Zeal for God’s House: The Lord Cleanses the Temple (Mike Riccardi)

John 2:12-22   |   Sunday, June 22, 2025   |   Code: 2025-06-22-MR


Zeal for God’s House: The Lord Cleanses the Temple

John 2:12–22

 

Introduction

 

Well we return this morning to our series in the Gospel of John, so please turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 2. What you think about the worship of God is fundamentally indicative of what you think about God. The way you treat the worship of God is the way you treat God. I can tell so much about what a person, individually, or a church, collectively, thinks about who God is and what He is like by observing the way they approach worship.

 

Those church services that begin with a so-called pastor grabbing a microphone and saying, “How’s everybody doing this morning?!” or that have props on stage that correspond the theme of their sermon series (which never seems to be a book of the Bible), or that have rodeos or carnivals or some other dog-and-pony show in the church, or that turn sermons into stand-up comedy routines and make the Scriptures mere fodder for punning and joking, very clearly demonstrate that they do not think God is glorious, and weighty, and awesome, and majestic. They think He is light, and lenient, and indulgent of our whimsy. The prosperity-heresy services that sound like drunken telethons, where hucksters play on the emotions of unsuspecting people to get them to “sow seeds” (that is, give money to them) so that God will pay them back with material blessings—such “church” services demonstrate that they think God is a cosmic genie who is simply a means to their own material gain.

 

The squishy, evangellyfish churches, with the nightclub lights and fog machines, and the Jesus-is-my-boyfriend “worship” music that whips them up into an emotional frenzy, show that they think God can be domesticated and manipulated to respond to their displays of religious devotion. Those so-called churches that refuse to insist upon holy living, who tolerate sin in their members by refusing to uphold biblical morality, who refuse to practice church discipline on members who continue in sin, and thus allow them to “worship” God only externally, while their hearts are far from Him, demonstrate that they believe God is fundamentally unrighteous, and unholy, and that He doesn’t think sin is all that big of a deal.

 

What you think about the worship of God is fundamentally indicative of what you think about God. And in Jesus’ day, as it had been since the days of King Solomon, the worship of God revolved around the temple. Why? Because the temple was the place in which God took up special residence. It was the physical location of the special presence of the omnipresent God. The God who fills all space in a unique way dwelt among His people in His holy place, where He spoke to them by His prophets and priests, and where He received their sacrificial offerings as expressions of worship.

 

In Psalm 26:8, David says, “O Yahweh, I love the habitation of Your house, the place where Your glory dwells.” In 1 Kings 8:29, at the dedication of the temple, Solomon calls it, “the place of which You have said, ‘My name shall be there.’” Yahweh’s glory—Yahweh’s own name—is at home in the temple! In Malachi 1, God tells the priests of Israel that they despise His name. And they say, “What? How have we despised Your name?” And He says, “You present defiled food on My altar, and you say, ‘The table of Yahweh is to be despised.’” Eventually He says, “You profane My name by profaning My table.” Which is to say nothing else than that the way you treat the worship of God is the way you treat God. And so to despise, or profane, or defile, or dishonor the temple of God, is to dishonor God Himself, whose name and glory dwell in that temple. 

 

That is why the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:17, “If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy.” And then he adds, recognizing the fulfillment of the presence of God coming to dwell in believers by the Holy Spirit, “and that is what you are.” But if anyone destroys the temple, God will destroy him. If anyone dishonors the temple, he dishonors God Himself.

 

And it’s for that reason that we find such a stunning scene as we do in John chapter 2, verses 12 to 22. I mentioned last week that the events of John chapter 2 form the end of that first week of Jesus’ ministry that John catalogs—“New Creation Week,” as I’ve called it—as well as forming the beginning of what is commonly called “The Book of Signs.” Traditionally, commentators recognize seven signs in John 2 to 12, which manifest the glory of Jesus and demonstrate that He is the promised Messiah. The first of those signs we looked at last week in verses 1 to 11, where Jesus turns the water into wine.

