Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 205th episode. In this episode we’re going to finish our study of John chapter 2. This was a two-part study which was a temporary departure from our work in Matthew’s gospel. This chapter documents the first miracle Jesus performed in His public ministry — turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana of Galilee. In this study we’re going to see Jesus appear at Capernaum. We’ll see the first passover He kept at Jerusalem since beginning His ministry. This chapter delivers the famous scene of Jesus driving the buyers and sellers out of the temple. We’ll hear Jesus foreshadow His resurrection by giving a sign to the Jews who resisted Him. And then some of the most curious verses come at the very end of this chapter, where we see many believe in His name but Jesus hold back from entrusting Himself to them — because He knew about the total depravity of man. Let’s begin with verses 12-22:
Jhn 2:12-22
12 After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and they stayed there a few days.
13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14 And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.
15 And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables;
16 and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.”
17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE WILL CONSUME ME.”
18 The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us as your authority 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 took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?”
21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body.
22 So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
Jesus, His mother, His brothers, and His disciples made a short visit to Capernaum. Capernaum was a large and populous city about a day’s journey from Cana. During His public ministry scripture refers to Capernaum as Christ’s “own city” because He made it His headquarters in Galilee. Capernaum was the place where Jesus got what little rest He did during these years. Part of the strategic advantage of choosing Capernaum was that it was a thoroughfare, a place of concourse for many travelers. Choosing a busy city to make His presence known would help spread the fame of His teachings as well as His miracles.
There’s a lesson here to be observed by Christians today. We shouldn’t hide away within our own church community having no interest to meet new people. We should put ourselves into situations where opportunities to evangelize the gospel of Jesus Christ are plentiful. A truth to accept and understand — whether you’re a Christian or not — is that the quality of your life absolutely depends on the quality of your relationships. It’s wise to invest in both a large network of simple yet reciprocal relationships as well as deeper bonds with an inner circle of people. This kind of strategy makes sense in faith-based and secular contexts. Dale Carnegie wrote about relational reciprocity in his famous work How to Win Friends and Influence People.
I like to think of it as expanding your surface area for serendipitous encounters. Here’s what I mean: imagine you have several different friends or contacts who keep asking you to get dinner with them sometime. If you were to say “yes” to all of them, then you open the door for several different table conversations wherein some other opportunities may present themselves. Perhaps one of your contacts has a friend of his own who happens to be hiring people with your specific skillset. You may have never heard about that job opportunity had you refused dinner.
Obviously there are limitations to this, but putting yourself into the lives and conversations of as many people as possible will help you tremendously in terms of opportunities. One of the best ways to do this is to practice acts of unrequited kindness whenever you get the chance. People remember the names of those who helped them or did a good deed for them. They’re also more likely to reciprocate the help when you yourself are in a time of need. Jesus establishing a form of headquarters in such a busy city as Capernaum was practicing this same thing.
During His ministry Jesus rarely traveled anywhere alone. It’s not that He was afraid, in fact one of the notable occurrences of Him isolating Himself is when He went into the wilderness to face Satan. He took those with Him who had submitted themselves to His guidance so that He could teach them along the way. They also served as witnesses to testify of His miracles. Even if He wanted to go alone it was unlikely He’d be able to because His followers desired to be with Him. Some of them followed because they enjoyed His teachings, and some of them followed because He brought them actual nourishment in the form of bread and wine.
Even Mary the mother of God followed Him to learn from Him. He had already made it clear during the wedding at Cana that she warranted no elevation over any other person involved in His ministry. He had relatives at the wedding who chose to follow Him because they were awestruck by the miracle He performed there. And of course His disciples traveled with Him because they attended Him wherever He went.
It’s likely the people who witnessed His early miracles were more impressed by them than the people who witnessed His later miracles because the novelty hadn’t worn off yet. Let it be known the human condition is such that we even get bored with watching the miraculous. We also have a tendency to forget the miraculous over time which is why God’s people Israel were so frequently instructed to build monuments and memorials representing some act of God so they wouldn’t forget who God is.
Jesus didn’t stay in Capernaum for very long. The Passover was at hand and He must attend it at Jerusalem. He was forming acquaintances which He would build upon later. He was planting the seeds and laying the groundwork for His ministry. Part of the reason for His continual sojourning was that many people needed Him from many different territories. He taught His disciples to take up this same kind of nomadic lifestyle. Ministers of God are to follow the opportunities God lays open to them. We are to go where our work leads us. This is both true of geographical location as well as positions or the type of work you accept. Too many Christians reject good opportunities because the open door doesn’t lead to the specific thing they think they want. The best test to run is to ask yourself if you’re being presented with a legitimate opportunity to advance the kingdom of God — and if the answer is yes then you should take it. Often these kinds of openings lead to other positions which are more aligned with what you’re called to do.
