.

In this passage, the masculine Jesus uses his testosterone to right a wrong. He comes to his Father’s house at one of his Father’s festivals, and he observes the tenants breaching the lease, to the hurt of the whole world.

Context: Passover No 1 (v. 13)

Jesus has just performed social disaster rescue at a wedding in Cana. He turned 480 to 720 litres of water into the best wine without a word. And after a few days with family and friends, he heads up to Jerusalem. It was Passover time (v. 13). This will be the first of three Passovers that John records. (The first one is mentioned in 2:13, 23, the second in 6:4, and the third and final passover from 11:55-12:1). All Jewish men had to go to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

Eviction Day (vv. 14-15)

But when Jesus went to the temple, he wasn’t happy with what he saw. John chapter 2 verses 14 to 15:

2:14And in the temple he found those who sell cattle and sheep and doves, and the coin-changers sitting down, 2:15and making a whip out of rope, he threw them all out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle, and he tipped over the coins of the moneytraders, and he overturned their tables.

It is the rare Rector who has the stomach to take on the parish fete. But Jesus goes well beyond that. Jesus does not choose to have a quiet word to the authorities beforehand to avoid an embarrassing confrontation, but he employs an aggressive full-frontal assault on the traders in the temple on market day. He becomes a zealot, for zeal for his Father’s house has eaten him up (v. 17; Ps 69:9). These are eviction proceedings by a zealous, aggressive man acting as judge, jury and sheriff. This is Jesus is the enforcer.

Why such summary, inflammatory, violent actions? Is Jesus just the control freak Rector who disapproves of church fetes? Or is he a Puritanical Sabbatarian zealot trying to stamp out Sunday trading. No.

Is Jesus the first animal liberationist? “Go free, cattle and sheep. Fly away, doves. I won’t let you be slaughtered.” No. Jesus has no problem with the slaughter of the animals for temple sacrifices. After all, he is God. He set up the sacrificial laws of the Old Testament, with his Father, in the power of the Spirit.

So then, is Jesus cruel to animals? After all, he gets the whip out. It’s not the animals' fault that they are there in the temple. Would the RSPCA be onto Jesus for his treatment of animals? No, none of these are Jesus’ concerns, and they really shouldn't be ours either when it comes to understanding this passage. They are all modern sensibilities, somewhat removed from the bloody realities of life in the fallen world.

We need to understand why the temple markets were there in the first place. The temple markets were a community service for Israel. The cattle and sheep were required for Levitical sacrifices. Cattle and sheep were to be slaughtered for sacrifices. Doves were required for the offerings of the poor, again to be killed. In fact, Jesus' parents offered these very sacrifices on behalf of Jesus at his presentation. The temple authorities were preparing for the increased demand for sacrificial animals and money acceptable for use in the temple at the feast. So they set up these stalls to enable worshippers to have what they needed to obey their Old Testament obligations. The sale of animals provided a valuable service to the Jews throughout Israel and indeed the Roman empire. This meant that the worshippers didn’t have to bring their sacrificial animals with them. They could sell animals they had where they lived, bring the money to the temple, and buy new, priestly-approved animals when they got to the temple.

And the currency changing was required to pay the annual half-shekel tax that God had commanded Israel. A particular coin was required because of the silver content. These markets and financial arrangements enabled the Jews to fulfil God’s commands.

Why Did Jesus Do It? (vv. 16 -17)

So what is Jesus so upset about? Why did Jesus engage in this violent eviction? He himself lived under the law, and said he came not to abolish the law but fulfill it. Doesn’t he want Israel to obey the Old Testament? Yes, he does.

But I think there are two reasons Jesus did it.

First, A Place of Prayer for All Nations (Isaiah 56:6-7)

The first reason Jesus acted was because he was concerned for people like you and me. Jesus acted on behalf of a class of people just like us. Because we are Gentiles – at least, most of us are. And Jesus was acting for Gentiles in evicting the temple markets.

The temple complex in Jesus day was much bigger than what Solomon built. The markets Jesus entered were probably located in the outer court. This was called ‘the Court of the Gentiles’ or ‘the Court of the Nations’. Solomon’s temple did not have this Court. This wasn’t part of God’s original design for the sanctuary. But it was added to the reconstructed temple after the Babylonian exile.