 

And I mentioned then that the mention of “Cana of Galilee” in chapter 2 verse 1, and then again in chapter 4 verse 46, serves as bookends for this first sub-section in the Book of Signs: chapters 2 to 4. And as we’ve said, in chapters 2 to 4, John presents the superiority of the new creation that Jesus brings in the New Covenant over and against the Old Covenant. In verses 1 to 11, we found the wine of the Gospel surpassing the water of Jewish ceremonialism. In chapter three we read of the new birth—the regeneration of the heart dead in sin, a microcosm of the new creation birthed in the heart of each believer. In chapter four, Jesus tells the woman at the well that He is greater than their father Jacob, because the living water that He gives satisfies thirst forever, and becomes the spring of eternal life. Jesus brings the new creation! He makes all things new! 

 

And in our text, John chapter 2 verses 12 to 22, we see this same theme being developed, as Jesus, the Lord and Messiah, at the very beginning of His public ministry, comes to His temple—to His own Father’s house—and cleanses the temple of the defilement and desecration that He finds there, and points to His own body as the fulfillment of all the temple prefigured and symbolized. Under the Old Covenant, fellowship and communion between God and man happened in the temple. In the era of the new creation, Jesus Himself is where God meets man, and where man worships God.

 

Let’s read our text. John chapter 2, starting in verse 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. 13The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15And 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; 16and to those who were selling the doves He said, ‘Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business.’ 17His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Your house will consume Me.’ 18The Jews then said to Him, ‘What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?’ 19Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 20The Jews then said, ‘It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?’ 21But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22So 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.”

 

What a rich display of the Lordship and deity of Jesus! We’ll seek to mine out the treasures of this account by examining it according to three scenes.

 

I. The Prelude to Reformation (vv. 12–13)

 

And that first scene is somewhat preliminary, as it sets the stage for us. I’m calling it the prelude to reformation. And we see that in verses 12 and 13. John says, “After this,”—that is, after turning the water into wine at the wedding at Cana in Galilee, manifesting the glory of His deity, “He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and they stayed there a few days.”


Capernaum, from the Hebrew kephar-Nachum—the village of Nahum—was a city on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, about sixteen miles northeast of Cana (Carson, 176). So, if it was on the seashore, it’s the low country; one would usually be traveling from a higher elevation and so would go “down” to Capernaum. Matthew, Mark, and Luke make clear that Capernaum was the ground zero headquarters for most of Jesus’ ministry, so much so that Matthew 9:1 calls it “his own city.”

 

He went down to Capernaum with His mother, Mary joining Him—not so she could direct His steps in ministry, or so that she could intercede with Him; we learned from the last passage that, contrary to Roman Catholic theology, that was not her role. She followed Him to Capernaum to learn from Him, now as one of His disciples. In fact, John also mentions that His disciples followed Him, likely the five mentioned in chapter 1: John, Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathanael.

 

And he also mentions Jesus’ brothers, which is to say, his half-brothers, born of Joseph and Mary. The Roman Catholics also dispute this, because they want to maintain the fabricated doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary—that Mary remained a virgin throughout her entire life. And so they say that these were either Joseph’s children from a previous marriage—which of course we have no biblical or historical record of—or that they were Jesus’ cousins. But the term is adelphoi, the standard word for brothers. The word for cousin, anepsios, was available in Greek, but John doesn’t use that here. And of course, Matthew 1:25 says that Joseph “kept [Mary] a virgin until she gave birth” to Jesus—which means she wasn’t kept a virgin forever. So, in these two opening chapters, Roman Catholic theology has taken some pretty hard hits! In chapter 1 verse 40, Peter, their first “pope,” comes to Jesus through the ministry of his brother Andrew. In chapter 2 verse 4, Jesus rebukes Mary for presuming upon their mother-Son relationship in regard to His ministry. And here in verse 12, we learn that Mary had other children. So the papacy, the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the mediatorship of Mary have all been disproven in this short span.

