The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, and the changers of money sitting. He made a whip of cords, and threw all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the changers’ money and overthrew their tables. To those who sold the doves, he said, “Take these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will eat me up.”
The Jews therefore answered him, “What sign do you show us, seeing that you do these things?”
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
The Jews therefore said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple! Will you raise it up in three days?” But he spoke of the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this, and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name, observing his signs which he did. But Jesus didn’t entrust himself to them, because he knew everyone, and because he didn’t need for anyone to testify concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25 13. And the passover of the Jews was at…
13. And the passover of the Jews was at hand; therefore Jesus went up to Jerusalem. The Greek words καὶ ἀνέβη, may be literally rendered, and he went up; but the Evangelist has used the copulative and instead of therefore; for he means that Christ went up at that time, in order to celebrate the passover at Jerusalem. There were two reasons why he did so; for since the Son of God became subject to the Law on our account, he intended, by observing with exactness all the precepts of the Law, to present in his own person a pattern of entire subjection and obedience. Again, as he could do more good, when there was a multitude of people, he almost always availed himself of such an occasion. Whenever, therefore, we shall afterwards find it said that Christ came to Jerusalem at the feast, let the reader observe that he did so, first, that along with others he might observe the exercises of religion which God had appointed, and, next, that he might publish his doctrine amidst a larger concourse of people.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv13, 14, 17, 18, 21, 24, 25 Christ being made subject to the Law for us,…
Christ being made subject to the Law for us, satisfieth the Law of the Passover.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv13–25 13 And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and…
13 And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,
Ver. 13. And Jesus went up to Jerusalem] In obedience to the law, and to preach the gospel in the great congregation.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv13–25 Concerning the Jewish passover we have once and again…
Concerning the Jewish passover we have once and again spoken in our notes on the other evangelists. The institution of it was Exo 12:1-51. It was to be solemnized yearly in the place which the Lord should choose, according to the law, Deu 16:6. Christ, though he was not naturally subject to the law, yet to fulfil all righteousness, and to redeem his people from the curse of the law, Gal 4:5, kept the passover yearly, taking also advantage from the conflux of the people to Jerusalem at that time, to make himself and his doctrine more known. None of the other evangelists make mention of more than one passover between the time of Christ’s baptism and death: John plainly mentions three, one here, another in Joh 6:4, the last, Joh 18:39; and some think that he mentions another, though more obscurely, Joh 5:1. Our Lord was at them all.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv17, 18, 23, 25 The disciples upon this occasion called to remembrance the…
The disciples upon this occasion called to remembrance the words of David, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up: Psa 69:9 which was verified in Christ as well as in David.
Where observe, 1. The grace described, zeal, which is the ardour of the affections, carrying forth a man to the utmost for God’s glory, and his church’s good. Zeal is not so much one affection, as the intense degree of all the affections.
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Observe, 2. The object about which our Saviour’s zeal was conversant, God’s house, that is, all things relating to the worship of God, temple, tabernacle, ark, &c. which were the pledges of God’s presence.
Observe, 3. The effect of this, it hath eaten me up, like fire that eats up and devours that whereon it lights. What was said of St. Peter, That he was a man made up all of fire; and of St. Paul in respect of his sufferings, that he was a spark of fire burning in the midst of the sea, may much more truly be said of Christ, when he was engaged in the work of church-reformation.
Learn, That as Christ was, so Christians ought to be, very zealous for the glory of God, the honour of his house, and the purity of his worship. The zeal of thine house, that is, for the honour of thine house, hath eaten me up, &c.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v23 We have here an account of the success, the…
We have here an account of the success, the poor success, of Christ's preaching and miracles at Jerusalem, while he kept the passover there. Observe,
I. That our Lord Jesus, when he was at Jerusalem at the passover, did preach and work miracles. People's believing on him implied that he preached; and it is expressly said, They saw the miracles he did. He was now in Jerusalem, the holy city, whence the word of the Lord was to go froth. His residence was mostly in Galilee, and therefore when he was in Jerusalem he was very busy. The time was holy time, the feast-day, time appointed for the service of God; at the passover the Levites taught the good knowledge of the Lord (Ch2 30:22), and Christ took that opportunity of preaching, when the concourse of people was great, and thus he would own and honour the divine institution of the passover.
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II. That hereby many were brought to believe in his name, to acknowledge him a teacher come from God, as Nicodemus did (Joh 3:2), a great prophet; and, probably, some of those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem believed him to be the Messiah promised, so ready were they to welcome the first appearance of that bright and morning star.
III. That yet Jesus did not commit himself unto them (Joh 2:24): ouk episteuen heauton autois - He did not trust himself with them. It is the same word that is used for believing in him. So that to believe in Christ is to commit ourselves to him and to his guidance. Christ did not see cause to repose any confidence in these new converts at Jerusalem, where he had many enemies that sought to destroy him, either, 1. Because they were false, at least some of them, and would betray him if they had an opportunity, or were strongly tempted to do so. He had more disciples that he could trust among the Galileans than among the dwellers at Jerusalem. In dangerous times and places, it is wisdom to take heed in whom you confide; memnēso apistein - learn to distrust. Or, 2. Because they were weak, and I would hope that this was the worst of it; not that they were treacherous and designed him a mischief, but, (1.) They were timorous, and wanted zeal and courage, and might perhaps be frightened to do a wrong thing. In times of difficulty and danger, cowards are not fit to be trusted. Or, (2.) They were tumultuous, and wanted discretion and management. These in Jerusalem perhaps had their expectations of the temporal reign of the Messiah more raised than others, and, in that expectation, would be ready to give some bold strokes at the government if Christ would have committed himself to them and put himself at the head of them; but he would not, for his kingdom is not of this world. We should be shy of turbulent unquiet people, as our Master here was, though they profess to believe in Christ, as these did.
IV. That the reason why he did not commit himself to them was because he knew them (Joh 2:25), knew the wickedness of some and the weakness of others. The evangelist takes this occasion to assert Christ's omniscience. 1. He knew all men, not only their names and faces, as it is possible for us to know many, but their nature, dispositions, affections, designs, as we do not know any man, scarcely ourselves. He knows all men, for his powerful hand made them all, his piercing eye sees them all, sees into them. He knows his subtle enemies, and all their secret projects; his false friends, and their true characters; what they really are, whatever they pretend to be. He knows them that are truly his, knows their integrity, and knows their infirmity too. He knows their frame. 2. He needed not that any should testify of man. His knowledge was not by information from others, but by his own infallible intuition. It is the infelicity of earthly princes that they must see with other men's eyes, and hear with other men's ears, and take things as they are represented to them; but Christ goes purely upon his own knowledge. Angels are his messengers, but not his spies, for his own eyes run to and fro through the earth, Ch2 16:9. This may comfort us in reference to Satan's accusations, that Christ will not take men's characters from him. 3. He knew what was in man; in particular persons, in the nature and race of man. We know what is done by men; Christ knows what is in them, tries the heart and the reins. This is the prerogative of that essential eternal Word, Heb 4:12, Heb 4:13. We invade his prerogative if we presume to judge men's hearts. How fit is Christ to be the Saviour of men, very fit to be the physician, who has such a perfect knowledge of the patient's state and case, temper and distemper; knows what is in him! How fit also to be the Judge of all! For the judgment of him who knows all men, all in men, must needs be according to truth.
Now this is all the success of Christ's preaching and miracles at Jerusalem, in this journey. The Lord comes to his temple, and none come to him but a parcel of weak simple people, that he can neither have credit from nor put confidence in; yet he shall at length see of the travail of his soul.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv13–24 And the Jews' passover was at hand,.... That feast…
And the Jews' passover was at hand,.... That feast which was kept on the fourteenth day of Nisan, in commemoration of the Lord's passing over, and by the houses of the Israelites, when he slew the firstborn in Egypt: and it is called the Jews' passover, because they only were obliged to keep it: nor was it obligatory upon the Gentiles; and, besides, was now abolished when John wrote this Gospel, though still retained by the Jews. And moreover, John was now among the Gentiles, and for whose sake he penned this Gospel; and therefore so distinguishes this feast, which was typical of the Christian passover, or of Christ our passover that is sacrificed for us. This was the first "passover" after Christ's baptism, which is generally thought to have been about half a year before; though so much time cannot be made out from the scriptural account; for from his baptism, to his return out of the wilderness to John, were forty days; and from thence, to his coming to Cana, four or, five days more; and perhaps he might be seven days in Cana; for so long a wedding was usually kept; and his stay at Capernaum was but a few days; all which do not amount to above eight or nine weeks at most: the second passover after this, is, by some, thought to be the feast mentioned in Joh 5:1, and the third in Joh 6:4, and the fourth and last, at which he suffered, in Joh 18:28. The Evangelist John is the only writer that gives an account of the passovers after Christ entered on his public ministry; by which is known the duration of it, which is generally thought to be about three years and a half. "Three years and a half", the Jews say (a), the Shekinah sat upon the Mount of Olives, expecting that the Israelites would repent, but they did not; and this seems to be the term of time for disciples to learn of their masters: it is said (b), one came from Athens to Jerusalem, and he served "three years and a half" to learn the doctrine of wisdom, and he learned it not.