You should never be too proud to begin your work by degrees because that’s exactly what Jesus Himself did. His ministry began by instructing the disciples privately before entering in to His more public teachings. We live in an age where many people seek a platform even if they aren’t in Christian ministry. The title “influencer” has become common parlance and is now an aspiration for young people across the world. We want our lives and our work to be impactful to other people. I don’t think this motivation is inherently evil, I just think we need to be careful how we steward it. A Christian with a well-adjusted spirit would maintain the same motivation to be impactful in a small room of 20 people as he would in a large auditorium of 2,000 people.
He who is faithful with a little can be trusted with a lot. You can tell when ministers get this wrong because their platform work remains intact while their family life falls apart. A proper Christian ministry is built brick-by-brick from the foundation skyward. Neglecting the private foundation of faith and family will cause your more public pursuits to be corrupted. So even if you’re not a senior leader in your organization, make no mistake that the work you’re doing right now is going to define the quality of your senior leadership when it happens. Consider yourself an instrument of God — needing constant sharpening and polishing so that when the time is right you can perform your finest work admirably.
Jesus kept the passover at Jerusalem and this would have been His first passover since being baptized. He kept four passovers during His public ministry and the fourth was the one during which He was crucified. So that would have been three years after the passover which these verses reference. Something important to remember about Jesus is that He didn’t defy divine institutions or the law as found in scripture. Jesus was not defiant of religion, He was opposed to scribes and Pharisees who abused proper religion. This opposition sometimes lends itself to Christians thinking Jesus “bucked the system” of God-ordained rituals — but that’s not true of Him at all. Jesus had unimpeachable respect for divine mandates and diligent attendance on religious assemblies.
Jesus kept the passover every year since He was twelve years old. Remember the passover commemorates the night the Angel of Death passed over the houses where the Israelites resided as it killed the firstborn in all of Egypt. That was the tenth plague. That annual festival memorialized the Jewish passover, but for Christians today Jesus Christ Himself is our passover. Scripture refers to Him as the Passover Lamb because He was crucified on the passover and His atoning blood saves us from our sins into eternal life. As He grew up Jesus was faithful to attend the passover, but once His public ministry began He would do more than simply attend.
In verses 14-17 we see Jesus purge the temple of sellers and moneychangers. The first place we see Him at Jerusalem is in the temple and it’s possible He hadn’t made a public appearance in Jerusalem until then. The prophets Haggai and Malachi both foresaw Christ’s appearance and teaching at the temple. Haggai said the glory of the latter house would exceed the glory of the former — the former being the temple before Christ and the latter being the temple after. Malachi said that the Lord would suddenly come into His temple and the messenger of the covenant, in whom Israel delights, is coming. We can place the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy at the time of Christ because he prefaced it by saying John the Baptist would come first and make way for the Lord.
The prophet Malachi also said the Messiah, “shall sit as a refiner and purify the sons of Levi.” The sons of Levi meaning the priesthood here. That’s the first work we see Christ doing inside the temple — He purges it of sellers and moneychangers because it was a time of great reformation. It’s not the first time we saw reformation happen during the passover either. Before Christ, both kings Hezekiah and Josiah rid the temple and Jerusalem of idols and tools used for idolatry during the passover. We recognize a pattern here insofar as the corruption was purged out before the people were taught to do well.
One of the reasons why communities and organizations suffer chronic dysfunction is because they’re unwilling to take the first steps of purging out the corruption. When a place suffers from pervasive evil, you need a militaristic police presence to arrest and remove the bad actors before you can have any hope of restoration. It sounds harsh, but that’s exactly the model God followed in His own judgments of Israel and other nations. First the people were wiped out by some plague, invasion, or divine punishment — and then a remnant was upheld by God and brought back into alignment with the truth and with righteousness. You can’t have true reformation unless you’re willing to undergo the painful process of letting your old ways die and the old parts of yourself burn away.
When Jesus entered the temple He found a market in one of the courts which was called the court of the Gentiles. In that market they sold oxen, sheep, and doves to be used for sacrifice. There was demand for such goods because travelers who came from distant lands wouldn’t have been able to bring their own sacrifices along with them. Moses afforded this option in Deuteronomy by telling the people they could just bring money when they came to Jerusalem and buy their sacrifices on-site. It’s likely this market was normally kept by the pool of Bethesda, but the problem arose when the chief priests admitted it into the temple because of the profits it could bring them. The rental fees for having a spot to sell goods as well as the fees for searching animals for blemishes undoubtedly earned considerable revenue.
Compromising the laws of the temple in order to earn a profit is a classic example of an underlying sin that has plagued the Church for thousands of years. 1 Timothy 6:10 says, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” If you plot the great corruptions of the Church across history you’ll find the love of money being a prime suspect in many of them. The moneychangers probably helped facilitate the customary payment of a half-shekel by managing currencies and exact amounts — and all of this they did for a fee as well.