 

Anyway, they came down to Capernaum and stayed there a few days. In verse 13, John says, “The Passover of the Jews was near, and [so] Jesus went up to Jerusalem” to keep the feast of the Passover. Which, of course, was the annual reminder of Yahweh’s deliverance of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, by means of the blood of the lamb that protected God’s people from the outpouring of His wrath. The Passover was celebrated on the 14th day of the month of Nisan, during the full moon either at the end of March or beginning of April (Carson, 176). The Passover was immediately followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which Exodus 23:17 says is one of the three feasts of the year in which “all [Jewish] males shall appear before the Lord Yahweh.” And so Jesus, having been “born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law,” Galatians 4:4–5, fulfilled all righteousness by strictly obeying all that the Law required, so that He would able to impute His righteousness to us law-breakers, who trust in Him alone.

 

And the commentators all remark about how the Apostle John keeps meticulous track of the Jewish feasts that Jesus attended, noting three Passovers—here, in chapter 6 verse 4, and in chapter 11 verse 55; and maybe a fourth in chapter 5 verse 1 (Carson, 176). But John makes this observation here more than just to keep an accurate record. John mentions the Passover because He is about to record a drastic instance of temple reforms. There were at least two other times in the history of Israel where an impending Passover seemed to be an impetus for the purging of Yahweh’s temple from uncleanness and idolatry. Turn with me, first, to 2 Kings chapter 23. 

 

In the chapters leading up to 2 Kings 23, you have had the long and idolatrous reign of King Manasseh, who dies in chapter 21 and is succeeded by King Amón, who only reigns two years in Israel before Josiah becomes king at 8 years old. And you remember the story: Hilkiah the high priest finds the book of the Law, lying ignored in Yahweh’s temple, and Shaphan the scribe reads it to Josiah, who tears his clothes in grief, because he realizes that his fathers have disregarded God’s Word for so long. And so into chapter 23, Josiah makes a covenant with Yahweh to obey the words of the Law. But then in verse 4 we read, “Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the doorkeepers, to bring out of the temple of Yahweh all the vessels that were made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel.” And it goes on. In verse 5 he kills the idolatrous priests; in verse 6 he burns the Asherah; in verse 7, look at it: he “broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes which were in the house of Yahweh.” Can you believe there were such places in the very temple of Yahweh Himself? And verse 8 says he tore down the high places, so that all worship directed to Yahweh would be done in His temple as He demanded. Josiah is cleansing the temple! And then, look down at verse 21: “Then the king commanded all the people saying, ‘Celebrate the Passover to Yahweh your God as it is written in the book of the covenant.’” Cleansing of the temple, followed by the celebration of the Passover.

 

And then turn, just briefly, to 2 Chronicles 29. We have a very similar story, as the righteous King Hezekiah succeeds the wicked and idolatrous King Ahaz. And in verse 15, we find that Hezekiah commands the priests “to cleanse the house of Yahweh.” Verse 16 says, “So the priests went in to the inner part of the house of Yahweh to cleanse it, and every unclean thing which they found in the temple of Yahweh they brought out to the court of the house of Yahweh. Then the Levites received it to carry out to the Kidron valley.” Very similar: the new king cleanses the temple from idolatry. And then, turn over to chapter 30. After removing all the idolatrous altars, verse 15 says, “Then they slaughtered the Passover lambs on the fourteenth of the second month.” Cleansing of the temple, followed by the celebration of the Passover. Both with the righteous kings Josiah and Hezekiah.

 

Well, as you come back to John 2, I think that gives us a better perspective on why John includes the notion that Passover was looming. It’s because a new righteous King has come! Greater than Josiah! Greater than Hezekiah! And in preparation for the celebration of the Passover, He is going to cleanse the temple of idolatry and uncleanness! He is going to bring reformation to Israel’s corrupt worship, and establish the worship of Yahweh in spirit and truth.

 

II. The Purging of the Temple (vv. 14–17)

 

And so such was the prelude to reformation. That brings us to the second scene of this passage: to the institution of reformation itself, which I’m calling, scene number twothe purging of the temple. And we see that in verses 14 to 17. First, consider the corruptions He confronted in verse 14: “And He found in the temple”—this is the hieron, the whole temple complex. There is another Greek word that also gets translated “temple,” and that’s naosNaos often refers specifically to the holy place, whereas hieron speaks of all of the temple precincts collectively—inclusive of the holy place, but also including the various courts. Commentators agree that it’s most likely what Jesus found was going on in the Court of the Gentiles (e.g., Carson, 178; Morris, 169–70).