And Jesus went up to Jerusalem; not alone, but his disciples with him, as appears from Joh 2:17, to keep the passover as he had been wont to do, and as the law required; and he being under the law, as a son of Abraham, and the surety of his people, it became him to fulfil all righteousness, ceremonial, as well as moral, and which he strictly observed. He is said to go up to Jerusalem, because that stood on higher ground than the low lands of Galilee, and was the only place where the passover might be kept; see Deu 16:2.
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(a) Praefat. Echa Rabbati, fol. 40. 4. (b) Echa Rabbati, fol. 44. 4.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25 Oxen, and sheep, and doves - Used for sacrifice:…
Oxen, and sheep, and doves - Used for sacrifice: And the changers of money - Those who changed foreign money for that which was current at Jerusalem, for the convenience of them that came from distant countries.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 Verse 13. And the Jews' passover was at hand]…
Verse 13. And the Jews' passover was at hand] This was the reason why he stayed but a few days at Capernaum, Joh 2:12, as he wished to be present at the celebration of this feast at Jerusalem.
This was the first passover after Christ's baptism. The second is mentioned, Lu 6:1. The third, Joh 6:4. And the fourth, which was that at which he was crucified, Joh 11:55. From which it appears,
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1. That our blessed Lord continued his public ministry about three years and a half, according to the prophecy of Daniel, Da 9:27. And,
2. That, having been baptized about the beginning of his thirtieth year, he was crucified precisely in the middle of his thirty-third. See Martin.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 18, 23 Joh 2:14. And found in the temple those that…
Joh 2:14. And found in the temple those that sold oxen, &c. — Used for sacrifice. It seems the officers, whose province it was to take care of the temple, permitted a market of these animals, and other things necessary for sacrifice, to be kept in the court of the Gentiles, in order that the worshippers might be supplied with victims requisite for the altar. The consequence of which was, that there was often such a bustle and confusion there, that the proselytes who came to worship could not but be much disturbed in their devotions; as the reader will easily believe, when he is informed that, according to Josephus, “no fewer than two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred victims were sometimes offered at one passover. But the abuse did not rest here; for it is generally supposed that the priests let out this part of the temple for profit, and that the sellers, to enable themselves to pay the rent of their shops and stalls, demanded an exorbitant price for their commodities. Nay, it is said that the priests and Levites very often sold the animals they had received for sacrifices to the dealers in cattle, at a lower rate, that they might sell them again with profit; so that the same sacrifices were often sold to different persons, and the spoils, or gain of them, were divided between the priests and the salesmen. In order to expedite this traffic, there were money-changers at hand, who gave the Jews who came from foreign countries the current money of Judea, in lieu of the money of the countries from whence they came; and for this service they took a premium, which, upon the whole, became very considerable. Thus was the temple profaned by the avarice of the priests, and literally made a den of thieves. When our Lord viewed this scene of iniquity, we need not wonder at his indignation; for it was an honest zeal, which showed his high regard to religion, and his implacable enmity to vice; while, at the same time, it illustrated the character given of him by Malachi, (Mal 3:1,) and established the pretensions he made of being the messenger mentioned by that prophet.” See Josephus, Bell., Joh 6:9, and note on Mat 21:12-13.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25 The Jews’ passover - The feast among the Jews…
The Jews’ passover - The feast among the Jews called the Passover. See the notes at Mat. 26:2-17.
And Jesus went up to Jerusalem - Every male among the Jews was required to appear at this feast. Jesus, in obedience to the law, went up to observe it. This is the first Passover on which he attended after he entered on the work of the ministry. It is commonly supposed that he observed three others one recorded Luk 6:1; another Joh 6:4, and the last one on the night before he was crucified, Joh 11:55. As his baptism when he entered on his ministry had taken place some time before this - probably not far from six months - it follows that the period of his ministry was not far from three years and a half, agreeably to the prophecy in Dan 9:27.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv15, 20, 24 He drove them all out of the temple. According…
He drove them all out of the temple. According to St. John Chrysostom (hom. lxvii. in Matt.) this casting out was different from that which is there related, chap. xxi. ver. 12. (Witham) --- How could the Son of the carpenter, Joseph, whose divinity was yet unknown to the people, succeed in expelling so great a multitude from the temple! There was undoubtedly something divine in his whole conduct and appearance, which deterred all from making resistance. The evangelist seems to insinuate this by putting these words: "The house of my Father," into our Saviour’s mouth, which was making himself immediately the Son of God. This made Origen consider this miracle, in overcoming the unruly dispositions of so many, as a superior manifestation of power to what he had shewn in changing the nature of water at Cana. (Haydock) --- Jesus Christ here shews the respect he requires should be shewn to the temple of God; and St. Paul, speaking of the profaners of God’s Church, saith: If any man defile the temple of God, he will God destroy. (1 Corinthians iii. 17.) Which in a spiritual sense may be understood of the soul of man, which is the living temple of the living God. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv14–25 CHRIST'S FIRST PASSOVER--FIRST CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE. (Joh 2:13-25)
CHRIST'S FIRST PASSOVER--FIRST CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE. (Joh 2:13-25)
in the temple--not the temple itself, as Joh 2:19-21, but the temple-court.
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sold oxen, &c.--for the convenience of those who had to offer them in sacrifice.
changers of money--of Roman into Jewish money, in which the temple dues (see on Mat 17:24) had to be paid.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25 § 20.—JESUS GOES TO JERUSALEM, AT PASSOVER, AND PURIFIES…
§ 20.—JESUS GOES TO JERUSALEM, AT PASSOVER, AND PURIFIES THE TEMPLE, Joh_2:13-25.
By his baptism Jesus was externally inaugurated in his office; by his temptation he proved his internal fitness; by his miracle at Cana he showed forth his glory to his own circle of disciples; and now he proceeds to make his announcement to the nation at the FIRST PASSOVER of his ministry. His method is to claim a Lordship over the temple of God, sustained by miracles, reserving his profounder teachings for the earnest inquirer awakened by his miracles. Joh_2:13 to Joh_3:21.
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13. Jews—See note on Joh_1:19. It is universally agreed among evangelical commentators that there were two cleansings of the temple; one at the beginning, the other at the close of Christ’s ministry. In this first, given by John alone, (see note on Mat_21:11-13,) Jesus uses language less severe than in the second, but performs the act with an evident exertion of supernatural power, by a positive and overruling miracle. The reasons for supposing two cleansings are: First, The propriety of both opening and closing his ministry by such a symbolic act. Second, The clearness with which the first is related by John and the second by Mark. Third, The distinct and rational connections which each has with its own immediate surrounding circumstances.
Went up—Up to Jerusalem as down to Capernaum. (Joh_2:12.) The natural language of one familiar with the country. For the Passover see our notes on Mat_26:2; Mat_26:17-20.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv13–25 Joh_2:13 to Joh_3:36. The Work among Jews
Joh_2:13 to Joh_3:36. The Work among Jews
13. And the Jews’ passover] Or, the Passover of the Jews. An indication that this Gospel was written outside Palestine: one writing in the country would hardly have added ‘of the Jews.’ It is perhaps also an indication that this Gospel was written after a Passover of the Christians had come into recognition. Passovers were active times in Christ’s ministry; and this is the first of them. It was possibly the nearness of the Passover which caused this traffic in the Temple Court. It existed for the convenience of strangers. Certainly the nearness of the Feast would add significance to Christ’s action. While the Jews were purifying themselves for the Passover He purified the Temple. S. John groups his narrative round the Jewish festivals: we have (1) Passover; (2) Purim (?), Joh_5:1; (3) Passover, Joh_6:4; (4) Tabernacles, Joh_7:2; (5) Dedication, Joh_10:22; (6) Passover, Joh_11:55.
