John 2:13-22--Jesus Cleanses the Temple

John 2:13-22
English Standard Version
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Jesus Cleanses the Temple
13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

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This again is one of those "Bible stories" that we often read out of the context of the greater context of the passage--remember the key thing that John wants us to learn in this book is that Jesus is the Son of God (God in the flesh) and that in Him and through Him is the only way to eternal life.  That is the trunk of the tree that we're going to need to try to attach our understand of every passage to.  We also know that John wrote in a more "thematic" way and not so much in chronological order so this passage is tied  in with the previous passage and the passage the follows (everything related to the first "sign" is told together).

Our first sign that we studied last time was that Jesus took vessels that were usually used for hand washing (a very common purpose) and changed what was on the inside of the vessels without changing the outside to be something new and wonderful--the best wine that anyone had ever tasted.  I believe this to be a foreshadowing of Jesus talking about what He's going to do with those who belong to Him as they are "born again" (a phrase we are going to see in John 3).

So then, how does this passage about the cleansing of the Temple match up with that big theme and this subtheme?  Well, Jesus is clearing out the Temple of the things that are distracting from the primary purpose of the Temple--a place for the priests to mediate the Old Covenant that focuses on substitutionary atonement and points to Jesus and His work and ministry.  People couldn't see what God intended for them to see because the Temple had become just another marketplace--even though it was forbidden for them to buy, sell and trade inside the Temple.  Jesus is restoring the Law, driving out the distractions, bring the focus back on God the Father and God the Son, and establishing that He has authority to tell people the right way in which to worship God.  It's also clear from this passage that Jesus was full of zeal and passion and was not a dispassionate pacifist as we sometimes imagine Him to be--though He chose not to get worked up when people offended Him, but instead when people offended His Father or the Holy Spirit.

Notice the question (somewhat rhetorical on the part of their part) that the Jews ask.  "By what sign do you show us for doing these things?"  There's that word "sign" again!  They are asking "By what authority?" or "Who gave you the right to do this and act like this?"  His disciples got it right that they realized this was a fulfillment of prophecy, and they probably partially understood because of the first sign they had seen at the wedding in Cana.  But Jesus did not answer them by point back to the previous sign--instead he points forward to the greatest of signs that we're going to to see in the book of John (though John doesn't specifically refer to it as one of the seven signs), the Resurrection.  Everything in the Gospel of John is building to that climax and pointing forwards to that event.  Jesus said that the authority by which He did these things and the sign which showed He had the power to do so was His Resurrection that for Him was a done-deal, but for them hadn't happened yet.

Jesus' words also point to the fact that He is the Temple as the Temple is wherever the presence of God dwells among men, and that is not a place, but it is Son of God and in God's children.  This is why God established a Tabernacle and not a Temple originally as it was to be clear to the other nations that the Presence of God moved with His people and went wherever they went (more correctly, then went wherever He led).  They were not to think like their pagan neighbors of temples and high places where their gods lived and their power was restricted to those places, for heaven is God's throne and the earth is His footstool.  We also know that the Church is now the Temple as the Holy Spirit indwells believers and we carry the presence of God around with us wherever we go--I talked much about that as we studied the books of Exodus and Leviticus and would point you back to those blogs for how the Tabernacle pointed forward to Jesus' earthly ministry, the ministry of the Church, and the New Heaven and the New Earth.

Notice this passage says that no one, not even His disciples understood what He was saying at this point and would not understand until after the Resurrection.  We will see that sometimes the words of Jesus are meant to reveal truth, and other times they are spoken in a way to conceal truth.  The same words will reveal to some and conceal from others, but no truth is revealed unless the God reveals it to them, and the time had not yet come for this truth to be revealed.  In fact, that will be another phrase to watch for in the Gospel of John.  Much will be said about the time/hour (for Jesus to die) having not yet come, being near, and then finally Jesus will say in the High Priestly Prayer in John 17, "Father, the hour has come..." (John 17:1)

There's so much foreshadowing going on here, and much of what's happening in the book of John has very little to do with what appears to be right in front of you.  There is usually something much deeper going on.  We're going to especially see that in the first four chapters, but we'll see it throughout the entire book of John as well.  Get ready as this is a deep book that can't simply be read at a "surface" level.