 

Well: the corruptions He confronted: “He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.” And in one sense, you could understand how this practice came about. People would travel to Jerusalem from significant distances in order to observe the Passover, and that required offering the prescribed sacrifices. Making the trip from dozens of miles away with a herd of oxen or sheep, or carrying doves in crates, would have been extremely impractical. And so, some ingenious entrepreneurial types decided, “We can provide a service, here (and make some good money doing it)! Let’s provide for the convenience of purchasing your sacrificial animals right here in Jerusalem! This way you don’t have to travel with them.” 

 

And perhaps it started innocently enough, somewhere in the city near the temple. But eventually it worked its way into the temple complex itself. And that, of course, would have had to be done with the permission of the chief priests, who wouldn’t miss an opportunity to make a little money for themselves in renting out the spaces to the merchants who would sell the animals. Matthew Henry says, “No doubt, the rents for standing there, and fees for searching the beasts sold there, and certifying that they were ‘without blemish,’ would be a considerable revenue to them.”

 

And then, similarly, there were the money changers. Exodus 30 verse 14 commanded that the temple tax of half a shekel be paid by every Jewish male twenty years old and older. In Matthew 17:24–27, the tax collectors asked Peter whether Jesus was in the habit of paying the temple tax, and Peter said, “Yes,” He did pay that tax. Well, the historical sources tell us that the only currency accepted at that time was Tyrian coinage, because of the high purity of the silver (Carson, 178). And so because not everyone traveling to Jerusalem would normally do business in that currency, they had money changers—just like they do at the airports! But, just like they do at the airports, they charged quite a fee for their services. Some estimate as high as 12.5% (Bruce, 74; cf. MacArthur, 90). 

 

Now, some people might ask, “But are those really corruptions, though? I mean, it all makes so much sense. The animal-sellers and moneychangers were just providing services for the convenience of the travelers coming to worship for Passover. What’s the problem with it if it even facilitates worship?” Oh, we can get so practical when it comes to justifying our departures from the Word of God! How reasonable and plausible we can be when we’re justifying the prostitution of the church of God! We call them innovations, conveniences, creativity—we may even call it hospitality—to turn the church into a circus, or a mall, or an amusement park! But Calvin so wisely observes, “Whatever deceptions Satan may employ, let us know that any departure—however small—from the command of God is wicked. It was a plausible and imposing disguise, that the worship of God was aided and promoted, when the sacrifices which were to be offered by believers were laid ready to their hand; but as God had appropriated his Temple to different purposes, Christ disregards the objections that might be offered against the order which God had appointed” (93). Church is not the place for innovation! It’s the place for strict adherence to the Word of God! Worship is not the domain for human creativity. God tells us how He is to be worshiped. And if He doesn’t command it, we don’t do it. God is to be worshiped in the precise manner in which He has appointed, not according to the standard that our ingenious minds decide is practical or convenient. 

 

What does Jesus think of it? We’ve seen the corruptions He confronted. Now look at the chastening He inflicted, verses 15 and 16: “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.” Jesus is so incensed by the irreverence—that the worship of His Father’s house has been replaced with the buzz of the marketplace—that He makes a whip! He takes cords from the temple floor, probably those with which the merchants had bound the sheep and oxen as they led them into the temple. Matthew Henry makes such a wonderful observation. He says, “Sinners prepare the scourges with which they themselves will be driven out from the temple of the Lord.” 

 

And so, “Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild”—the Lamb of God who is silent before His shearers; the tender shepherd, who welcomes the children into His arms—fashions a whip, and starts slinging it throughout the temple courts, forcefullydriving out, verse 15 says, “them all”! The merchants and their animals! The Lamb of God drives out the sacrificial animals from the temple of God. And in a display of utter contempt for money—showing us exactly what the Lord of glory thinks of mammon—He picks up the coin-coffers and turns them upside down. He even flips over the tables of the money changers. This is what our Lord thinks of those “who suppose godliness is a means of gain.”