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Joh_2:13 to Joh_11:57. The Work
We here enter on the second portion of the first main division of the Gospel, thus subdivided:—The Work (1) among Jews, (2) among Samaritans, (3) among Galileans, (4) among mixed multitudes.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 (13) And the Jews’ passover was at hand.—Here, again,…
(13) And the Jews’ passover was at hand.—Here, again, we are on common ground with the earlier Gospels. They place a cleansing of the Temple at the close of our Lord’s ministry at the only Passover which comes within the scope of their narrative. The subject has been dealt with in Notes on Mat_21:12 et seq. (Comp. also Introduction: The Chronological Harmony of the Gospels, p. 35) The careful reader will not fail to observe the graphic touches peculiar to this narrative—the money-changers sitting, the sacrificial animals, the making of the scourge, the money poured out, the order to remove the doves which could not be driven out. We feel all through in the presence of an eye-witness. It is worth remembering that on the eve of the Passover the head of every family carefully collected all the leaven in the house, and there was a general cleansing. He was doing in His Father’s house, it may be, what was then being done in every house in Jerusalem. The remark will be seen to have an important bearing on the question of the repetition of the cleansing.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25 He found in the temple (ieron); the vast enclosure,…
He found in the temple (ieron); the vast enclosure, surrounded by colonnades, where the courts of the Gentiles were situated beyond and outside the courts of "the women" and "the priests." Within the latter was the sanctuary (naov), or sacred adytum, where the altars of sacrifice and incense faced the veil of the holiest of all. In the court of the temple had been allowed a secular market for sacrificial beasts. An exchange for money was also set up, where Jews were ready to furnish, on usurious terms, the proper coin, the sacred half shekel (value, one shilling and three pence), in which form alone was the temple tax received from the provincial visitors or pilgrims from distant lands. No coin bearing the image of Caesar, or any foreign prince, or any idolatrous symbol then so common, would be allowed in the sacred treasury. So the Lord found those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the exchangers of money sitting; a busy bazaar, deteriorating the idea of the temple with adverse associations. The three sacrificial animals mentioned were those most frequently required. The strangers, doubtless, needed some market where these could be obtained, and where the sufficient guarantee of their freedom from blemish could be secured. It was also indispensable that exchange of coins should have been made feasible for the host of strangers. The profanation effected by transacting these measures in the temple courts was symptomatic of widespread secularism, an outward indication of the corruption of the entire idea of worship, and of the selfishness and pride which had vitiated the solemnity and spirituality of the sacrificial ritual. Geikie has given a very brilliant description of this scene; so also Edersheim, "Life of Jesus the Messiah." The money (kerma) was probably derived from a word (keirw) meaning "to cut," and referred to the minute coins which were required for convenient exchange. The kollubov , which gives its name to kollubisthv of the following verse, is also the name of a small (kolobov , equivalent to "mutilated") coin used for purposes of exchange. The smaller the coin the better, as the minute differences of weight of the foreign coins would thus be more easily measured.
Vers. 14-17. The vindication of a desecrated temple.
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High purposes were subserved by the exercise of the Saviour"s authority both at the beginning and at the close of his ministry. If there was in this conduct an evidential meaning for the Jews, there was also a symbolical meaning for all time.
I IN WHAT THE HOLINESS OF THE TEMPLE CONSISTED.
1. The true answer to this inquiry is to be found in the language of the Lord himself. The temple was his Fathers house. It was the building which was originally erected in a measure upon the model of the tabernacle of the wilderness, the pattern of which had been communicated by Jehovah in some way to Moses, the servant of God. It was by Divine command that a certain special locality and building were set apart and consecrated to the service of him, who nevertheless "dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
2. The holy memories of national history gathered around this sacred edifice. The original tabernacle was associated with Moses and Aaron; the first temple at Jerusalem with the great kings David who prepared for it, and Solomon who built it; the second temple with the great leaders of the return from the Captivity; and this restored edifice, in its costly magnificence, with the royal Herodian house.
3. The sacrifices which were offered, the priesthoods that ministered, the festivals which were observed, the praises and prayers which were presented, in these consecrated precincts, all added to the sanctity of the place.
4. And it must be remembered that the house of the Father was the house of the children; that our Lord himself designated the temple "a house of prayer for all nations. " This may not have been acknowledged or understood by the Jews themselves. Yet there were intimations throughout their sacred literature in its successive stages that they, as a nation, were elected in order that through them all the nations of the earth might be blessed. The width of the counsels of Divine benevolence is apparent to all who study the psalms and prophecies of the Old Testament Scripture; and our Lord"s language connects those counsels with the dedicated house at Jerusalem.
5. To our minds the temple possesses sanctity through its devotion to a symbolical use, for by anticipation it set forth in emblem the holiness of our Lord"s body and the purity of the spiritual Church of Christ. The temple at Jerusalem should be destroyed in the crisis of Israel"s fate; the sanctuary of the Lord"s body should be taken down; and the holy temple, consecrated to the Lord, should grow in stateliness and beauty until all the living stones should be built into it for grace and glory eternal.
II BY WHAT THE HOLINESS OF THE TEMPLE WAS VIOLATED. There must have been an infamous desecration in order to have awakened such indignation in the breast of Jesus. We can see two respects in which this was so.
1. The building was abused and profaned in being diverted from sacred to secular uses. Where there should have been only sacrifices, there were sales of beasts and birds; where there should have been only offerings, there was money changing.
2. The sanctity of the temple was violated by the cupidity of the rulers, who, it is well known, made a sinful and scandalous profit for themselves by the transactions which awakened the indignation of Jesus.
3. Nor was this all, injustice and fraud were added to cupidity the temple became "a den of thieves.
III IN WHAT WAY THE HOLINESS OF THE TEMPLE WAS VINDICATED.
1. By the interposition of One of the highest dignity. Christ was "greater than the temple;" he was the Lord of the temple; nay, he was himself the true Temple appointed to supersede the material structure.
2. By the exercise of just and manifested authority. The demeanour and the language of Jesus were such as to preclude resistance, to silence murmuring. The Lord came to his own inheritance, to the house of his Father.
3. By the comparison of the edifice at Jerusalem to his own sacred body. In the language he used in his subsequent conversation with the Jews, he "spake of the Temple of his body," and in so doing he attached to the sanctuary a holiness greater than was conferred upon it by all the associations of its use and of its history. T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv13, 17, 18, 23, 24 The Jews passover was at hand, and Jesus went…
Joh_2:13-17
The Jews passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
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Christs first passover
I. HIS ATTENDANCE AT THE PASSOVER, One of the three great annual festivals which all males were required to attend. None excused but the sick and the disabled. God made the ordinance peremptory, to teach
(1) That His worship and service were the chief things.
(2) That Gods house was to be the centre of the moral universe, and that all nations would flow to it. Christs attendance showed
1. His fulfilling of all righteousness. He came not to destroy.
2. His communion with believers of the Old Testament. Partaking of their sacraments, He declared Himself of one body and spirit with them, just as by instituting sacraments for New Testament believers He declared Himself of one body and spirit with them. Thus Christ is the bond of both dispensations.
3. Himself and His mission to the nation. The promise was that He should come to His temple. Here the people could identify Him if they chose.
II. THE CONDITION IN WHICH HE FOUND THE TEMPLE, AND HIS INTERFERENCE THEREWITH. The market was going on in the outer courts of the Gentiles. The sheep, etc., were sold there to save the inconvenience of individual Jews bringing their offerings from a distance. The money-changers were there, to exchange foreign money for the half-shekel of the sanctuary. The abuse consisted in making Gods house a house of merchandise, in which the priests themselves profited. Christ interfered to show His official assumption and exercise of legitimate authority in His own house. The cattle were driven out, the money-tables overthrown; but the doves ordered to be taken away, so that they might not be harmed. Nothing harmful or cruel was done. In this interference we see His glory as the Son of God and His administrative authority as King of Israel. Unsupported Himself, all fled before Him.
III. THE CONVICTION WROUGHT IN THE MINDS OF SERVANTS (Joh_2:17).
1. We have here the love of Christ, and His earnestness for their salvation and Gods glory: typical of His whole work.
2. Christs example to us.
(1) Our zeal must begin with ourselves.
(2) Must concern itself with Gods honour and mans salvation.
(3) Must be actuated by love. (A. Beith, D. D.)
The temple market
I. THE MARKET.
1. Described. Jerusalem was in all its glory. Its inhabitants were astir in the early morning, enjoying the cool of the day and the excitement of the season. The streets were blocked by crowds from all parts, who had to make their way to the temple past flocks of sheep and droves of cattle. Sellers of all possible wares beset the pilgrim, for the feasts were the traders harvests. Inside the temple space the noise and pressure were, if possible, worse. The outer court was in part covered with pens for sheep and oxen. It was, in fact, the yearly fair of Jerusalem, and the crowds added to the din and tumult, till the services in the neighbouring courts were sadly disturbed.
