Matthew 21:12-17--JESUS CLEANSES THE TEMPLE

​Matthew 21:12-17 English Standard Version (ESV)
LISTEN:   https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Matt.21.12-Matt.21.17
Jesus Cleanses the Temple
12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,
“‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies
    you have prepared praise’?”
17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

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Some of you familiar with the gospels may be thinking, "Wait, didn't this happen already? Didn't Jesus do this at the beginning of His ministry and not at the end of His ministry?"  The beset answer appears to be that Jesus cleansed the temple twice--once at the beginning of His ministry (recorded in John 2) and once here at the end (recorded in Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19(.  In both cases it appears that Jesus was angered that the Court of the Gentiles--the place where the other nations were supposed to be able to approach the temple to investigate God had been taken over by those who were taking advantage of both Jews and Gentiles alike.  The temple had its own currency and you could not give offerings in any other currency other than the temple's currency, so there were money-changers set up there that would exchange your money for the temple's currency, but not at fair exchange rate.

Also, there was another group there that was selling animals for sacrifice.  People coming to the temple, especially for the Passover when everyone made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, could not always bring their animal sacrifices there.  No problem, there were people willing to sell you a sacrifice there at the temple, but they were selling the sacrifices that were meant for the poorest of people (those who could not afford a lamb would buy two pigeons as their sacrifice)  It would seem that these men selling these animals to the poor were price-gouging them and taking advantage of their situation that they had nowhere else to turn and needed the sacrifices to offer and were swindling the poor.

Then Jesus quotes from the Old Testament book of Isaiah that His Father's house was to be called a "house of prayer" but these men had made it into a den of thieves and robbers.  Other passages tell us of how Jesus drove them out of the temple, but that's not Matthew's emphasis here.  Matthew is trying to once again show that Jesus is the King of Kings and the first thing He did after everyone recognized Him as King was to set the house of God (His Father) in order.  The change was immediately recognizable as the Court of the Gentiles was the only place where that the unclean could and foreigners and children could gather in.  The blind and lame who had been forced outside immediately filled with those who had been denied access and Jesus healed the blind in the lame in accordance with the Old Testament prophecy from Isaiah which He read at the synagogue in Nazareth at the beginning of His ministry--a prophecy about the signs that would mark the favorable day of the Lord. 

Let's stop for a moment so that you can read Isaiah 61 in its entirety and see what the people were so happy about and what the priests and scribes were so upset about.

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Isaiah 61 English Standard Version (ESV)
The Year of the Lord's Favor
61:1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion--
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins;
    they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
    the devastations of many generations.
5 Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks;
    foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;
6 but you shall be called the priests of the Lord;
    they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;
you shall eat the wealth of the nations,
    and in their glory you shall boast.
7 Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion;
    instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot;
therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion;
    they shall have everlasting joy.
8 For I the Lord love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrong;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
    and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 Their offspring shall be known among the nations,
    and their descendants in the midst of the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge them,
    that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed.
10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
    my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
    he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
    and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
    to sprout up before all the nations.

This passage is all about what Jesus did at the cross for His people--not just for the flesh and blood descendants of Abraham that were the Jews, but for the spiritual children of Abraham as well who were grafted into the Vine (that is Christ) who is the true Israel not in a sense of replacing God's covenant people, but by sowing in the "wild" branches of the Gentiles to make a new kind of covenant people until Himself of every tribe, tongue and nation (literally ethnicity or people group).  The Lord's salvation was not just for the priests or for the men of Israel or the women of Israel, Jesus made sure that He was accessible to all men, women and children from all nations

Let's head back to our main story now.  The chief priests knew that the people were worshiping Jesus and in the temple no less and rhetorically asked Jesus, "Don't you hear what they are saying?" as if to say "You need to stop them because they aren't allowed to worship you--you're just a man."  Jesus replied to their rhetorical question anyways and said, that God had ordained for these children and infants to praise Him because they could see the truth that the priests and scribes were missing--"And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”"

I love how Jesus loves to rhetorically ask them "have you not read....." When really His question is "How could you have read this and teach this and not understand that this is what's happening right in front of you?"  Jesus was right to have called these men blind guides.

Let us not keep silent with our praise because in other passages when the priests tried to hush the crowds that were crying "Hosanna," Jesus said that if they kept silent the rocks would cry out because even creation itself understood what was going on and they were missing it.  Let us not miss it!  Jesus is coming again, but this time He'll be coming on the clouds with power and authority to make war with His enemies and judge both the living and the dead and all men will bow before Him.  There is a season for which salvation is offered, but only for those who repent and believe in the sacrifice that was made on their behalf--that they can't be good enough to earn God's favor but that they need to have God take their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh and make a new covenant--a covenant of grace--with them, because they are unable to keep the Old Covenant that is the Mosaic Law.  We simply need to ask and we will be given the garments of salvation and robe of righteousness promised in Isaiah 61, and these will be our wedding garments that show that we are invited to the wedding banquet in heaven for all eternity.  Those without these garments who try to come to the feast clothed in their own righteousness will find they are clothed like the emperor in the Emperor's New Clothes--naked before God as all their deeds and thoughts and motives and intentions will be revealed--possibly for everyone to see. The choice is yours to be found in Christ and have welcome you as his Bride or to be outside of Christ and have Him say, "depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness---I never knew you."  The cross seals the fate of both groups.