 

But then, notice also, not only the chastening He inflicted, but the constraint that He showed. Verse 16: “And to those who were selling the doves He said, ‘Take these things away.’” He drives out the oxen and the sheep, but He doesn’t open up the cages or coops of the doves and let them fly away. And several have observed here the prudence of Christ even amidst His zeal. The owners of the animals would have been able to round them up—especially if they chased after them out of the temple, which is what Jesus wanted. But if He flung open the birdcages, the owners wouldn’t have been able to retrieve their doves, and they would have suffered loss. He wants them out, but He won’t destroy their property. And I love that observation about Jesus. Our Lord was angry, to be sure. But He wasn’t out of control. He wasn’t flying off the handle or blowing off steam. He didn’t act without restraint. And so one commentator said, “Note, discretion must always guide and govern our zeal, that we do nothing unbecoming ourselves, or mischievous to others” (Henry). 

 

And so, the corruption He confronted, the chastening He inflicted, the constraint that He showed. Consider now the condemnation He proclaimed. Again in verse 16. He said, “Stop making My Father’s house a place of business.” And here we get the explanation for His righteous indignation. The temple is the house of God! As we said before, it was the place where His glory dwelt, where His special presence took up residence with His people. It’s the place where His name dwelt, where He received the worship of His people and communed with them in fellowship. It was therefore to be treated as holy, with reverence, with the fear that ought to accompany the thought that the thrice-holy King of heaven dwelt among men of unclean lips.

 

Jesus looks at “His Father’s house,” and with the affection of a faithful Son who loves His Father—who desires more than anything to see His Father’s name honored, and sanctified, and lifted up, and reverenced—He sees His Father’s name being treated as light, and common, and profane, and worthless. He sees His Father’s house made into, literally, “a house of merchandise.” He looks around, and rather than the reverent, mournful, awe-filled, prayerful silence that accompanies true, repentant, sacrificial worship, He hears the lowing of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the clanging of coins. He hears the buzz of the marketplace, of a bazaar! D. A. Carson put it this way. He said, “Instead of solemn dignity and the murmur of prayer, … of brokenness and contrition, holy adoration and prolonged petition, there is noisy commerce” (178–79). All so that some wily merchants (and of course the chief priests) can make a buck off of God’s people. 

 

Matthew Henry said, “Merchandise is a good thing in the exchange, but not in the temple.” Jesus is saying, “This house exists for the worship of My Father! And you’re making it about the worship of money, or convenience, or ease! You’re bringing idols into the temple of God!” First Timothy 6:5 says that those who suppose that “godliness is a means of gain” are “men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth.” Verse 9 says, “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. 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.” Religion can be big business for unprincipled men and women. And when the love of money becomes a motive for depriving the house of God of the reverence that He is owed, you can be sure that corruption has infiltrated the church.

 

And the worst part of it is: Jesus has come to free us from those piercing griefs! He’s come to free us from the love of money that plunges us into ruin and destruction! How dare we, under the pretense of worship, make the household of God a means to enslave ourselves and others to what Christ has come to free us from! 

 

Imagine the chaos in the temple. If you whip an ox hard enough on the behind, it’s going to start moving pretty quickly. Oxen are big. Sheep are scattering in every direction. The merchants are chasing after their merchandise. Everyone is bent over trying to pick up the coins that Jesus had thrown to the ground. It’s bedlam in the temple of God! And you say, “Jesus! This is not gentle! This is not pastoral! This is not winsome! You need to tone it down, or people are going to think you’re some sort of rigid, inflexible fundamentalist!” If that’s your instinct, then let this passage of Scripture correct the false image of Jesus you’ve carved into your own mind. He didn’t flip over every table, but the Prince of Peace didn’t refuse to flip over any tables. And if that’s out of accord with your conception of Jesus, it’s your conception that needs to change, not the Jesus of Scripture.

 

Well, after the condemnation He proclaimed, that brings us to the cross-reference the disciples remembered. Just as His disciples observe Him driving the animals and merchants and money changers out of the temple with a whip, and they’re wondering how the wrath of a King can be reconciled with the tenderness of the Lamb of God that John proclaimed Him to be. But they submitted their minds to Scripture. They interpreted the confusing events they were witnessing through the lens of the Word of God. And so often that is the case: “Lord, I don’t understand my circumstances.” But we ponder God’s Word, and we find that Scripture interprets strange providences. Verse 17: “His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Your house will consume Me.’”