2. Accounted for. It seems strange that the priests should have permitted it, but the explanation throws light on Christs conduct. The priests made pecuniary profit of it. The sale of doves was almost wholly in their hands, and the rent for the rest was very large. The money-changers were usurers and tricksters, and augmented the priests revenue out of their unlawful gains.
3. Christs indignation was, therefore, natural. He had come fresh from the manifestation of His glory, with all the enthusiasm natural to a Jewish prophet and inspired with His Divine mission, to testify to the nation as a whole where it could be best reached. Behold, then, His Fathers house invaded by a troop of mercenaries and hucksters!
II. THE EXHIBITION OF CHRISTS WONDROUS MORAL POWER. There was no physical power displayed, nor any exciting contention with the profaners of the temple. The scourge was only an emblem of power and chastisement, the sight of which was sufficient, and at which they all unresistingly fled. How could one man effect such a clearance, unknown, a Galilean, with no formal authority, priestly power, or following? It was perhaps due to the solar light of His countenance, behind which was the unspeakable power of perfect holiness (Mat_17:2), which made Him attractive to the virtuous and devout, but awful to mere money-grubbers. They were dumb and helpless, because conscience-stricken, in the presence of Incarnate Righteousness.
III. THE PROFOUND SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS ACT. Spiritual cleansing. The temple may be considered as a symbol
1. Of the heart defiled by selfishness and sin, to be cleansed by the expulsive power of Christs love.
2. Of society or the world, to be cleansed by Christs redeeming grace.
3. Of the Church, to be cleansed from superstition, and worldliness, and bigotry, by truth, purity, and charity. (J. E. Flower, M. A.)
The profaned temple
I. THE SIGN AND ITS APPLICABILITY. The temple a symbol of the temple of humanity, built of living stones. To cleanse this He entered on His ministry; and if He had a right to do the greater work, He had a right to do the lesser.
II. THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY THE SIGN.
1. All men are created to form part of Gods temple. The Divine idea of humanity is an organic whole--Christ the centre, the shrine; human hearts grouped round Him forming the courts. Contrast the ideal with the actual. Yet in the midst of chaos God is working out His purpose, and will not rest till the idea is realized.
2. Men have misused the courts as markets. Commerce is good, but its place is outside the heart, not inside. It defiles when it intrudes on the sanctuary. Yet how hard even in the most sacred seasons to exclude their profane associations. Business for most is more absorbing than God and His will.
3. Christ has power and authority to cleanse the courts.
(1) With His scourge He may drive away the property which usurps His Fathers place.
(2) He may scatter the money-changers money, and leave him at leisure to reflect with out it.
(3) He may speak His orders to those who defile the sanctuary with lighter profanations through judgment and disease.
4. The time will come when the temple shall be purified. In the Revelation we see the design perfected. A city without a temple, because itself is a temple. There shall be gold there, and all the good things of the earth shall be sanctified to Divine uses. (C. A. Goodhart, M. A.)
The purging of the temple
I. APPROPRIATE to
1. The place: the metropolis, the centre of the Theocracy, the predicted theatre of Messiahs self-revelation (Zec_2:10-11; Zec_9:9).
2. The time: at the passover, when the paschal lamb, of which He was the antitype, was about to be offered, and when the vast crowd gathered afforded a favourably opportunity for impressing the national mind and conscience.
3. The condition of the temple: whose forecourt, reserved for the worship of proselytes, was transformed into a market and fair under the pretence of religion--a melancholy, because faithful, picture of the secularization of the Jewish religion by the Pharisees.
4. The character of Him who carried it through. The Fathers Son had a right to purge His Fathers house.
II. SUPERNATURAL. As much so as the turning of water into wine. The manifest insufficiency of the means places it in the same category as Joh_18:6. Its suddenness also surprised, and inward consciousness of guilt paralyzed, the traders. Natural and supernatural causes were thus combined.
III. SIGNIFICANT. Designed to be a revelation to the ecclesiastical authorities of His Messiahship (Psa_69:9; Mal_3:2-6).
IV. SUGGESTIVE. Recalling to the disciples the words of the Psalmist, it confirmed their recently formed convictions.
V. ALARMING. It startled the Sanhedrim, who recognized the Messianic character of the action, but wanted to know whether He was Messiah. Secretly they must have dreaded this. But because He was different from what they expected, they declined to receive Him. They trifled with their consciences by asking for a sign. They preferred the darkness, although the light had now conspicuously dawned. Lessons:
1. The duty and privileges of the ordinances of religion. Christ at the passover.
2. The need of purity and order in the sanctuary--Christ purging the temple court.
3. The danger of a worldly spirit intruding into the domain of religion--the traders in the sacred edifice.
4. The propriety of being zealously affected in Divine service--Christs example. (T. Whitelaw, M. A.)
Christs principles of action
Had Christ appeared as a teacher it would have been a great benevolence: but He would hardly have had so widespread an influence. Teaching was only one part of His task, the other was to ordain a fellowship. So He needed to appear as the reformer of religion. The temple was the centre of religious life: here then the reformation must begin. See then the principles of Christ as a religious reformer.
I. HE DID NOT COME TO DESTROY, BUT TO PURIFY AND FINISH. But why trouble Himself about an institution that was to pass away? (Joh_4:24). The answer is that Jesus did wish to erect the new on the ruins of the old, but since so much depended on the old, this, when reformed, should attach itself to that. We should be like Christ in this, not to destroy but to reform and build up.
II. THE ZEAL OF THE REDEEMER WAS INTENDED TO BANISH EVERYTHING THAT MIGHT ENTANGLE MEN AGAIN IN WORLDLY THOUGHTS AND ANXIETIES. The really devout and upright as well as the frivolous might see no evil nor distracting influence in these things. The temple was large enough. All these arrangements had to do with religious life. Was it not a matter of indifference whether they were carried on within or in the neighbourhood of the temple. Those whose thoughts would be disturbed by them would be disturbed without them. But human prudence is one thing; the judgment of Christ another. Whatever draws men to and keeps men near God must be kept pure and free from desecration. The weakness of the human heart forbids the worldly and the Divine mingling with one another. The germ of the Jewish corruption lay in the mixing of the two. Let then our church, life ordained by that Lord who here cleared the temple, be free from foreign admixture.
III. WHAT RIGHT HAD CHRIST TO ACT IS THIS WAY? Did He not overstep the bounds of His authority. No, according to the free customs of that people and age it was competent to any one to assail anything that was at variance with public law. There was ever scope for honest zeal. Christ found it so, and would have us find it so and lift our voices for what is right and good, to win public opinion to them. We Christians are a priestly people called to keep pure the temple of God upon earth. (Schleiermacher.)
Christ at Jerusalem
We see
I. HOW MUCH CHRIST DISAPPROVES OF IRREVERENT BEHAVIOUR IN THE HOUSE OF GOD. Are there none who bring to church their money, their lands, their cattle, etc.; who bring their bodies only to a place of worship and are almost in all evil, in the congregation (Pro_5:14).
II. HOW MEN MAY REMEMBER WORDS OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH LONG AFTER THEY ARE SPOKEN, and may one day see in them a meaning which they now do not see (Joh_2:19; Joh_2:22). Sermons preached to apparently heedless ears are not all lost and thrown away; nor are texts taught by teachers or parents to children. There is often a resurrection of the good seed sown after many 1Co_15:58; Ecc_11:1).
III. HOW PERFECT IS OUR LORDS KNOWLEDGE OF THE HUMAN HEART (verses 24-25). He saw beneath their superficial faith that they were not disciples indeed. This thought ought to make hypocrites and false professors tremble. They may deceive men but they cannot deceive Christ. But it is a word of encouragement to real Christians. (Bp. Ryle.)
Transition
It is impossible not to feel the change which at this point comes over the narrative.
I. There is A CHANGE.
1. Of place: Jerusalem and Cans.
2. Of occasion: the passover and the marriage feast.
3. Of manner of action: the stern Reformer and the sympathizing Guest.
II. THE SPIRITUAL LESSONS WHICH THE TWO SIGNS CONVEY ARE ALSO COMPLEMENTARY.
1. One represents the ennobling of common life and the other the purification of Divine worship.
2. One is a revelation of the Son of peace, the other a revelation of the Christ, the Fulfiller of the hope and purpose of Israel. (Bp. Westcott.)