Next we can examine the method Jesus used to clear out the temple of these corrupt actors. Certainly He had witnessed them before when He was younger and before His public ministry — but now that He had taken upon Himself the mantle of a prophet further action was warranted. He bypassed the chief priests because He knew they were profiting from the abuse and He chose to drive them all out Himself. He fashioned a scourge or whip made of cords and drove out the animals as well as the salesmen. The cords Jesus gathered were probably used by the sellers to move their animals into the court and then tossed away on the ground once they were finished. So Jesus drove out the sinners using cords they themselves brought with them. This is true of us today — sinners prepare the scourges with which they themselves will be driven out from the temple of the Lord. It’s worth noting that Jesus never forced anyone into His Father’s house, but He did force out those who profaned it.
Jesus didn’t seize the sheep and oxen for Himself or His own gain. He didn’t even impound them despite the sellers being actual trespassers upon His Father’s ground. The scourge Jesus made was not meant as a weapon to inflict punishment — it was purposed to simply drive out the animals and their owners along with them. That’s important to remember because Christ’s punishment is of a different nature and His purpose with us while we’re on earth is reformation and restoration. He’s not chastising us to assuage His desire for vengeance, He’s correcting us so that we may draw closer to Him. Much the same as how a good parent will never punish his or her child out of a sense of anger — but every correction is aimed at furthering the development of the child and is structured to promote the child’s own well-being.
Next we see Jesus overturn the tables and cast the money to the ground. This shows His displeasure with those who use the Church for worldly gain. Money-changers in the temple would have been a scandal similar to gambling in a church today. Notice how Christ drove out all of the people who were abusing the temple — He didn’t leave any behind. This is how churches should approach discipline and reformation today. Anyone who is abusing a church and is unrepentant of their sins must be removed from that church. The church should not provide quarter to or make allowance for leaders who are in defiance of God. This pruning process can be painful, but much like excising a cancerous tumor requires the surgeon to remove every last cancer cell — so must the pastor remove every unrepentant individual from leadership.
Not only did Jesus drive out all of the bad actors, but He also discarded the money and overturned the tables. He didn’t stop at removing the buyers and sellers, but He removed the entire market as well. Often when we are reforming in the wake of corrupt individuals causing damage to the household or the church — we also need to ask if there are systems in place which contributed to the corruption of those people. I’m always very cautious about making systemic changes for a couple of reasons. First is because I think it’s too easy to blame the system instead of taking your own responsibility. Second is that it’s actually very difficult to make marginal improvements to a functional system while it’s very easy to cause further damage. You may have to work incredibly hard to increase a system’s efficacy by just a few percentage points, while making wholesale changes could easily have dramatic unforeseen negative consequences.
Some good examples we’ve watched recently include police reform and energy reform. Whenever there’s a contentious case involving an arresting officer and someone who dies because the arrest went wrong — we hear very loud and occasionally well-intentioned people calling for change to our systems of policing. But instead of focusing on a specific officer or a specific precinct and discerning where the breakdowns happened at the appropriate level of analysis — activists shout that we should defund the police entirely. Headlining such an absurd change to the system ends up undermining their entire movement and foreclosing on whatever good they might have accomplished by appropriately analyzing the specific case.
The same thing happens with energy reform and climate change. Instead of breaking down the problem into pieces that are both manageable and testable, activists shut down entire energy infrastructures without providing viable replacements. Because they’ve enlarged the scope of the problem so much that it becomes an ethereal ideology, we’re not able to measure which areas need addressed first or how we’ll know we’re making progress with good decisions. Disabling entire markets for fossil fuels ends up having a recursive effect on the rest of the economy and before you know it the populist opinion is that we’d be better off doing nothing than trying to solve any of the actual issues. It’s for those reasons that I’m skeptical whenever I hear someone calling for changes to a system.
Jesus also removed those who were selling doves which were used by the poor to make sacrifices. It didn’t matter that doves take up less space and are less cumbersome than oxen and sheep. The doves weren’t allowed in the temple because they were brought there by men to turn a profit for themselves. In Psalms we see sparrows and swallows making nests on the altars of God and this is not a bad thing because they are there by God’s own providence. Human beings didn’t bring them in to sell them — God brought them in so they could build nests to lay their young. So you can see God’s issue was less about the animals themselves and more about the human motivation for why they were in the temple to begin with.
There’s a notable difference in the method Christ used to expel the dove-sellers when compared to the oxen owners and the money changers. It would have been easy for the owners to follow the oxen and sheep so He made no qualms about driving them both out. The money changers need only stoop over to pick up their coins after Jesus poured them out. Jesus allowed the dove-sellers to take their birds and go. If He had released the doves it’s probable the sellers would have never been able to get them back. So even in this moment of zealous purging, Jesus is careful not to cause unnecessary pain and suffering to those whom He’s removing.
