Now the Jewish feast of Passover was near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple courts those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting at tables.[1] So he made a whip of cords (rushes) and drove them all out of the temple courts, with the sheep and the oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.[2] To those who sold the doves he said, “Take these things away from here! Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace!”[3]

A couple things to note:

Selling these animals was actually a service to distant travelers who could not bring their sacrifices with them. All the merchants could recover their money and animals. Jesus didn’t take away their livelihood.
However… the priests rented space rather than gave it, which drove up costs; the priests and Levites often resold animals offered as sacrifices back to the sellers, who sold them again; and the money changers often took a premium.[4]
Finally, This market was in the temple courtyard, specifically, the areas set aside for Gentiles to worship. Gentiles couldn’t worship at the temple at the very place God has set aside for them to be welcome. This marketplace had become a place of greed and fraud, and it’s presence in the outer courtyard hindered worship.

His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will devour me.”[5]

We should note that the goal of Jesus’ zeal was to purify, not ruin. Jesus removed the problem from the temple, but he didn’t ruin the people. He rebukes them, but he doesn’t destroy them. Why not? Because the goal wasn't to humiliate them or ban them from using the temple as God intended. It was “zeal for the house of God’ that consumed him, not “zeal for calling down judgment” on the defilers of the temple. The goal was to clean the temple. In fact, Jesus is going to tell Nicodemus right after this that “God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it.”

So then the Jewish leaders responded, “What sign can you show us, since you are doing these things?” Jesus replied, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.”

The response of the Jewish leaders – the Pharisees – is interesting. They are more curious than anything. There is no record Jesus got in trouble for this, and it is not brought up at Jesus’ trial. It appears to track with what the people thought a prophet would do: protect the temple. Prophets had the authority to speak and act prophetically to cleanse the temple. They just asked for his credentials (a sign).

Then the Jewish leaders said to him, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and are you going to raise it up in three days?” But Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body. So after he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the saying that Jesus had spoken.

Jesus’ claim about being the temple shifted the focus of God’s presence on Earth away from a geographical place like the temple to the person of Jesus.[6] Also note: after the first miracle, they believed in Jesus. After the cleansing of the temple, the believed the Scriptures. I suspect that language is not accidental. We worship Jesus (not the Bible), but we trust the person of Jesus and revelation of God through Scripture that points toward or tells us about Jesus. That trust is foundational to our flourishing as followers of Jesus.

* * * * *

Jesus apparently cleansed the temple twice: the first Passover of his ministry (recorded only in John) and last Passover of his ministry. He bookended his life of ministry by focusing on His house and His people. He never cleansed a Roman or Greek temple, though God knows they needed it. He didn’t cleanse a Samaritan temple, which was even worse to the Jewish people because their temples had incorporated pagan worship. The only temple he cleansed was the one where Yahweh was worshipped. The zeal of the Lord that consumed Jesus had to do with a zeal for the temple, God’s dwelling place.

God’s concern for the purity has always started with His people. Biblical prophets consistently spoke of God’s judgment on injustice beginning with God’s household. I’m going to walk us through some examples starting in the Old Testament and ending much closer to our time.

Here is Amos, in a classic example of God addressing the need for purification among His own people. This is pretty typical prophetic language on this issue: Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:18-24)
Ezekiel had a vision about how God felt about the corruption in the Israelite community. For you have not walked in my statutes, nor obeyed my rules, but have acted according to the rules of the nations that are around you… Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it…” The heavenly bearers of judgment on the unmarked were to “begin in my sanctuary” (Ezekiel 9:4-6; 11:12)
When Jeremiah wrote about God’s coming judgment on the violent corruptions of the nations (not just Israel), we read this:“Thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it….So I took the cup from the Lord's hand, and made all the nations to whom the Lord sent me drink it: Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials…” (Jeremiah 25:15-18)
Peter, writing several decades later, is one of several New Testament authors talks about it again. “Friends, when life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner… It’s judgment time for God’s own family. We’re first in line. If it starts with us, think what it’s going to be like for those who refuse God’s Message!” (1 Peter 4:12-13; 17-18, The Message)
Augustine, in the 400s: “He then is eaten up with zeal for God’s house who desires to correct all that he sees wrong there. Let the zeal for God’s house consume every Christian wherever he or she is a member.”
The Protestant Reformation (1500s) was all about this issue.
The Great Awakenings (1700s, 1800s, some argue the Jesus Movement in the 1970s) were certainly about evangelism, but an awful lot of it was revival from within.
Alexander Maclaren, (1826 - 1910) a minister in England for 65 years who was twice president of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and president of the Baptist World Congress in London in 1905, wrote a commentary I read a lot when I do sermon prep. Here is his commentary for this section:

A church as an outward institution is exposed to all the dangers to which other institutions are exposed. And these creep on insensibly, as this abuse had crept on. So it is not enough that we should be at ease in our consciences in regard to our practices as Christian communities. We become familiar with any abuse, and as we become familiar we lose the power of rightly judging of it.
Therefore conscience needs to be guided and enlightened quite as much as to be obeyed.How long has it taken the Christian Church to learn the wickedness of slavery? Has the Christian Church yet learned the unchristianity of war? Are there no abuses amongst us, which subsequent generations will see to be so glaring that they will talk about us as we talk about our ancestors, and wonder whether we were Christians at all when we could tolerate such things?
They creep on gradually, and they need continual watchfulness if they are not to assume the mastery. The special type of corruption which we find in this incident is one that besets the Church always…It is all Christian communities, established and non-established churches, Roman Catholic and Protestant. The same danger besets them all. There must be money to work the outward business of the house of God.
But what about people that ‘run’ churches as they run mills? What about people whose test of the prosperity of a Christian community is its balance-sheet? What about the people that hang on to religious communities and services for the sake of what they can make out of them? We have heard a great deal lately about what would happen ‘if Christ came to Chicago.’ If Christ came to any community of professing Christians in this land, do you not think He would need to have the scourge in His hand… if Jesus Christ had not thus come, over and over again, to His Church, Christian men would have killed Christianity long ago...
We and our brethren, all through the ages, have been corrupting the Water of Life. And how does it come to be sweet and powerful still? That unique characteristic of Christianity, its power of reformation, is not self-reformation, but it is a coming of the Lord to His temple to ‘purify the sons of Levi, that their offering may be pleasant as in days of yore.’ So one looks upon the spectacle of churches labouring under all manner of corruptions; and one need not lose heart. The shortest day is the day before the year turns; and when the need is sorest the help is nearest...
I believe too, with all my heart-and I hope that you do-that, though the precious wheat is riddled in the sieve, and the chaff falls to the ground, not one grain will go through the meshes. Whatever becomes of churches, the Church of Christ shall never have its strength so sapped by abuses that it must perish, or its lustre so dimmed that the Lord of the Temple must depart from His sanctuary.[7]

God does not abandon His people. He intends the church to be a glorious bride (to use last week’s language), and to be salt and light in this rotting and dark world. So He’s going to do work in His people. And He intends for that salt to be salty, and that light to be bright.

When we (rightly) mourn and condemn the sin all around us, just know: God will deal with His children first so that when they go out into all the world to preach a gospel that transforms heart, soul, mind and strength, they are bringing the solution to the problem in word and deed, not adding to it.

How do we respond?

1. Identify what needs to get out of temple. [8] What most threatens to occupy the space God has set aside for His purposes in the church? What corrupting influences needs to be cleansed? I wrote down 5 things the broader church in America is wrestling with right now based on conversations and insight from those who study these things. Last night, at a wedding reception, Sheila and I sat with a young couple who live downstate who cited at least three of them for why they and many of their friends are struggling with church.

Setting empire measures of success. Last week we talked about how God loves to use the “are nots” to confound the “are.” God specializes in using the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. The success of the temple of God needs to be measured by the standards of the Kingdom of God. Worldly standards tend to involve two things when it comes to the success of organizations: how big you are, and how much money you have. Nothing wrong with either of those. If a church can be large and cash flush, more power to ‘em. It’s just not a Kingdom standard for success.