The desecration of the living temple
Alas! that even in the restored and consecrated temple of mans soul, scenes are at times enacted, of which the sacrilege in the Jewish temple was but a feeble emblem. It is a desecration, Dot of a material building but of Gods spiritual house--the merchandise, not of sheep and oxen but of sins. The pollution is not in the outermost court of the Gentiles, but in the inmost sanctuary where God delights to dwell--in mans heart. Too often is there rebellion, even in the believers soul, against the authority of the Lord; and giving to Him a divided heart. Too often are the living temples thronged with carnal things, earthly affections and desires. Too often is the lowing of oxen and the bleating of sheep heard, and the tables of the money Changers planted, within the precincts of Gods house. Alas! how often is the silent and solemn devotion of the believers heart distracted by the noise of conflicting passions, and its purity defiled by low and grovelling affections. Holy thoughts and desires, like the poor, despised Gentiles, are turned out of their proper place, and thrust into a corner. Oh, this is monstrous incongruity. Have you not here a temple which you have sacrilegiously profaned; and has not your passion for sordid gain and worldly occupation so entirely engaged and absorbed you, that all your feelings and faculties seem to be expended on earthly vanities, and your affections settled down to the dust? You profane that which God has made holy--that which He has set apart for Himself, and where He would delight to dwell. My house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. (W. Chalmers, M. A.)
Money changers
in the temple are those who pursue secular interests in the church; and Gods house is made a house of merchandise, not only by those who seek to obtain money or praise, or honour by means of holy orders, but by those also who exercise the sacred ministry, or dispense sacred gifts, with a view to human rewards and not with simplicity of intention. (Bp. Wordsworth.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v23 Chapter 7
Chapter 7
NICODEMUS.
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Now when He was in Jerusalem at the passover, during the feast, many believed on His name, beholding His signs which He did. But Jesus did not trust Himself unto them, for that He knew all men, and because He needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for He Himself knew what was in man. Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came unto Him by night, and said to Him, Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these signs that Thou doest, except God be with Him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mothers womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.- Joh_2:23-25 - Joh_3:1-8.
The first visit of Jesus to Jerusalem was not without considerable effect on the popular mind. Many who saw the miracles He did believed that He was a messenger from God. They saw that His miracles were not the clever tricks of an impostor, and they were prepared to listen to His teaching and enrol themselves as members of the kingdom He came to found. Yet our Lord did not encourage them. He saw that they misunderstood Him. He recognised their worldliness of heart and of aim, and did not admit them to the intimacy He had established with the five simple-minded Galileans. The Jerusalem Jews were glad to fall in with one who seemed likely to do honour to their nation, and their belief in Him was the belief men give to a statesman whose policy they approve. The difference between them and those who rejected Christ was not a difference of disposition such as exists between godly and ungodly men, but consisted merely in the circumstance that they were convinced that His miracles were genuine. Had our Lord encouraged these men they would ultimately have been disappointed in Him. It was better that from the first they should be stimulated to reflect on the whole matter by being coldly received by the Lord.
It is always a point that calls for reflection: we have to consider not only whether we have faith in Christ, but whether He has faith in us-not only whether we have committed ourselves to Him, but whether that committal is so genuine that He can build upon and trust it. Can He count upon us for all service, for fidelity in times when much is needed? Thoroughgoing confidence must always be reciprocal. The person you believe in so utterly that you are entirely his, believes in you and trusts himself to you-his reputation, his interests are safe in your keeping. So is it with Christ. Faith cannot be one-sided here any more than elsewhere. He gives Himself to those who give themselves to Him. They who so trust Him that He is sure they will follow Him even when they cannot see where He is going; they who trust Him, not in one or two matters which they see He can manage, but absolutely and in all things,-to these He will give Himself freely, sharing with them His work, His Spirit, His reward.
To illustrate the state of mind of the Jerusalem Jews and Christs mode of treating them, John selects the case of Nicodemus. He was one of those who were much impressed by the miracles of Jesus, and were prepared to attach themselves to any movement in His favour. He belonged to the Pharisees; to that party which, with all its narrowness, pedantry, dogmatism, and bigotry, still preserved a salt of genuine patriotism and genuine godliness, and reared high-toned and cultivated men like Gamaliel and Saul. Nicodemus, whether a member of the Sanhedrims deputation to the Baptist or not, certainly knew the result of that deputation, and was aware that a crisis in the national history had arrived. He could not wait for the community to move, but felt that whatever conclusion regarding Christ the Pharisees as a body might arrive at, he must on his own responsibility be at the bottom of those extraordinary events and signs that clustered round the person of Jesus. He was a modest, reserved, cautious man, and did not wish openly to commit himself till he was sure of his ground. He has been blamed for timidity. I would only say that, if he felt it dangerous to be seen in the company of Jesus, it was a bold thing to visit Him at all. He went by night; but he went. And would that there were more like him, who, whether cautious to excess or not, do still feel constrained to judge for themselves about Christ; who feel that, no matter what other men think of Him, there is an interest in Him which they cannot wait for others to settle, but must for themselves settle before they sleep.
Probably Nicodemus made his visit by night because he did not wish to precipitate matters by calling undue attention to the position and intentions of Jesus. He probably went with the purpose of urging some special plan of action. This inexperienced Galilean could not be supposed to understand the populace of Jerusalem as well as the old member of the Sanhedrim, who was familiar with all the outs and ins of party politics in the metropolis. Nicodemus would therefore go and advise Him how to proceed in proclaiming the kingdom of God; or at least sound Him, and, if he found Him amenable to reason, encourage Him to proceed, and warn Him against the pitfalls that lay in His path. Modestly, and as if speaking for others as much as for himself, he says: Rabbi, we know that Thou art a Teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest except God be with Him! There is here neither patronizing acknowledgment nor flattery, but merely the natural first utterance of a man who must say something to show the state of his mind. It served to reveal the point at which Nicodemus had arrived, and the ground on which the conversation might proceed. But Jesus knew what was in man. In this acknowledgment of His miracles on the part of Nicodemus, Jesus saw the whole mental attitude of the man. He saw that if Nicodemus had uttered all that was in his mind he would have said: I believe you are sent to restore the kingdom to Israel, and I am come to advise with you on your plan of operation, and to urge upon you certain lines of action. And therefore Jesus promptly cuts him short by saying: The kingdom of God is quite another thing than you are thinking of; and the way to establish it, to enlist citizens in it, is very different from the way you have been meditating.
In fact, Jesus was becoming embarrassed by His own miracles. They were attracting the wrong kind of people-the superficial worldly people; the people who thought a daring and strong hand with a dash of magic would serve all their turn. His mind was full of this, and as soon as He has an opportunity of uttering Himself on this point He does so, and assures Nicodemus, as a representative of a large number of Jews who needed this teaching, that all their thoughts about the kingdom must be ruled by this principle, and must start from this great truth, that it was a kingdom into which the Spirit of God alone could give entrance, and could give entrance only by making men spiritual. That is to say, that it was a spiritual kingdom, an inward rule over the hearts of men, not an outward empire-a kingdom to be established, not by political craft and midnight meetings, but by internal change and submission in heart to God-a kingdom, therefore, into which admission could be given only on some more spiritual ground than the mere circumstance of a mans natural birth as a Jew.
In our Lords language there was nothing that need have puzzled Nicodemus. In religious circles in Jerusalem there was nothing being talked of but the kingdom of God which John the Baptist had declared to be at hand. And when Jesus told Nicodemus that in order to enter this kingdom he must be born again, He told him just what John had been telling the whole people. John had assured them that, though the King was in their midst, they must not suppose they were already within His kingdom by being the children of Abraham. He excommunicated the whole nation, and taught them that it was something different from natural birth that gave admission to Gods kingdom. And just as they had compelled Gentiles to be baptized, and to submit to other arrangements when they wished to partake of Jewish privileges, so John compelled them to be baptized. The Gentile who wished to become a Jew had to be symbolically born again. He had to be baptized, going down under the cleansing waters, washing away his old and defiled life, being buried by baptism, disappearing, from mens sight as a Gentile, and rising from the water as a new man. He was thus born of water, and this time born, not a Gentile, but a Jew.
The language of our Lord then could scarcely puzzle Nicodemus, but the idea did stagger him that not only Gentiles but Jews must be born again. John had indeed required the same preparation for entrance to the kingdom; but the Pharisees had not listened to John, and were offended precisely on the ground of his baptism. But now Jesus presses upon Nicodemus the very same truth, that as the Gentile had to be naturalized and born again that he might rank as a child of Abraham, and enjoy the external privileges of the Jew, so must the Jew himself be born again if he is to rank as a child of God and to belong to the kingdom of God. He must submit to the double baptism of water and of the Spirit-of water for the pardon and cleansing of past sin and defilement, of the Spirit for the inspiration of a new and holy life.