 

That’s Psalm 69 verse 9. And it comes in a context in which David is lamenting that those who profess to be God’s people are not worshiping Him in purity, and David’s lamentations and protests against that impure worship are bringing upon him the reproaches of those he’s criticizing. Verse 8: “I have become estranged from my brothers and an alien to my mother’s sons. For zeal for Your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.” The disciples are recognizing the fulfillment of this passage in David’s greater Son. The faithful Son cannot bear to see His Father dishonored in His own house. Genuine affection for His beloved Father causes His zeal to be stirred up within Him, like a consuming fire that’s just eating Him up, until it breaks forth and finds expression in purging the temple from these impurities.

 

The disciples are realizing: Jesus’ actions aren’t a breach of God’s commandments to peace and gentleness; they are a fulfillment of God’s commandments for love to God above all things—for a preeminent commitment to holiness and purity in worship, for a reverence and fear of God above the fear of man. And if He is reproached by the unfaithful for intemperance or unrighteous anger, well, He’ll bear those unjust accusations as the reproaches of those who reproach God Himself by relaxing the standards for His worship.

 

Dear people, what do we learn from this? We learn that, like Jesus, we ought to be consumed with zeal for the glory and honor of God’s name. When the house of God is dishonored by flippant, or irreverent, or mercenary approaches to worship, it ought to make us grieve. It even ought to make us angry. And it ought to make us willing to bear any reproach—to suffer any consequences—in order to correct the evils that we see tolerated among those who profess to be the people of God.

 

At the same time, it means to temper our zeal with the restraint that our Savior showed, while also remembering that He expressed His zeal as Lord of the temple—an office that we do not share with Him. He expresses His indignation as Master; we must take care to express ours as ministers. Calvin put it this way. He said, “Let each of us apply to the invitation of Christ, that—so far as lies in our power—we may not permit the temple of God to be in any way polluted. But, at the same time, we must beware lest any man transgress the bounds of his calling. All of us ought to have zeal in common with the Son of God; but all are not at liberty to seize a whip, that we may correct vices with our hands; for we have not received the same power, nor have we been entrusted with the same commission” (95). 

 

If we as your elders are ever doing something that strikes at the pure worship of God, such that it arouses in you a holy zeal, do not stifle that zeal. We want you to hold us accountable to Scripture! We want to answer difficult questions and address concerns. If we veer off course, we want you to do all that lies within your power to bring us correction from the Word of God. But at the same time, don’t transgress the bounds of your calling in the way you share those concerns. Be like Jesus in your zeal, but recognize your distinction to Jesus in that He was Lord, wielding authority, and you are a servant, submitting to authority. Augustine says something similar: “Who is the one consumed with zeal for the house of God? The one who seeks to correct all the things he may see as evil there, who longs to have them changed, who does not keep quiet about them; if he cannot correct them, he bears with them, he groans over them” (205). Sometimes, because even elders are sinners, wrongs are corrected at a pace slower than they ought to be corrected. And sadly, some wrongs you may not be able to correct. In such a case, Augustine says, bear with them, and groan over them, in service of the church of God. And pray that the Lord accomplish by His hand of secret providence what seems impossible to accomplish by your own instrumentality. But above all, let us prize the pure worship of God, and give all of our zeal to protecting the honor of His name. 

 

III. The Prophecy of the Sign (vv. 18–22)

 

Well, we’ve seen the prelude to reformation in verses 12 and 13, and the purging of the temple in verses 14 to 17. We come now to the third scene of this interaction. And that is, number three, the prophecy of the sign. The prelude, the purging, and now the prophecy of the sign. And that comes in verses 18 to 22. Verse 18: “The Jews then said to Him, ‘What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?’” 

 

“The Jews” were either the temple police force or representatives of the Sanhedrin (Carson, 180; MacArthur, 93). They are obviously incensed at Jesus, and so they challenge Him. And it shows that not even the most faultless work of reforming evils among the people of God can expect to be accomplished without opposition. But may God grant that we are never the ones opposing that noble work. And truly, they should have welcomed Jesus’ purging of the temple. They should have supported and encouraged and even helped Him. If they were true “Jews,” they would have cared for the honor and glory of God in His house above all things. But instead they opposed Him.

