1417 - "Jesus and the Second Cleansing of the Temple" Matthew 21:12-17; John 2:13-23

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1417. Well, day by day we are getting closer to Passover. We're getting closer to that Seder meal. We're getting closer to the time when Jesus will be lifted up and he will draw all the earth to himself. Jesus is days away from dying. And he is days away from being buried and his glorious resurrection. But let's look at what happened after he came into the temple area on the day of the presentation of the lambs. We have to leave John's Gospel and go back to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, what are called the Synoptic Gospels, because John has another purpose. He is going to delve into the details of the Passover Seder, the last meal that Jesus had, the betrayal of Judas. I want us to look at what happened when he went into the temple. And the Scripture says in Matthew chapter twenty one, we'll just take Matthew's account today for time's sake. And the Scripture says, Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all of those who bought and sold in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers, and the seats of those who sold doves. And he said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. Then the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priest and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple saying, Hosianna, Hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant, they were enraged, and said to him, Do you hear what they are saying? And Jesus said unto him, Yes. Have you never read out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise. Then he left them and went out of the city to Bethany and he lodged there. I have heard all kinds of interpretation of this cleansing of the temple. For years I have listened to men talk about just one cleansing of the temple. There were two. Make no mistake about it. In the beginning of Jesus' ministry, at another Passover was the first cleansing. And the details are similar, but they are different. In John chapter two, in John chapter two, and I want us to follow through with this to the following verses, because as you'll recall, there are no chapter and verse divisions. And so this is one seamless story in John. John is getting somewhere here. He is going somewhere. And so he starts in John chapter two, after Jesus had turned the water to wine, he came down from the Galilee because it says in chapter two and verse thirteen of the gospel of John, not Matthew, we'll come back to that. He says, Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, that is, from the Galilee, where he turned the water into wine, where he had been doing miracles, where he began his ministry. And he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers doing business. And when he had made a whip of cords, this part is absent from the second cleansing. He drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen, and he poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables, and he said unto those whose soul does, take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of merchandise. Then his disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for your house has eaten me up. So the Jews answered and said unto him, What sign do you show us since you do these things? In other words, if you're going to come in and do this, you better have some reason to do this. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple in three days, and I'll raise it up. Then the Jews said, It has taken forty six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days? And let me just parenthetically say to you that the forty six years they're talking about is Herod's addition. That temple was built and dedicated in five hundred and sixteen BC after the exile, the Jews came back. They laid the foundation of the temple in five hundred and thirty-five to five hundred and thirty-four, and then for fourteen years it just was dormant. The opposition from those who were against the Jews as they returned back to the land under Cyrus the Great. And it took the great preaching of Zachariah and Haggai to call the people to repentance and to finish the work that God had given them to do and sent them back into the land to do. And so after four years in 516, they dedicated that temple. This is the temple. But it was expanded in the Greek period during the period of the Hasmoneans. Now it was expanded again under Herod the Great, and it was a magnificent place, and it was very ornate and beautiful in every sense of the word. And so that's what they're talking about in John chapter 2 and verse 20. But verse 21 says Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body. Therefore, when he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this to them, and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had said. This was during the Passover early in his ministry. He was there on Passover on more than one occasion. So when he went back in the last time just before his death, this time he had no whip. But this time he wanted them to understand who he was, why he was doing what he was doing, because this was his father's house and it was to be a house of prayer, but they had made it a den of thieves. Now you say, Well, why did it take two cleansing? Because we are fallen creatures. And just because the Lord does a work one time in a person's life doesn't mean that they will never go back to whatever it is that they came out of. You know and I know as followers of Jesus. After we come to know him and we become followers of Jesus, still our hearts are at times given to the flesh. And we give in to temptation and we fall. This is exactly what happened. But remember, these people were just waiting for a chance to do what they need to do. Their goal was not to worship God, their goal was to make money and to sell merchandise, and Jesus called them out. Now the reason I wanted to go back to the first cleansing is because there was a man there who was observing all of this. And when they confronted Jesus, and Jesus confronted the money changers, and that upset the people. Verse 23 of John chapter 2 says, Now when he was in Jerusalem at Passover during the feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he did, the miracles that he did, but Jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew all men and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for he knew of what was in man. In other words, Jesus knew their hearts were wicked, and he healed those that need to be healed, he confronted those that need to be confronted, he rebuked those that need to be rebuked. But there was someone watching this whole scene unfold. He was a Pharisee. He was one that would have been in the temple on a regular basis. He was a teacher of the Jews, he was a ruler of the Jews. And remember, if you take out the chapter heading and the verses, then it says for Jesus knew what was in man. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no man can do these signs. John had just talked about the signs that he had done. No man can do these miracles that you do unless God is with him. And Jesus confronted Nicodemus, this wealthy teacher and leader of the Jews. He said, You must be born again. And that is the great passage that concludes with a passage that has John 3.16 in it. And all of that was a result of Jesus coming in and taking a bold stand against those who were merchandising in the house of God and making a mockery out of what Jesus later would call a house of prayer. Now the reason I'm going over these things is because we are building up toward Passover. We're building up to this betrayal of Judas because you see the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the zealots and all of those that were going in different directions and fighting among themselves, what pulled them together was their hatred of Jesus and their jealousy of Jesus and what he stood for. And because of that, they sought to kill him. Remember, we read yesterday that they sought to kill Lazarus as well. Why? Because many were believing in Jesus, that he was the Messiah. Why? Because he raised a man from the dead that everyone knew, a very well known man that they knew had gotten sick and died because he was sick for some time, and no doubt people had come by to see him, and they all knew that he died. They would have come and sat with the family, they would have mourned with the family, they would have prepared his body, put it in a tomb. Four days later, Jesus showed up, raised him from the dead, and people came not just to see Jesus, as we read yesterday, but also to see Lazarus. And so they wanted to not only kill Jesus, they wanted to just get rid of any evidence whatsoever that he was the Messiah. Why? Because he was acting like the Messiah. He was raising the dead, he was healing the sick, he was causing the lame to walk, he was causing the sick to be healed, the dead to be raised, for those who could not hear to once again hear more clear than ever, those who couldn't speak that they could now speak. And so Jesus did all of those things which were evidences that he was the Messiah, not just in his words, but what he did. So much so that this is the comfort that Jesus Himself gave to John the Baptist, his forerunner when he gave evidence that he was the Messiah. So the plot is thickening. The Sadducees and the scribes, the leaders, the priests, they are all now in a fevered pitch. It's Passover, the place is jammed, this is their time, and Jesus is stealing the spotlight that they so desperately need this time of the year. And so we're days away, and Jesus is getting ready to do what he came to the earth to do, and that is to become the Lamb of God that would take away the sin of the world. Oh, he was that from the beginning, but he had to evidence that to the people. And that is why you and I are listening to this podcast today. Unless those events had taken place, unless this week had happened, then you and I would still be in our sins, and God alone knows where we would be without Jesus. Come back again tomorrow, and we'll take the next step and see the great Olivet Discourse and Jesus talking about the kingdom that is to come, the tribulation that is to come, and his glorious victory in the days ahead. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org, then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.