Our Lord here speaks of the second birth as completed by two agencies, water and the Spirit. To make the one of these merely the symbol of the other is to miss His meaning. The Baptist baptized with water for the remission of sins, but he was always careful to disclaim power to baptize with the Holy Ghost. His baptism with water was of course symbolical; that is to say, the water itself exercised no spiritual influence, but merely represented to the eye what was invisibly done in the heart. But that which it symbolised was not the life-giving influence of the Holy Spirit, but the washing away of sin from the soul. Assurance of pardon John was empowered to give. Those who humbly submitted to his baptism with confession of their sins went from it forgiven and cleansed. But more than that was needed to make them new men-and yet more he could not give. For that which would fill them with new life they must go to a Greater than he, who alone could bestow the Holy Ghost.
These then are the two great incidents of the second birth-the pardon of sin, which is preparatory, and which cuts our connection with the past; the communication of life by the Spirit of God, which fits us for the future. Both of these are represented by Christian baptism because in Christ we have both; but those who were baptized by Johns baptism were only prepared for receiving Christs Spirit by receiving the forgiveness of their sins.
Having thus declared to Nicodemus the necessity of the second birth, He goes on to give the reason of this necessity. Birth by the Spirit is necessary, because that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and the kingdom of God is spiritual. Of course our Lord does not mean by flesh the mere tangible substance of the body; He does not mean that our first and natural birth puts us in possession of nothing but a material frame. By the word flesh He signifies the appetites, desires, faculties, which animate and govern the body, as well as the body itself-the whole equipment with which nature furnishes a man for life in this world. This natural birth gives a man entrance into much, and for ever determines much, that has important bearings on his person, character, and destiny. It determines all differences of nationality, of temperament, of sex; apart altogether from any choice of his it is determined whether he shall be a South Sea Islander or a European; an antediluvian living in a cave or an Englishman of the nineteenth century. But the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom, into which entrance can be had only by a mans own will and spiritual condition, only by an attachment to God which is no part of a mans natural equipment.
As soon as we clearly see what the kingdom of God is, we see also that by nature we do not belong to it. The kingdom of God so far as man is concerned is a state of willing subjection to Him-a state in which we are in our right relation to Him. All irrational creatures obey God and do His will: the sun runs his course with an exactness and punctuality we cannot rival; the grace and strength of many of the lower animals, their marvellous instincts and aptitudes, are so superior to anything in ourselves that we cannot even comprehend them. But what we have as our speciality is to render to God a willing service; to understand His purposes and enter sympathetically into them. The lower creatures obey a law impressed upon their nature; they cannot sin; their performance of Gods will is a tribute to the power which made them so skilfully, but it lacks all conscious recognition of His worthiness to be served and all knowledge of His object in creation. It is God serving Himself: He made them so, and therefore they do His will. So it is with men who merely obey their nature: they may do kindly, noble, heroic actions, but they lack all reference to God; and however excellent these actions are, they give no guarantee that the men who do them would sympathize with God in all things, and do His will gladly.
Indeed, to establish the proposition that flesh or nature does not give us entrance into Gods kingdom, we need go no further than our own consciousness. Remove the restraints which grace puts upon our nature, and we are aware that we are not in sympathy with God, fond of His will, disposed for His service. Let nature have its swing, and every man knows it is not the kingdom of God it takes him to. To all men it is natural to eat, drink, sleep, think; we are born to these things, and need to put no constraint on our nature to do them; but can any man say it has come naturally to him to be what he ought to be to God? Do we not to this hour feel drawn away from God as if we were not in our element in His presence? Flesh, nature, in Gods presence is as much out of its element as a stone in the air or a fish out of water. Men who have had the deepest religious experience have seen it most clearly, and have felt, like Paul, that the flesh lusts against the spirit, and draws us ever back from entire submission to God and delight in Him.
Perhaps the necessity of the second birth may be more clearly apprehended if we consider it from another point of view. In this world we find a number of creatures which have what is known as animal life. They can work, and feel, and, in a fashion, think. They have wills, and certain dispositions, and distinctive characteristics. Every creature that has animal life has a certain nature according to its kind, and determined by its parentage; and this nature which the animal receives from its parents determines from the first the capabilities and sphere of the animals life. The mole cannot soar in the face of the sun like the eagle; neither can the bird that comes out of the eagles egg burrow like the mole. No training can possibly make the tortoise as swift as the antelope, or the antelope as strong as the lion. If a mole began to fly and enjoy the sunlight it must be counted a new kind of creature, and no longer a mole. The very fact of its passing certain limitations shows that another nature has somehow been infused into it. Beyond its own nature no animal can act. You might as well attempt to give the eagle the appearance of the serpent as try to teach it to crawl. Each kind of animal is by its birth endowed with its own nature, fitting it to do certain things, and making other things impossible. So is it with us: we are born with certain faculties and endowments, with a certain nature; and just as all animals, without receiving any new, individual, supernatural help from God, can act according to their nature, so can we. We, being human, have a high and richly-endowed animal nature, a nature that leads us not only to eat, drink, sleep, and fight like the lower animals, but a nature which leads us to think and to love, and which, by culture and education, can enjoy a much richer and wider life than the lower creatures. Men need not be in the kingdom of God in order to do much that is admirable, noble, lovely, because their nature as animals fits them for that. If we were to exist at all as a race of animals superior to all others, then all this is just what must be found in us. Irrespective of any kingdom of God at all, irrespective of any knowledge of God or reference to Him, we have a life in this world, and a nature fitting us for it. And it is this we have by our natural birth, a place among our kind, an animal life. The first man, from whom we all descend, was, as St. Paul profoundly says, a living soul, that is to say, an animal, a living human being; but he had not a quickening spirit, could not give to his children spiritual life and make them children of God.
Now if we ask ourselves a little more closely, What is human nature? what are the characteristics by which men are distinguished from all other creatures? what is it which marks off our kind from every other kind, and which is always produced by human parents? we may find it hard to give a definition, but one or two things are obvious and indisputable. In the first place, we could not deny human nature to men who do not love God, or who even know nothing of Him. There are many whom we should naturally speak of as remarkably fine specimens of human nature, who yet never think of God, nor in any way acknowledge Him. It is plain, therefore, that the acknowledgment and love of God, which give us entrance into His kingdom, are not a part of our nature, are not the gifts of our birth.
And yet is there anything that so distinctly separates us from the lower animals as our capacity for God and for eternity? Is it not our capacity to respond to Gods love, to enter into His purposes, to measure things by eternity, that is our real dignity? The capacity is there, even when unused; and it is this capacity which invests man and all his works with an interest and a value which attach to no other creature. Mans nature is capable of being born again, and that is its peculiarity; there is in man a dormant or dead capacity which nothing but contact with God, the touch of the Holy Ghost, can vivify and bring into actual exercise.
That there should be such a capacity, born as if dead, and needing to be quickened by a higher power before it can live and be of use, need not surprise us. Nature is full of examples of such capacities. All seeds are of this nature, dead until favouring circumstances and soil quicken them into life. In our own body there are similar capacities, capacities which may or may not be quickened into life. In the lower animal-creation many analogous capacities are found, which depend for their vivification on some external agency over which they have no control. The egg of a bird has in it the capacity to become a bird like the parent, but it remains a dead thing and will corrupt if the parent forsakes it. There are many of the summer insects which are twice-born, first of their insect parents, and then of the sun: if the frost comes in place of the sun, they die. The caterpillar has already a life of its own, with which, no doubt, it is well content, but enclosed in its nature as a creeping thing it has a capacity for becoming something different and higher. It may become a moth, or a butterfly; but in most the capacity is never developed, they die before they reach this end-their circumstances do not favour their development. These analogies show how common it is for capacities of life to lie dormant: how common a thing it is for a creature in one stage of its existence to have a capacity for passing into a higher stage, a capacity which can be developed only by some agency peculiarly adapted to it.