He also gave them a good reason for expulsion from the temple: the house of God was not to be made a house of merchandise. Markets themselves aren’t inherently evil, but setting up markets at the temple marginalized the actual purpose of the temple which was to honor God. The temple should have an air of solemnity and seriousness to it, but the market took away from this. Not only was it a distraction but it also caused an affront to those who came to worship God because they found themselves being herded with oxen and sheep. Buying and selling goods at the temple abused the traffic of those who came to worship by promoting the sale of commodities. The sellers knew they would get more exposure if they took advantage of the people’s interest in worshipping God.
Having a market at the temple also promoted the problem of worldliness infecting worship. You fail to honor God if you’re just going through the motions of religious ritual all the while wanting it to be over so you can get back to your secular business. Televangelism has experienced its share of unscrupulous salesman taking advantage of desperate people and selling what many believe to be the gifts of the Holy Ghost. They would say something like, “For just three small payments of $19.99 you can receive this bottle of holy water blessed by God to heal your sicknesses.”
Jesus had an interest in purging the temple because the temple was His Father’s house. Being the Son of God, Jesus also had the authority to clear out and maintain the sanctity of the temple. Jesus does not stand idly by as the Father’s house is profaned and the name of God dishonored. Christians today should keep that in mind when they profess love for God but ambivalence for or even hatred of the Church. As Christians we should be repulsed when the name of God or the reputation of the Church is assailed by men.
Clearing the temple rightfully is considered one of Christ’s wonderful works. Like His crucifixion and resurrection, clearing the temple is one of the things He did without the aid of others including His disciples. It would have been easy for Jesus to stir up a mob against the marketeers because a great many people held the temple in high esteem. But Jesus is never in the business of causing chaos and disorder. It’s also interesting to note how He didn’t face any real resistance from the vendors or the priests who extended the market licenses. As we’ll see at the end of this chapter, Jesus knows what’s inside the hearts of men and He knows when sin is so self-evident that no effective argument can be made against it.
The conscience of the sinner is often the most powerful tool of the reformer. But Jesus wasn’t depending entirely on the people feeling convicted for profaning the temple. He also has divine power over the spirits of men and none can stand defiant before Him. The prophet Malachi said, “Who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.” It’s important for us to remember that all throughout Christ’s earthly ministry no one was able to force Him to do anything against His own sovereign will and the will of the Father.
Even His own sacrifice and death was not thrust upon Him by others. We read Jesus comment on His power over death in John chapter 10 when He says, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
When the disciples saw Jesus purge the temple Himself, they were somewhat surprised. Why would the Lamb of God be found in such a wrathful condition? Why would the King of Israel reduce His stately authority so much as to remove these people Himself? But then they remembered the scripture in Psalm 69 where David, speaking of the Messiah, said, “Zeal for Your house has consumed me, And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.” The Bible teaches that God is slow to anger, but one instance where we do see Him angry is here when the Church is profaned and the name of God is dishonored. The disciples were able to reconcile the gentleness of Jesus and His royal authority with this scene of anger once they remembered that zeal for God’s house burned within Him.
It’s important to notice how the word of God helped them understand the works of God. God’s ways are higher than our ways and some of what He does is shrouded in impenetrable mystery. However, we stand little hope in understanding anything God does if we don’t first understand the scriptures. The disciples knew the meaning behind Christ clearing the temple because the disciples knew what was written. You might encounter a passage of scripture that’s difficult to understand until you see God perform works that illuminate its meaning. In the same way, God may work divine providence in your life in ways you fail to understand until you read about them in the text. This ability to understand the scripture and therefore understand God’s movements in your life and the lives of others is what it means to have the mind of Christ. In my estimation having the mind of Christ is one of the greatest blessings of Christianity.
The scripture testifies to King David’s zeal for the house of the Lord as well. In this way David was a type of Christ. As you read the Bible you’ll see how the saints of the Old Testament each had some kind of grace that was found eminent in Jesus Christ Himself. Indeed it was the Christlike parts of their character which made them saints to begin with. That’s why when we ask the question today, “What makes a good Christian?” The answer is always: he or she who is Christlike. Despite their sins and their imperfections, each of the Old Testament heroes had one thing or another in common with Jesus. One of the patterns which was more universally held than others was zeal for the house of God. That’s why, once again, I caution you as a Christian to avoid the trap of thinking you love God while you hate the Church.