Sometimes churches are big because they are crushing it when it comes to building a compelling community of truth and grace; sometimes they are big because they have light shows and free giveaways and a great coffee bar onsite; sometimes they are just situated in the right place at the right time. All kinds of reasons. Big is not bad, but it’s not automatically good.
Sometimes churches are small because they have fallen out of the race through sin permeating the church, through bad leadership, or through the compromise of truth; sometimes a town died; sometimes the only people left after revival were those who were serious; sometimes they are situated in a place hostile to the gospel. All kinds of reasons. Small is not bad, but it’s not automatically good.
Some churches have tons of money, some don’t, and the reasons for that are all over the map: what part of town is the church situated? What kinds of jobs to the congregants have? Are they recession-proof? What happened during COVID? Gas price hikes?

How does God measure success in his church, both globally and locally? That’s what I’m interested in. I would love to hear from you about this in Message+, but here’s a broad summary: Kingdom fruit. People being transformed into the image of Christ in whom the fruit of the Holy Spirit increasingly characterizes personal and corporate life.

Confusing empire power with kingdom influence. All throughout church history, whenever the church has become too deeply embedded within the halls of cultural power, it has compromised the church. It started with Constantine. He legalized Christianity, and under his rule persecution dropped dramatically. Christians began to have access to cultural comfort and wealth. It’s no surprise that they loved this change. Who wouldn’t? But almost right away, they began to passionately argue that things that weren’t okay for the previous 300 years were now okay. It turns out all those things were things that Constantine liked.

Their principle cracked; they began to love the power and comfort that came with cultural access and authority more than the power of God working through a faithful church. This pattern repeats over and over throughout history. The kind of kingdom influence that genuinely transforms cultures come from the ground up, not the top down. Christianity is a servant’s revolution.

In addition, we can take our cues from culture about how we ought to use power instead of looking to Jesus. Over the past few years, the very public reckoning in some areas of church life in America have revealed places where a love of and abuse of power looks like the world and not like how God intended his church to function. When the New Testament talks about those in positions of leadership or authority, it constantly stresses the servant nature of that position. In response to a couple disciples’ request to eventually “sit at his right and left hand” (places of authority), Jesus said,

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:20-28)

Fear of “them.” It usually sounds like this: “If ‘they’ get their way, this is the end of…” And from that comes a whole movement based on fear often with an almost apocalyptic concern. Like Sam says to Frodo, “This is the end of all things!” But that is the exact opposite of what Scripture tells us God has given us: not a spirit of fear, but of “power, of love, and a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

I have a concern that we look at whatever the latest challenge is to Christian life and teaching and respond as if we are thinking, “Well, looks like this one is bigger than God.” Isn’t that functionally what we are saying when we panic in the face of cultural challenges? But as long as there has been a church, there have always been empire values that have pressed hard against the gates of the Kingdom. Sin has never stopped crouching at the door. This has always been true. Yet God hasn’t left his throne; He hasn’t abandoned his church; he hasn’t closed His Word or stifled his Holy Spirit. The church goes on. It has always gone on.

Celebrityism. It is easy to fill the temple courtyard with people on pedestals. This, too, is as old of the church. Paul called out the factions and basically said, “Stop it! We don’t follow people!!”[9] We all have people we admire and trust; that’s not a bad thing. But they didn’t build the temple; they don’t set temple agendas; and they don’t get our worship or loyalty. There is something compelling about the idea that there is someone out there who I know is always speaking the truth, who always sees the world correctly, who whenever they speak or act, we can trust it’s good and true. But…that’s only Jesus. There is never a time we don’t filter people’s words, actions and character through the filter of God’s word.

We also have to be careful not to import celebrities from their cultural pedestal onto a church pedestal. Being a “big deal” in the eyes of the Empire carries no automatic weight in the Kingdom. It’s easy to think, “If we could get HIM or HER, then people will pay attention to the church!” And then it’s easy to think, “I want to be in small group with them, or sit nearby on a Sunday morning so we become friends.” Wanting to be their friend isn’t a bad thing in itself, but is a bad thing if it’s because you think they are cool or that somehow their friendship matters more than others.