Why? Because Yahweh God of Israel was God of the whole world. The Court of the Gentiles was built because of Old Testament promises such as this in Isaiah:

And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant - these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." (Isa 56:6-7 NIV)

God’s ultimate plan was not to exclude the Gentiles from God’s dwelling place. It was to include the Gentiles. God wanted to bless the Gentiles through the Jews. Yahweh the God of Israel wanted his house to be a house of prayer for the nations as well.

By taking over the Court of the Gentiles, the markets had taken over the space reserved for the Gentiles to offer their prayers to God. Solomon, who first built the temple, had envisaged this very thing. 1 Kings 8:41-43:

As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name - for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm-- when he comes and prays toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name. (1 Kgs 8:41-43 NIV)

Earlier in Israel’s history, the markets were located on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. But by moving into the Court of the Gentiles, they dishonoured the Gentiles. The temple authorities were displacing the Gentiles to make it more convenient for the Jews to worship. The markets could have been placed outside the temple walls, not within the temple precincts. So Jesus wants to honour the Gentiles who’ve come to the temple.

Second, ‘How Dare You Turn My Father’s House into a Market (v. 16)

Jesus also seems to object to the Commercialisation of the Temple. Verses 16, How dare you turn my Father's house into a market! The House of God the Father is turned into a House of Market. And God the Son is angry.

Here, Jesus looks back to the last verse of the Prophet Zechariah. Zechariah chapter 14 looks forward. It pictures all the survivors of the nations of the earth coming to the temple to worship Yahweh, the God of Israel (Zechariah 14:16-17). And in the final verse, Zechariah 14:21, the prophet says:

And there shall no longer be a trader [1] in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day. (ESV; cf NIV mg)

The temple is not the place for trade. That space will be purified from worldly gain.

And this we see Jesus doing. Jesus acts to ensure this space is for praying to God, especially for the sake of the Gentiles.

John has already said Jesus has a unique relationship with God. Jesus is ‘God the only Son in the bosom of the Father’ (John 1:18) But now we see the Jesus saying so. “How dare you turn my Father ’s house into a house of market.”

That is Jesus Christ’s claim to authority. He can do these things because the temple is his Father’s house. Jesus is the Son, taking possession, so that the house is used properly.

So how do we apply this?

We have to aggressively take hold of the things Jesus’ fought for. What did he fight for?

Gentiles at Prayer

He fought for a place of prayer for the Gentiles. So do you pray? Jesus overturned tables and made a whip to make sure the Gentiles had a place. Through his death we have access to the Father by the one Spirit? So are you using that access? Or do you take it for granted, so that you don’t do it? Let’s take hold of what fought for. We now have a hearing with God the father, a place to pray.

Gentiles Meeting Together

The temple courts were a place where the early church met together. It was a place of bible teaching and prayer. It was a place of gathering together. Are you hungry to meet together to be taught God’s word. Jesus did much of his teaching in the temple courts, when he was in Jerusalem. And at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus cleared out the temple so that Gentiles would have a space to listen to the Scriptures and to gather in prayer and praise to God. What about you? Are you hungry, are you desparate, to meet God’s people, to learn from God’s word? Jesus cleared the space. Now, all you’ve got to do is turn up.

Market and Money Secondary

Again, it raises the question, ‘where do we put business affairs’. We all have business and money matters. It’s part of living in this world. And the church is no different. But the church is not fundamentally a business. Some things we do are business-like. We have to live within our means, we have to plan to expand, we have bills to pay, like the rest of us. But fundamentally, we are about heaven, and the gospel, and the world to come, and teaching people to live now for God and Jesus. And we must not let money and markets get in the way. Because they can easily take over.

That’s one of the reasons we don’t pass the plate around on Sundays at our services. We have boxes to the side. Because we are fundamentally not a money making exercise. But the gospel is the message that heaven is a free gift, not earned as wages. So we want people to give from a cheerful heart back to the work of God, and not under compulsion. And we certainly don’t won’t people to be made uncomfortable by the bags being passed around.