Setting up markets to buy and sell goods is such an innocuous practice anywhere else, but doing it in the house of the Lord is greatly offensive if you love the Church and honor God. There are many things we can do out in the world which are innocent and not sinful — but to do those same things inside the Church is profanity. Jesus loves the Church so much that He humbled Himself, spent Himself, and exposed Himself for its welfare. Our desire for duty and service to the house of God should be so strong that it causes us to forget our own comforts and to some degree — our own safety.
Once the temple was clear Jesus faced those who demanded a sign to prove His authority for doing such a thing. The multitude of people with their leaders were Jews. Being Jews they should have stood alongside Christ as assisted Him in upholding the sanctity of their temple – but instead they objected against it and questioned it. Whenever a church leader undertakes the work of reformation, he should expect opposition even if what he’s doing is righteous. People tend to get set in their ways even if their ways are not biblical. It’s painful for a person or a group of people to adjust their doctrine even when presented with evidence to its inaccuracy. Opposition does not mean the reformer should cease in his work — it just means he should be prepared to face it with sound reasoning and with trust in God.
If you make a good case for the truth of what you’re trying to do, often you’ll see your opponents resort to what are called ad hominem attacks against your character. When they fail to dispute the substance of your argument they’re left with no other option but to attack you as a person. That’s what the Jews tried to do here when they saw Jesus cleanse the temple. They knew the action was justified so they turned against Jesus Himself and questioned His own authority to do it. Their claim was that He had no jurisdiction to do such a thing. If they hadn’t been so blinded by self-deception they would have viewed the action itself as evidence they stood in the presence of someone who was more than a mortal man, and indeed more than a prophet.
Christ’s ability to drive out so many from their posts without a breath of opposition was proof that He came armed with divine authority and divine power. Scripture says the earth trembles before the Lord, before the God of Jacob. The reason the buyers and sellers fled before Him is because some part of them knew they stood in the presence of God. While the Jews failed to recognize this, Jesus refused to indulge their interrogation with some miraculous work to prove His authority. Instead He prophesied to them of what was coming.
In Deuteronomy the scripture provides a test for determining whether God is actually speaking through a prophet or not. The test is that when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come to pass then the Lord has not truly spoken and the prophet is false. The false prophet is not to be feared and many times the false prophet was put to death by stoning. In response to their demand for a sign, Jesus foretold His own death and resurrection to the Jews who questioned Him. His death and resurrection would be His final and ultimate sign of His own authority. If the onlooking Jews were unconvinced by what they saw when He cleared the temple then let them wait and see what He will do in the time to come. The crucifixion and death of Jesus was long foretold by other prophets. The Messiah would be bruised and cut off and yet would not see corruption. So when all these things came to pass it ratified His position as the Son of God in the eyes of men. And we still worship Him 2,000 years later.
Notice how Jesus foretells His death and resurrection to the Jews in figurative expressions rather than using plain language. At another point when referring to His death and resurrection He calls it the sign of the prophet Jonah. In this case He was talking about how a wicked and adulterous generation demands a sign — but none would be given to them besides the sign of the prophet Jonah. Jonah was three days in the belly of the fish, and Christ was three days in the belly of the earth. He spoke in parables to the defiant Jews because they were willfully blind. Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
What’s interesting about this particular exchange where Jesus talks about rebuilding the temple in three days is how the Jews were so backwards not only did they stumble on the prophecy — they actually used it in testimony against Jesus when He was on trial before the crucifixion. So He’s telling them He’s going to be killed and resurrected, and instead of understanding His prophecy they think He’s talking about the actual temple and they accuse Him of seeking to destroy it and rebuild it. You might say, “Well if Jesus had just been plain with them then maybe they would have understood and turned to Him for salvation.” That’s a fair critique, but scripture indicates those who are lost would not turn to Christ even if they saw Him raised from the dead. The problem wasn’t merely a lack of understanding — it was an arrogance which insisted on its own truth despite being deceived to the actual truth.
Jesus knew He would die at the hands of malice. His expressing so to the Jews in this moment no doubt occasioned the accomplishment of the prediction. The act of prophesying sometimes plays a role in the furtherance of the prophecy itself. We saw this with Joseph and his coat of many colors. Joseph’s dream predicted his being sold into slavery and eventually ruling over his family, and him telling his brothers about the dream is what sparked the sequence of events which led to its fulfillment. Christ is telling the Jews He knows they will kill Him and He permits them to do so.
Even at the beginning of His ministry Jesus knew He would suffer and die at the end of it. But that didn’t stop Him from pushing forward with determined resolve. It sounds crazy to face our own inevitable deaths with the same resolve — but I actually think it’s possible with enough faith. We look at Jesus facing His death and we say He’s able to do it because He already knows He will be resurrected in three days. He knows the beginning from the end. But if we trust in the promises of God then it’s simply the truth that we can know this about ourselves too. When we embark on the journey of our lives and the work of our ministry we should expect the worst. But beyond the worst is Jesus. Beyond the worst is resurrection and eternity with Him. That’s how we’re able to face the worst in a way that honors God.