It is in this condition man is born of his human parents. He is born with a capacity for a higher life than that which he lives as an animal in this world. There is in him a capacity for becoming something different, better and higher than that which he actually is by his natural birth. He has a capacity which lies dormant or dead until the Holy Ghost comes and quickens it. There are many things, and great things, man can do without any further Divine assistance than that which is lodged for the whole race in the natural laws which make no distinction between godly and ungodly; there are many and great things man may do by virtue of his natural birth; but one thing he cannot do-he cannot quicken within himself the capacity to love God and to live for Him. For this there is needed an influence from without, the efficient touch of the Holy Spirit, the impartation of His life. The capacity to be a child of God is mans, but the development of this lies with God. Without the capacity a man is not a man, has not that which is most distinctive of human nature. Every man is born with that in him which the Spirit of God may quicken into Divine life. This is human nature; but when this capacity is so quickened, when the man has begun to live as a child of God, he has not lost his human nature, but has over and above become a partaker of the Divine nature. When the image of God, as well as of his earthly parents, becomes manifest in a man, then his human nature has received its utmost development,-he is born again.
Of the Agent who accomplishes this great transformation there is need only to say that He is free in His operation and also inscrutable. He is like the wind, our Lord tells us, that blows where it lists. We cannot bring the Spirit at will; we cannot use Him as if He were some unintelligent passive instrument; neither can we subject all His operations to our control. The grub must wait for those natural influences which are to transform it; it cannot command them. We cannot command the Spirit; but we, being free agents also, can do more than wait,-we can pray, and we can strive to put ourselves in line with the Spirits operation. Seamen cannot raise the wind nor direct its course, but they can put themselves in the way of the great regular winds. We can do the same: we can slowly, by mechanical helps, creep into the way of the Spirit; we can set our sails, doing all we think likely to catch and utilize His influences-believing always that the Spirit is more desirous than we are to bring us all to good. Why He breathes in one place while all around lies in a dead calm we do not know; but as for the winds variations so for His, there are doubtless sufficient reasons. We need not expect to see the Spirits working separate from the working of our own minds; we cannot see the Spirit in Himself-we cannot see the wind that moves the ships, but we can see the ships moving, and we know that without the wind they could not move.
If this, then, be the line on which our human nature can alone be developed, if a profound harmony with God be that which can alone give permanence and completeness to our nature, if in accordance with all that we see in the world around us some men fail of attaining the end of their creation, and lie for ever blighted and useless, while others are carried forward to fuller and more satisfying life, we cannot but ask with some anxiety to which class we belong. Good and evil are in the world, happiness and misery, victory and defeat; do not let us deceive ourselves by acting as if there were no difference between these opposites, or as if it mattered little in our case whether we belong to the one side or the other. It matters everything: it is just the difference between eternal life and eternal death. Christ did not come to play with us, and startle us with idle tales. He is the centre and fountain of all truth, and what He says fits in with all we see in the world around us.
But in endeavouring to ascertain whether the great change our Lord speaks of has passed upon us, our object must be not so much to ascertain the time and manner of our new birth as its reality. A man may know that he has been born though he is not able to recall, as no man can recall, the circumstances of his birth. Life is the great evidence of birth, natural or spiritual. We may desire to know the time and place of birth for some other reason, but certainly not for this, to make sure we have been born. Of that there is sufficient evidence in the fact of our being alive. And spiritual life quite as certainly implies spiritual birth.
Again, we must keep in view that a man may be born though not yet full grown. The child of a day old has as truly and certainly a human nature as the man in his prime. He has a human heart and mind, every organ of body and soul, though as yet he cannot use them. So the second birth impresses the image of God on every regenerate soul. It may not as yet be developed in every part, but all its parts are there in germ. It is not a partial but a complete result which regeneration effects. It is not one member, a hand or a foot that is born, but a body, a complete equipment of the soul in all graces. The whole character is regenerated, so that the man is fitted for all the duties of the Divine life whensoever these duties shall come before him. A human child does not need additions made to it to fit it for new functions: it requires growth, it requires nurture, it requires education and the practice of human ways, but it requires no new organ to be inserted into its frame; once born it has but to grow in order to adapt itself with ease and success to all human ways and conditions. And if regenerate we have that in us which with care and culture will grow till it brings us to perfect likeness to Christ. If we are not growing, if we remain small, puny, childish while we should be adult and full grown, then there is something seriously wrong, which calls for anxious enquiry.
But above all let us bear in mind that it is a new birth that is required; that no care spent on our conduct, no improvement and refinement of the natural man, suffices. For flying it is not an improved caterpillar that is needed, it is a butterfly; it is not a caterpillar of finer colour or more rapid movement or larger proportions, it is a new creature. We recognise that in this and that man we meet there is something more than men naturally have; we perceive in them a taming, chastening, inspiring principle. We rejoice all the more when we see it, because we know that no man can give it, but only God. And we mourn its absence because even when a man is dutiful, affectionate, temperate, honourable, yet if he have not grace, if he have not that peculiar tone and colour which overspread the whole character, and show that the man is living in the light of Christ, and is moved by love to God, we instinctively feel that the defect is radical, that as yet he has not come into connection with the Eternal, that there is that awanting for which no natural qualities, however excellent, can compensate-nay, the more lovely and complete the natural character is, the more painful and lamentable is the absence of grace, of Spirit.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23 13. The Jews' passover was at hand. See Exodus,…
13. The Jews' passover was at hand. See Exodus, chapter 12, for institution of the passover. It was celebrated yearly at Jerusalem. This is the first that the Lord attended after he began his ministry, and of this attendance there is no mention in the other Gospels.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv13, 18 Joh_2:12. Capernaum.—Cod. א, B, read καφαρ ναούμ, i.e. the…
EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
Joh_2:12. Capernaum.—Cod. א, B, read καφαρ ναούμ, i.e. the kaphar or village of Nahum. Two sites especially have been fixed upon as the best representatives of the ancient Capernaum. The ruins at Tell Hûm are now considered to have the best claim to represent the Saviour’s city. His brethren.—The controversies which have raged round this subject have centred on the question of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Setting aside the conjecture of Jerome, that these brethren were in reality first cousins, children of Mary (the wife of Cleophas, Joh_19:25), sister of our Lord’s mother, as incapable of being sufficiently proved, there are two positions which should be noted:
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(1) that of Helvidius, that the brethren are actual brothers, the sons of Joseph and Mary; and
(2) that of Epiphanius, that these brethren were children of Joseph by a former marriage. But as the latter position rests for its proof only on the statement of an apocryphal gospel, those who do not feel it necessary to maintain the somewhat sentimental notion of Mary’s perpetual virginity will be shut up to accept the position of Helvidius. Indeed in this casual mention of our Lord’s brethren may be found an indirect confirmation of His recognition of the sanctity of lawful marriage. Dr. Reynolds well says: “Christ, who honoured marriage by His first display of miraculous power, and this at the suggestion of His own mother, and in the society of those who passed undoubtedly as His brothers, would not feel that the faintest shadow of a shade fell on the lofty purity of His mother by this hypothesis.” (But see Hom. Note on Joh_7:3.)
Joh_2:12-13. These verses furnish us, in connection with Joh_2:20-21, an important time-note (vide in loc.). It was the first year of our Lord’s public ministry, i.e., according to the best authorities, A.D. 28, and in that year the 15th Nisan fell on March 30th. Caspari gives the following dates: Baptism by John, February 1st (about); return to Bethania, forty days later (about March 12th); Cana, March 15th; Capernaum, March 17th; Jerusalem, March 29th (14th Nisan).
Joh_2:14-16. “The same or a similar fact is narrated by the Synoptists on the occasion of the last passover (Mat_21:12-16, etc.). Here, then, there are three cases possible: either the Lord performed the cleansing of the sanctuary twice, or He did so only once at the beginning of His ministry; or, finally, only once, but at the end of His ministry. No slight grounds may be adduced in favour of the repetition. The cleansing of the sanctuary was a symbolical act, by which our Lord represented that which He desired, and at which He aimed; it was thus entirely in place at the very outset of His public ministry, and equally so at the close of His labours.” Probably John and Andrew alone accompanied our Lord to Jerusalem on this occasion, the other disciples remaining in Galilee until their final call (Luk_6:13). Thus we can understand why John alone narrates this first cleansing, and the Synoptists only the second. A reason why John especially accompanied Him on this occasion may be found in Joh_18:15 (vide Introduction). At these great feasts a stock-market was held in the court of the Gentiles; and it may be that the moneychangers were driven even into the court of the people of Israel, which was held to be almost as sacred as the sanctuary. Changers of money, who exchanged current and foreign moneys for the sacred half-shekel, in which alone the customary annual temple tax required from every adult Israelite could be paid. A scourge of small cords.—σχοινίον = a cord made of bulrushes—from the litter scattered about the court. And He said to those who sold doves, etc.—Our Lord did not wish to cause the traders any loss. This traffic was necessary; but it was not to be carried on in His Father’s house. The reason why our Lord was not interfered with in this striking and bold action was the fact that all the pious, and even the ceremonial Israelites, secretly acknowledged that He was right. Temple here = ἱερόν, i.e. especially the outer courts, not ναός, the sanctuary.