And it is my partial retiscence about church fetes. They are not wrong per se. But it is very easy for the main thing to not be the main thing. And they can distract us from the main job. And over time they have a life of their own, taken over by people who at best are tangential to the life of the church. And then the tail begins to wag the dog. Jesus cast out the money makers and the traders because his house should be a house of prayer. And we must not fall into the mistake of thinking that church is about making money. It’s about prayer, about God, about Jesus, and about God’s word. Not about making money.

The Demand for a Sign in the Face of Many Signs (vv. 18, 23, 3:2)

The act John focuses here at the beginning of his ministry is Jesus’ taking on the establishment. Jesus has started with a bang. And there is no doubt the religious leaders will keep an eye on him.

Jesus has already claimed that the temple is ‘his Father’s house’. That is not adequate, justification for the religious leadership. Verse 18:

2:18Then the Jews responded and said to him, “What sign will you show us, since you are doing these things?”

Notice, they don’t argue with the propriety of removing the markets. Perhaps they even concede that Jesus is right, given Zechariah’s prophecy. This issue is Jesus’ authority. What signs will you do to show that you are the Son of God?

And at first glance, this is quite a reasonable request. After all, saying that you have a unique relationship with the Father is a big claim. And they don’t know that Jesus changed water to wine.

But there are a couple of reasons we can doubt the sincerity of their request. First, verse 23 tells us that Jesus has already given many signs. John 2:23:

2:23So as he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name when they saw his signs which he did.

Second, one of the religious leaders, Nicodemus, says this, perhaps even that night: John 3:2:

3:2He came to him during the night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could do these signs which you do, except God was with him.”

There is no problem with a lack of signs. Jesus has given plenty. There is always this desire for signs. We always desire to see something powerful, something miraculous. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:22-24:

Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (NIV)

Likewise, Jesus said, Luke 16:31:

If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. (NIV)

Friends, don’t long for signs. Instead, trust the word of God. Trust God’s love for you in the death of Jesus Christ. Trust the witness of the Apostles about Jesus resurrection from the dead. That should be enough for us.

Jesus the New True Temple (vv. 19-22)

Jesus, however, says he will give them a sign. It is a sign that will occur in 2 years time, at another Passover festival. John 2:19-22:

2:19Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it in three days”. 2:20So the Jews said, “This temple was built over the period of forty-six years, and you will raise it in three days?” 2:21But he said this about the temple of his body. 2:22So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus said.

What an enigmatic saying! How hard to understand: “Destroy this temple and I will raise it in three days” (v. 19). I would not have picked it was referring to Jesus’ bodily death and resurrection. And neither did the disciples.

Jesus is here asserting that a newer, better temple has come. His body is the replacement of the temple that God gave Israel. Jesus boldly says he replaces the temple. “The temple is all about me”, says Jesus. “I am the replacement temple.”

That means that no building can ever be a temple anymore. There is no building where we must go to meet God anymore. Now, we go to Jesus. Old Testament believers were told to pray toward the temple. The temple toward which we pray is Jesus. He is our way of access to God.

And so buildings are nice but not necessary. You have direct access to God the Father everywhere you are, through Jesus. And together as the church, we are God’s temple, because of our attachment and connection to Jesus. Jesus is the temple, we corporately are the temple, and individually each of us now, in our union with Christ, is a temple in which God lives by his Spirit.

Can you see what arrogance, no, lunacy, this is, if it were not true? Don’t tell me you like Jesus as a person but can’t believe he is God. If Jesus is not God, he is an insane lunatic who today we would lock up, or else, worse, a narcissistic egotistical attention grabbing control freak, who believes the whole world revolves around him. Christianity is not merely some moral code about how to be good. (Although Christianity contains the most searching ethical demands possible). No, Christianity is Christ. Who is this Jesus? Is he mad or demon possessed? Every world view or system of thought must have an opinion about him. Christianity is Christ. What do we confess Christ to be? Very God become human, the word become flesh, the only Son of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, who only ever can speak the truth. John’s Gospel makes it abundantly clear. Jesus is either liar, lunatic, or Lord. And we confess him Lord. That is what a Christian is. Jesus, in his death and resurrection, becomes the replacement for the temple. And so later he will say that we don’t need mountains to worship anymore. We just need the Spirit of the Father, who is the Spirit of the Son.