Notice how Jesus says He will raise Himself up. That’s one of the key characteristics which makes Christ’s resurrection unique. No one saved Him. He simply resumed His life after death. This ability to lay down His life and take it back again demonstrates Christ’s sovereign power over death. He makes the analogy to the temple being destroyed and rebuilt because at this moment the Jews are questioning His authority to purge the temple of the buyers and sellers. The purging of the temple was a reformation in response to profanity. Profaning the temple is destroying it, and those who defiled one temple will go on to destroy another (that being Christ Himself). And just like He has the authority to take up His life again after death, He also has the authority to clear out the temple.
The analogy runs deeper than this. Destruction of the temple being comparable to the death of Christ is pertinent because the death of Jesus was also the death of pre-Christian Judaism. It was the passing away of a misunderstood perspective. The Jews sought for a Messiah who would restore a worldly kingdom. The death of Jesus disengaged this search for many Jews. Classic Judaism taught a sacrificial system to atone for one’s own sins. The death of Jesus presented Him as the Passover Lamb bringing atonement sufficient for all sin and nullified the need for temple sacrifices. The resurrection of Jesus was the birth of the gospel Church which in turn was the culmination of Judaism. Judaism always pointed to Jesus and His saving work on the cross. Those who properly understood the scriptures embraced this truth. The riches of the world in the Savior of Man sprang forward from the rubble of the Jewish temple.
But as you can imagine many Jews were not ready to hear such an upheaval of their axiomatic beliefs. Immediately their minds were stuck on the actual temple. They responded with incredulity when they said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” In ancient times, construction of elaborate buildings took a lot longer than it does today. It wouldn’t be unusual for entire cities to use most of their excess capital to build temples and cathedrals. Despite such a concerted effort and effectively limitless supplies of resources, it still took decades and sometimes entire generations to complete these places.
You can see how the Jews fell into misunderstanding by taking Christ’s words literally rather than figuratively. Christians today are not immune to such mistakes. Even at this moment there is hot disagreement concerning the doctrine of transubstantiation. During the last supper when Jesus is breaking bread and administering the first communion he tells His disciples, “Take and eat, this is my body.” And to this day part of the Church believes the bread and wine used in the sacrament of communion actually supernaturally transmutes into the physical body and blood of Jesus. Taking Christ’s words literally in these passages has resulted in deadly conflicts throughout church history and as well as wrongfully excluding many people from participating in communion.
What’s so fascinating about the Jews’ incredulity here is that even if Jesus was talking about the temple building itself – they were missing the fact that Jesus built an entire universe in six days. What trouble would it be for Him to build a temple in three days? But that’s neither here nor there because He was in fact speaking of the temple of His body. Despite Jesus Himself having such love and veneration for the house of God, He reminds us that the source of its holiness comes from Himself. The temple building is but a shadow of the actual temple who is Jesus Christ.
If that seems confusing, then a good analogy is the sacrement of baptism. When a person is baptized they are submerged in water and raised up out of the water. The baptism is a symbolic representation of a spiritual reality. The spiritual reality is that the person has died with Christ and is being raised up to newness of life in Christ. When you trust in Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, scripture says you are made new. So the act of being submerged in water represents the death, and being raised up out of the water represents the resurrection into new life. This spiritual reality is also called being born again. But the baptism in water is a mere shadow or reflection of what has truly happened in the spiritual dimension. In the same way, the temple building is a shadow which reflects the substance who is Jesus Christ. The body of Christ is the true temple, and the temple at Jerusalem was only a reflection of this.
Let’s further explore this idea of the temple being a reflection of the incarnate Christ. First we should establish the temple itself was built by divine direction. God gave the builders instructions for each detail and schematic. So the temple originated in the mind of God rather than in the mind of man. The incarnation of Christ proceeded from God as well. The virgin Mary became pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit and Christ came into the world born of God. The temple was a holy place much the same as Jesus Christ is a holy, sinless person. Jesus, being fully God and fully man, is the only human form whose holiness is sufficient to stand in the direct presence of God on His own merits.
The temple was the habitation of God’s glory. The temple is where the eternal Logos dwelt. Jesus Christ is Himself the Logos: He is the Word made flesh. The temple was the place where people went to meet with God. It was at the temple where worshippers presented themselves and their sacrifices. Jesus Christ is the divine Mediator between God and man. Each of us can meet with God and stand in the presence of God through Jesus Christ. Just as people looked toward the temple for worship, so we look toward Christ as we worship.