I think what God intends for the church is that we to know people with no concept of their standing in the world. If they have wisdom and righteousness, they have wisdom and righteousness. Hang out with them. That’s Kingdom life. #message+ #smallgroups #potlucks #lobbytalk #coffee #hikingfishingBBQmoviesmealsetc

Consumerism. We live in a consumerist culture: we buy, we use, we discard. If we don’t like what we buy, we buy something else. Things are expendable. And you have noticed, people become expendable in a consumerist culture. We use and discard if they don’t make us happy. Churches can become expendable: we use and discard if they don’t make us happy. God and His kingdom can become expendable: we use the parts we don’t like and discard the parts we don’t until we created a space where (it turns out) God’s priorities and perspective perfectly align with ours. Huh. Church is a covenant community, and that’s a world apart from consumerism.

2. Pray for godly zeal.

If we are like Jesus, zeal that our lives and our church become a holy space, “set aside” for God’s purposes, will consume us.

So, for what should we be zealous to remove and put in the courtyard of our church and our lives? I mentioned some bigger picture issues to take out, and there are certainly more. I want to end by focusing on tangible Kingdom attributes that we are called to put in. And when God calls us, He equips us, so I know when can do this with His help. When we are zealous to see these things, the church flourishes as God’s transforming presence is made manifest in our transformed lives.

Love – agape loving people well
Peace – bringing righteous order to sinful chaos
Mercy – giving grace (unmerited favor) wherever possible
Kindness – treating others with goodness
Faithfulness – being a righteous presence others can count on
Truth-telling – speaking honestly about…everything.
Humility – having a modest/honest estimate of ourselves
Generosity – giving to those in need
Gentleness – strength under control in the service of others
Self-control – not ruled by our appetites
Prayer – regularly communicating with God
Righteousness – doing that which God would approve
Service – looking to serve rather than be served
Nurture – caring for those who are hurting or broken
Boldness – a fearlessness to do and say what is righteous

Help us, Lord, to play our part in this church becoming increasingly a holy community of love, truth, prayer, worship, repentance, forgiveness, justice and mercy – a place for people of all neighborhoods and nations, a place where the grace of Jesus’ saving atonement is central, a place where God’s name is honored in our words and actions and God’s presence is experienced as transformative, saving, and healing. May zeal for the integrity of your house, guided by your Word and empowered by the Holy Spirit, consume us.[10]

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[1] “They transformed what should have been a place for worshipful prayer into a noisy market.” (NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible)

[2] “John’s record of the temple cleansing immediately after the miracle at Cana (vv. 1–11 note) offers an important key to the whole of Jesus’ ministry. In these events are signaled replacement of the old order (water of ceremonial cleansing, Herod’s temple) with the new (the wine of salvation, Is. 25:6–9; the risen Lamb as the new temple, Rev. 21:22).”(ESV Reformation Study Bible) This event is probably distinct from Jesus’ cleansing the temple at the end of his ministry (Matt 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; Luke 19:45–46). (NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible)

[3] Malachi 3:1-4 “Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight…he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, till they present right offerings to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.”

[4] Benson Commentary

[5] Psalm 69:9

[6] “No two scenes can be more different than the two recorded in this chapter: the one that took place in the rural seclusion of Cana… the other that was done in the courts of the Temple swarming with excited festival-keepers; the one hallowing the common joys of daily life, the other rebuking the profanation of what assumed to be a great deal more sacred than a wedding festival; the one manifesting the love and sympathy of Jesus, His power to ennoble all human relationships, and His delight in ministering to need and bringing gladness, and the other setting forth the sterner aspect of His character as consumed with holy zeal for the sanctity of God’s name and house… they cover the whole ground of His character, and in some very real sense are a summary of all His work.” MacLaren’s Expositions.

[7] MacLaren’s Exposition

[8] This can be really personal as well as corporate. “Do you not know that you [the church] are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you… For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17) The church is “the household of God” (Eph. 2:19). Believers are “a spiritual house” (1 Pet. 2:5); “God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:17).

[9] 1 Corinthians 1

[10] Colin Smith, https://openthebible.org/sermon/zeal-for-gods-house/