 

They demanded He show them a sign to show His authority for acting as He had. And in one sense, that’s a reasonable request. Driving man and beast with a whip and flipping over tables—those are acts of a prophet of God. It’s one thing to raise concerns with corruptions in God’s house; it’s another thing to do that. They recognize it as a Messianic act. “Is this Man, by acting this way, claiming to be Messiah? Well, let’s see if He can do the signs of the Messiah!” We see this line of thinking John 7:31, where the people say, “When the Christ comes, He will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will He?” “You’re acting like You’re the Messiah. Are you? If so, show the Messianic signs!”

 

But on the other hand, their demand for a sign was not reasonable. It was foolish. They seem to be more concerned with proper procedure than with whether what He was doing was fundamentally righteous. As one commentator put it, “They are…less concerned with pure worship and a right approach to God than they are with questions of precedent and authority” (Carson, 180–81). And it’s also foolish to ask for a sign, because the sign He had just performed was evidence enough! The fact that one Man, holding no formal office, armed with nothing but a small whip of cords, could drive an entire marketplace out of the temple grounds, by Himself, with no resistance—either from the dozens of merchants themselves or from the chief priests who ran the operation and were in favor of it—is really quite remarkable. The fifth century church father, Jerome, called it the most wonderful of Christ’s miracles! And so they want a sign for His authority, but He had just given it to them. You see, the problem wasn’t with the lack of signs. It was that they lacked the eyes to see the signs that had been given to them already. John 12:37 says, “But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him.”

 

Well, Jesus answers them, verse 19, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” And of course, they think He’s talking about the temple they were standing in, but verse 21 tells us that “He was speaking of the temple of His body.” He is speaking about His death and resurrection. And Jesus often did this when the people demanded signs from Him. In Matthew 12:39–40, He says, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as ‘Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster,’ so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” The demand for a sign is met with resistance—with a cryptic reference only to the great coming sign of His resurrection from the dead. You say, “Why the veiled language? Why not speak openly?” Well, for the same reason that He spoke in parables: to bring judgment upon the wicked, in the form of hiding the truth from rebellious unbelievers. Just as He said in Luke chapter 8 verse 10, “To you [the disciples] it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’”

 

And they didn’t understand. They replied, verse 20, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” According to the historian Josephus, the reconstruction of Zerubbabel’s post-exilic temple began in the eighteenth year of King Herod, around 20 or 19 BC (JW, 1.21). Forty-six years from then would place this event in the year AD 27 or 28 (cf. Klink, 182). And technically, history tells us that the refurbishment of this temple wasn’t completed until AD 63. It would still be another 25 years. What kind of audacity does Jesus have to claim that He could do in three days what the best architectural minds couldn’t do in decades? But then, that would be a great sign, wouldn’t it? They were asking for a sign to demonstrate His authority. Wouldn’t erecting a temple in three days be a good candidate? And of course, if they had eyes to see the sign already performed in front of them, by the One claiming that it was His own Father’s house—that He was uniquely the Son of God, and thus fully God Himself—then they wouldn’t have marveled that the God who built the cosmos in six days with nothing but the Word of His mouth could build a temple in three days.

 

But of course, He wasn’t speaking of the temple built with stones that they had been standing in. He was speaking about the temple of His body. Surely, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form in Christ, Colossians 2:9. He is the Word who has become flesh and is tabernacling among us, John 1:14, pitching His tent and dwelling in our midst, just like God did in the old Tabernacle, which was eventually supplanted by the temple. Back in John 1:51, Jesus said that the angels of God would be ascending and descending on the Son of Man, just as they did on Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28. Jesus is the connection point between heaven and earth, the only way to heaven from earth. He is the fulfillment of all that the temple was designed to be.

 

Jesus is where God’s glory dwells. Jesus is the place where God condescends to man, and where man fellowships with God. Jesus is the place where God reveals Himself to man, and where God’s people are sanctified to Him for holiness and for service. Jesus is where all priestly ministry finds its fulfillment, and where full and final atonement for sin is accomplished once and for all. Jesus is where God’s people go to worship Him. Jesus is God’s dwelling place. And so He says in John 4:21, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. … But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth,” because they will worship Him through and in Me, His Son!