When Jesus was raised from the dead His disciples would remember this exchange He had with the Jews and suddenly it would make sense to them. As you study the word of God you should do your best to store it in memory even if you don’t understand what it means at this moment. It’s entirely possible God wants to show you experiences which you’ll need to make the connections. As you go through life things will happen to you and you’ll witness things which call forward memories of scripture. The experience will help make sense of the scripture and the scripture will help make sense of the experience. This sense-making is part of what it means to have the mind of Christ. It is the essence of wisdom.
Whether you’re young or old you should begin this process of storing up the word of God within yourself right now. Every piece you maintain will save you from the grief of mistakes in the future. When you take inventory of the various pain-points in your life just ask yourself how many of them were born of not knowing something you needed to know when you needed to know it. Studying and internalizing the word of God is the only tool for mitigating and preventing this. You’ll still have hardships as you walk through life in a fallen world, but your hardships will not be senseless and you’ll have what you need to walk through them well.
Much of what Jesus said to His disciples didn’t make sense to them until after He ascended into Heaven and the Spirit of God was poured out on them. One of the principal offices of the Holy Spirit is to teach us all things and bring to remembrance that which Jesus has said. This means as you study the word of God or listen to a sermon the Holy Spirit is who helps you understand it. If you struggle with certain concepts or doctrines, just keep going and trust God that He will open your mind to understanding when the time is right. This is exactly what He did with His own disciples.
And on a more practical level the disciples were able to understand this temple exchange more easily once they saw the prophecy fulfilled in Christ’s resurrection. Prophecies are much easier to make sense of once they have been fulfilled. In scripture there are many as yet unfulfilled prophecies concerning the end-times. These prophecies continue to be the subject of discussion and disagreement today. We don’t actually know how to interpret them because they have not yet been fulfilled. But once the events come to pass they will expound on the scriptures and we’ll finally understand.
Another element of this passage which I find comforting is how the disciples themselves were slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets had spoken. As Christians today we sometimes encounter passages of scripture which seem incredible or truths about Jesus which are hard for us to grasp. We shouldn’t berate ourselves over this because even the twelve disciples who lived and walked with Jesus everyday had the same struggles. We talked in the previous episode about how the wedding at Cana served to reinforce the faith of Christ’s disciples. The same thing happened to a much more significant degree when they saw Him raised from the dead. Their belief in the prophets was confirmed and they received fresh courage and vigor to pursue the things of God.
So if you’re going through a dry season in terms of your faith, you would do well to keep your eyes open and pay attention for God’s movement in and around you. Seek Him out and you will find Him. The disciples were able to witness Jesus confirm Old Testament prophecy with His words and actions. This is something to keep in mind when Christians present the false dichotomy between Old and New Testaments. The New Testament does not refute or invalidate the Old Testament: it confirms it. Jesus is the culmination of the law and the prophets, not an abolishment of them. Let’s finish our study by reading verses 23-25:
Jhn 2:23-25
23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing.
24 But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men,
25 and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.
This is a fascinating passage because it explicitly reveals God’s omniscience. God is the only one who can accurately survey the inner workings of a man’s heart. He fully knows who you actually are. The implication in this passage is that Jesus preached while He was in Jerusalem for the Passover. The text also says He performed miracles. He’s doing this during a time that’s very busy for the city. There would have been a great concourse of people there to worship God and participate in the appointed feasts. It was normal for the Levitical priests to teach about God at the Passover. It was a holy season in Jerusalem and Christ preaching during these festivities showed that He took ownership of the divine institution.
We read that many believed in His name. They probably acknowledged Him as a teacher come from God as Nicodemus did. Some may have believed Him to be a great prophet. And still some others likely thought He was the promised Messiah who would come to bring redemption to Jerusalem. It was normal for Jews to be readily awaiting the first appearance of that bright and morning star.
Where the passage becomes more riveting is when it says Jesus did not entrust Himself to them. The word used for entrust here is the same word used for them who believed in Him. So when we entrust ourselves to Jesus we commit ourselves to Him and to His guidance. On His part, Christ saw no reason to return that trust with these new converts in Jerusalem. He had many enemies in the city who sought to destroy Him.
There are several possibilities as to why He wouldn’t trust the Jerusalem converts, not least of which is because they may have been false converts. It’s possible they would betray Him if given the opportunity or at least be strongly tempted to do so. His disciples in Galilee were different because the territory was less hostile towards Him. We learn that when we’re trying to do ministry in dangerous places, it’s prudent for us to be careful in whom we confide.
Another possibility is that they were weak in their faith. This is a more charitable explanation than treachery, but it still warrants distrust nonetheless. When we’re doing ministry or making hard decisions we should be cautious of weak people. It takes zeal and courage to make the right choices under duress and not all Christians have that in them. You should never, ever appoint a leader who lacks those qualities because they’ll be incapable of leading through hard seasons. The former U.K. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain played no small part in igniting World War II because of his weak leadership in drafting a policy of appeasement to the imperialistic tyrant Adolf Hitler.