Jesus will raise the temple of his body. It is not just God the Father who raises Jesus, but God the Son is involved in raising himself. Jesus raises himself, not just as a passive recipient, because Jesus was and is righteous, and death could not hold him down. He lays his life down. He takes it up again.

And Jesus death and resurrection is the event that changes everything. The death and resurrection of Jesus sends the disciples back to the bible. After he rose from the dead, they combed through the Old Testament Scriptures to understand them. And the Scriptures then made sense to them, because they had the key to understand them: the death and resurrection of the Messiah.

Not The Last Time (Matt 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46)

This is the first time we know of that Jesus cleared the temple. It wouldn’t be the last.

Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that Jesus did a similar thing on his final Passover visit, two years later (Matt 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-46). The marketeers had returned, with all their coins and livestock. And Jesus didn’t bring about any lasting change to the Jerusalem temple. It was destroyed some 40 years after the events that John narrates, because Jerusalem did not recognize the time of it’s visitation. God had visited them, and they missed it, and killed him.

Conclusion

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild? Not here! Zealous Jesus, angry and wild! Yes. Jesus is the outraged Son, fighting for the honour of his Father, fighting for the gentiles, that they be included in God’s plan, fighting against commercialism, so that godliness is not used as a means for financial gain. Let’s remember to use the rights for which he fought: gentiles at prayer, gentiles hearing God’s word, gentiles gathering together, and gentiles coming to God through the temple. And let’s keep matters of money out of it. And let’s remember: Our temple is the body of Jesus, and we are members of his body.

Let’s pray.

(3) English Translation

[1]My literal translation of Zechariah 14:21b is “And there will not be a Kenanite again in the house of Yahweh of hosts on that day.” The second meaning in BDB for ‘Kenanite’ is trader or merchant (cf. also Prov 31:24).

(4) Exegetical Notes

In verse 13, John places the cleansing of the temple that he records in the first Passover of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus did a similar thing on his final Passover visit, two years later, and in the week before he died, which each of the synoptics record (Matt 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46).

The account John gives of the cleansing in verses 14-17 can be compared to that of the synoptics.

John differs from Matthew, Mark, and Luke not only in the chronology of the temple cleansing, but in the following details:

(a) John mentions that there are oxen and sheep, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not mention any creatures except the pigeons;

(b) Only John mentions the whip of cords;

(c) John’s word for money-changer is κερματιστής, while Mark and Matthew use κολλυβιστής;

(d) In John 2:16, Jesus addresses directly the traders with the command “take these things away from here” (ἄρατε ταῦτα ἐντεῦθεν);

(e) In John 2:15, the word he uses for ‘overthrew’ is ἀνέτρεψεν, while Matthew and Mark use κατέστρεψεν;

(f) The synoptics say that Jesus quoted Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:1, John that the disciples remembered the relevant statement in Psalm 69:9 after Jesus rose from the dead;

(g) In Mark, Jesus prohibits carrying through the temple, but this is not explicitly recorded in either Matthew, Luke, nor John;

(h) In Matthew and Mark, Jesus overturned the seats of the pigeon sellers, but in John, Jesus says only to take these things, being the pigeons, away;

(i) In John, it is Jesus’ first public act; in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it is his last.

Conservative Evangelical scholars rightly argue for two cleansings, one described by the synoptics, and the other described by John. (Morris 1971: 188-91).

Regarding verse 20, The temple complex in Jerusalem that Jesus entered is commonly called the ‘the Second Temple’, on the reckoning that Solomon’s temple was the first built (c. 950 BC), Zerubbabel’s was the second temple (538-513BC), and that Herod’s extensive construction works which expanded the complex (commenced in 20/19BC and completed in AD 63, according to Josephus, Antiquities, 15:380; 20:219) were essential Zerubbabel’s temple so expanded, altered, and improved, that it cannot be said to constitute a new temple. The other reason that all this is encapsulated under the label ‘Second Temple’ is that there was no intervening destruction, as there was with the Babylonian invasion. Jesus’ enters the second, or Herod’s temple, on this reckoning around AD 27/28. (Morris 1971: 200-201; Carson 1991: 184)

In verse 22, ‘Jesus’ words’ are considered as equivalent to ‘Scripture’ when John says, “they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus said.”

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