 

Do you see? “I am the new temple! Those who seek forgiveness from My Father must cease offering sacrifices on this temple mount! They must cease entirely from all their own religious works! And they must put all their trust in Me alone—the Lamb of God, the final sacrifice—to do for them, and in their place, what they could never do for themselves: fulfill God’s Law and present a perfectly worthy sacrifice that puts away sin once for all! Those who seek fellowship with the God of heaven will have to come to Me, for I am the way! No one comes to the Father but by Me! There is only one mediator between God and men: the Man Christ Jesus!” 

 

“When you destroy this temple, by putting Me to death, you will unwittingly accomplish the will of My Father: that a perfectly sufficient, substitutionary sacrifice for sin will have been offered in the place of sinners. But I will raise this temple up again in three days> You want a sign for My authority? John 10:18: ‘I have authority to lay [My life] down, and I have authority to take it up again.’ I will raise Myself from the dead. I Myself am the resurrection and the life!”

 

And “so,” verse 22, “when He was raised from the dead,” several years after this—after three years of public ministry, and continuing to prophesy of His death and resurrection—“His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” We’re not sure if John meant that they believed the Scripture as a whole, which testified of Messiah, or a particular passage of Scripture, like Psalm 16:10, which promises that the Holy One will not undergo decay, or maybe Isaiah 53:10–12, which says the Suffering Servant will see His seed, prolong His days, and be given a portion with the great. But one way or another, they saw Him rise from the dead, and they remembered His words—which John places on par with Scripture, here—“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” and—look at it—“they believed.”

 

Conclusion


The previous passage ended, in verse 11, with the same conclusion. Jesus manifested His glory by the sign of turning water into wine, and His disciples believed in Him. Here in verse 22, the disciples remember His words, and they believed the Scripture and the words He had spoken. Dear unbeliever, won’t you believe in Him? in One so glorious as to be able to drive corruption from the temple singlehandedly? as the One who laid His life down as a sacrifice for sin, and took it up again three days later, in victory over sin and death? 

 

Dear friend: your sins have aroused the holy justice of Almighty God. And for God to be just, He must punish sin. He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. He will pour out His wrath upon every sin that has ever been committed in history. But that will happen in either one of two places: either God will punish your sins by pouring out His wrath upon you forever in hell—which is what we all deserve—or, He will have punished your sins by pouring out His wrath upon Jesus, for those three terrible hours on Calvary’s cross. The grace of the Gospel is that you no longer have to visit a temple every year and slaughter a lamb to atone for your sins against God. You simply have to come to Jesus—the Lamb of God, the true and ultimate temple of God, the place where God’s glory dwells, the One upon whom He has put His name, Yahweh in the flesh—and put your trust in Him alone. Don’t leave this morning without believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, without trusting in Him for the forgiveness of your sins.

 

And dear believer: once again, believe in this glorious Savior, bringer of the New Creation, the true temple of God. See His glory manifest again in this text, and let that glory strengthen your trust in Him for everything you need in this life. Behold the glory of His passion for pure worship, for His love of His Father’s honor and glory, and you love the church right alongside Him. Behold His passion for the purity of the temple of God, and remember that 1 Corinthians 3:16 calls your bodies “the temple of God” because “the Spirit of God dwells in you.” And extend your zeal for the purity of God’s house to the purity of your own life. If Jesus cares about the holiness of God’s temple, and you’re God’s temple, then Jesus cares about your personal holiness! See to it that you give Him no cause to overturn tables in your life, but He gets what He is worthy of in you.

 

And behold His glory as the Messiah, who exercises divine authority to take His life up again, who has conquered the grave, who has triumphed over sin and death, and trust Him afresh. See in the empty tomb another great confirmation for your faith, that your trust in Him is warranted. And trust Him for righteousness. Trust Him for holiness. Trust in Him for perseverance in trial. Trust in Him for the fullness of joy that the Word promises is at His right hand. TrustHim.