There is yet a third option as to why Christ wouldn’t trust the Jerusalem converts. It’s possible they were possessed by a tumultuous spirit of revolution. The Jews believed the Messiah would come and break the established government to appoint his own earthly kingdom. If they believed Jesus to be this conquering Messiah, it’s possible they would have organized and attempted a coup on the Roman government. Jesus didn’t want this because His kingdom is not of this world. Even today Christians need to be wary of turbulent people who will do anything to acquire power. Even if these people profess to be Christians, we should always be suspicious of those who are more interested in an earthly government than they are in the kingdom of Heaven.
Since Jesus didn’t trust the Jerusalem converts, He also didn’t give Himself over to them. Looking at each person, He could see the wickedness in some and the weakness in others. He knew all of them. He knew their names and their faces. He knew all of the things we might be able to know if we spent enough time with any one of them. But He also knew their hearts and all the things we can’t possibly know about them. He knows all of the deep confusions and inconsistencies in our being. Their nature, their affections, their plans – He could see all of these things. Much of the time these things aren’t even clear to ourselves about ourselves let alone others.
Jesus knows each one of us because by His powerful hand He made all of us. His eyes pierce straight through even His most clever enemies. He knows every detail of all their secret plans. He also knows the truth about those who pretend to be Christians. He knew Judas Iscariot was a false friend even before Judas betrayed Him. He knows who you really are regardless of who you pretend to be. God’s omniscience should be disconcerting to His enemies and those who seek evil. But for those whose faith is vested in Jesus Christ, the omniscience of God is brings comfort to one’s soul.
Jesus knows if you belong to Him, you don’t need to continuously prove it with your performance. A true Christian (by the power of the Holy Spirit) will tend towards being a person of integrity and moral righteousness, but you don’t have to constantly win over God’s love for you. He knows you, He loves you, and He’s perfectly aware of all your infirmities. Scripture says God knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust. God knows you’re going to make mistakes and exercise poor judgment from time to time. That doesn’t justify your doing so, but it should give you some security in your salvation. Always remember your salvation depends on being covered by the righteousness of Christ, not on the sufficiency of your own righteousness.
Jesus didn’t need anyone to testify to Him concerning the depravity of man. Even the most powerful, most wise human kings have no choice but to depend on the report of others in order to form their perspectives. We feel this a lot with our news media these days. It’s virtually impossible to form an accurate opinion when every major media outlet is misrepresenting the story. Our wisdom is limited to the quality of the information given to us. But this is not so with Jesus Christ. He doesn’t need any information because He already sees all truth. His infallible intuition concerning the depravity of man is more precise and accurate than any scientific study or formal analysis could be.
The angels of Heaven are messengers of God but they are not His spies. He doesn’t need spies because His own eyes search every corner of the earth. In scripture Satan is called the Accuser because a major feature of his actions is to make men and women feel shame for their sins. But Satan’s accusations were always impotent because God already knows in greater detail everything you’ve done and everything you haven’t done. God cannot be moved by Satan’s lies concerning you.
As we study history we’re able to infer the reality of evil in humanity because we can see what humanity has done. Although Jesus also sees what we’ve done, He doesn’t even need to in order to already know what’s inside of us. We as humans aren’t able to peer inside of a man, but that’s precisely where Christ rests His judgment. One of the reasons I’m always hesitant to comment on the status of a person’s salvation is because I simply can’t know the motives of their heart. I can observe their actions and attempt to infer the condition of their heart – but I can’t know with any real certainty.
Many people fear the judgment of God, and I think there’s some wisdom in that. But truly I think we can all be forever grateful it is God who judges and not someone else. God has perfect knowledge of our entire being so He is even more fit to judge us than we are to judge ourselves. So what are we supposed to do? Are we hopelessly lost and confused while we live on earth since we can’t apprehend unbiased information?
Absolutely not. We have the eternal word of God in the holy scriptures and this is our one source of reliable truth. The bible is the sure foundation upon which we can build a worldview and be secure that our perception is true to how things actually are. To have the mind of Christ is to look out and see the world around you with one-to-one mapping. It is a perspective untrammeled by the distortion of lies. Scripture is the intersection between eternal Heaven and the present moment.
The word of God gives us a rock we can hold onto when all other perspectives wash away into the chaotic sea of uncertainty. So you start there. You start by reading the Bible, listening to sermons, and then doing the best you can to live faithfully each day. You do it when you don’t feel like doing it. You do it when it doesn’t make sense to do it. And as you proceed on faith what you’ll find is that a path is laid open to you. A path you never would have expected for your life and a path you couldn’t have discovered on your own. It’s a journey God Himself will open up for you. It’s your journey. It’s the only journey you were ever meant to take.
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