Joh_2:17. “The zeal of Thine house shall eat Me up” (Psa_69:9).—Westcott points out here, “on the occasion of the first public act of Christ, as throughout St. John, the double effect of the act on those who already believed, and on those who were resolutely unbelieving.” It is written.—γεγραμμένον ἐστίν—instead of the simpler γέγραπται. Καταφάγεταί με—not in reference to Christ’s passion, but to His present burning, consuming desire for His Father’s honour, and the honour of His Father’s house.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Joh_2:13-17
The cleansing of the temple.—The incident recorded in these verses occurred on the first visit of the Redeemer (during His public ministry) to Jerusalem at the passover feast. Hitherto His teaching had been confined to the rural district of Galilee. Among the quiet Galilean villages, or at most in some of the towns situated on the margin of the inland lake, He had preached the word of the kingdom gently and lovingly to those who had “ears to hear,” and had “manifested His glory” in miracle, so that the faith of His disciples was strengthened and confirmed. But the passover was nigh, and, in accordance with the customs of the law, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And there in this incident He began to unfold the spiritual nature of His office and work, experiencing in consequence the first open symptoms of antagonism from the rulers of the Jewish people.
Consider, first, the incident itself, and then its general and individual lessons.
I. The incident.—On reaching the holy city the Saviour’s steps were soon directed to the temple; and there He found a state of things utterly intolerable. The temple area appears to have been divided into three enclosures or courts. In the inner enclosure lay the temple building itself, with the court of the priests surrounding it; beyond that was the court of the people; and then, divided off from that by what was known as the middle wall of partition, lay the court of the Gentiles. It was in the last of these enclosures that the traffic which led to this incident was carried on. It was no doubt meant for the convenience of the people. At the passovertide tens of thousands of Jews from every country almost in the then known world thronged the holy city. It was necessary for them to exchange their foreign moneys for current coin, etc.; hence the tables of the money-changers. Then, considering the immense number of sacrifices offered at the feast, in addition to those required for the daily and ordinary sacrifices, the necessity for a kind of stock market was undoubted. But it certainly showed how little real reverence the Jewish leaders had for the worship of God when they permitted all this to go on within the enclosures of the temple area. And it needs only a slight acquaintance with exchanges and cattle markets to conceive how every sight and sound, how the turmoil within the sacred precincts, must have hindered the worship of God’s house. Then all this was done in the court of the Gentiles—the nearest point to the temple the Gentiles could reach. Thus not only was their space curtailed, but what must have been the feeling of earnest men among them when they observed this buying and selling, chaffering and trading, in the courts of that house which was to be an house of prayer for all nations? The Gentiles were admitted to the court named after them so that they might become attracted to the religion and worship of Jehovah. But what was there in that clamouring, chaffering crowd, bleating of sheep, etc., to lift their thoughts heavenward? What likelihood was there that in that scene of traffic the prayer of Psalms 67. would be answered? We do not wonder, then, that Jesus, consumed with the zeal of His Father’s house, should have acted as He did. Making a scourge—probably of materials lying scattered about—He drove the animals out of the court, overturned the tables of the money-changers, producing silence and order where formerly noise and confusion had prevailed. Notice should be taken of the language used by the Saviour in doing this action. When a boy in that same temple, while sitting among the doctors, hearing, etc. (Luk_2:46), He had declared that He was about His Father’s business. In this incident He showed the source of His authority in asserting that the temple was His Father’s house. Here we have His distinct and clear claim from the beginning of His ministry to be the divine Son and the Messiah. The Jewish leaders well knew He meant to assert this claim. Hence their demand for a sign, some miraculous or extraordinary manifestation of the power He professed to wield. In this question we seem anew to detect Satan, the adversary, attacking Christ as he did before on the pinnacle of the temple: “If Thou be the Son of God,” etc. (Mat_4:6), give an evident sign of your divine Sonship, and the people will believe and follow. But in this very incident, had they not been blinded, those Jews might have found the sign they desired. The Messiah had suddenly appeared in His temple to be “as a refiner and purifier,” etc. (Mal_3:3). And the rejection by those men of such comings in mercy, etc., ushered in the day when His judgments were made manifest in the withdrawal of their privileges as a race.
II. The spiritual meaning of the incident.—The ministry of our Lord was not ended at His ascension. His work on earth was in a great measure the opening and typical prelude of His work as mediator in heaven. He still
‘Pursues in heaven His mighty plan,
The Saviour and the Friend of man.”
He still sits as a refiner and purifier of silver; still the prophetic promise holds good that He shall come suddenly to His temple to purge and purify. He has done so, and will do so until the end. See how true this is in the history of the Church. It was not long after His ascension that the warning voice again was heard. In the case of the Church at Laodicea, and others of the Churches in Roman Asia, we hear Him saying, “Take these things hence.” Then those who disregarded the warning voice had their light as Christian Churches quenched, just as the Jewish temple and worship were destroyed and the disobedient people scattered. Later in the Church’s history, when new empires had risen on fallen Rome’s broad foundations, there followed for the Church a long period of outward prosperity. But along with this much of evil was mingled. The world and the world’s traffic and pleasure penetrated even to the inner sanctuary, whilst the noise and clamour of it all drowned the voice of praise and prayer, crushed down the aspirations of devotion and worship. Therefore the great Purifier again appeared, and in the turmoil and overturning of the Reformation period He swept away much of the worldliness and materialism which was hindering the Church’s spiritual life, awakening men to a higher spiritual life and purer worship. He is ever watchful. He has the same zeal now for the purity of His Father’s spiritual temple. “His fan is in His hand,” etc. (Mat_3:12). When Churches become selfish, material, worldly, forgetting their true mission, let them beware! To-day outward success is greatly sought—increasing numbers, overflowing coffers. The world is stealing in on the Church in many ways. There is much danger of the spiritual life being neglected through men being engrossed in this material progress. Then the Lord may have to come in judgment to purify before He can come to bless.
III. Lessons of the incident.—This incident brings personal and individual lessons. “There is but one temple in the universe,” says Novalis, “and that is the body of man.” “Ye are the temple of God” (2Co_6:16), said St. Paul. In these bodies of ours, when our life has been yielded to Christ, God’s Holy Spirit dwells. Let Christian people beware lest they fall into the careless and irreverent conduct of the Jewish priests, and permit the sacred precincts to become a mart of business, a den of thieves, of sinful thoughts, feelings, etc., so that the noise of the world’s voices overpowers the accents of devotion. Into our churches—those places sacred to worship—no sounds of the world’s business, etc., should be permitted to come. So should it be with Christian people as with reverent hearts they bow in God’s holy house of prayer. Their public and private worship should be as far as possible free from the inroads of the business of life. Our Redeemer in this also gave us an example that we should follow in His steps (Joh_4:15; Mat_14:23, etc.). But how often is the worship of God’s house profaned with worldly thoughts, vain imaginations, etc., and prayer stifled in its very inception! And is not the heart—the temple of God for the individual—often so crowded with other things that the sounds of the world predominate, and the voice of God is unheard and unheeded in the multitudinous roar? There is no true holy of holies in such hearts. To those in such case spiritual worship is unknown. They are immersed in the traffic of the market-place, warehouse, etc. The sights and sounds of places of amusement are oftener before them than the sanctities of worship. Let Christian people be jealous for the honour of God’s spiritual house, the Church; and let that temple be not profaned which He hath chosen to dwell in—the temple of “a broken and contrite heart,” etc.
HOMILETIC NOTES
Joh_2:15. On the peace-breakers lies the burden of war.—
1. Shall we consider the superficial objection as to whether it was right or not to disturb the honest trade of those people, since animals for the temple sacrifices were indispensable, and to “pour out” the exchangers’ money without concern as to whether any of the pieces should be lost? Or shall we reply to the opinion that the indignation seen in Christ’s eye and the scourge in His hand seem to indicate the presence of passionateness?
2. If a breach of the peace took place, the blame lay on the shoulders of the temple authorities. If the order of the house was to be maintained, who could better carry out the doing of it than the Son in the Father’s name? Here certainly there is no passionateness, but on the contrary holiness, and a merciful, sympathetic heart for souls in danger. Here we find reformative action in the footsteps of Jeremiah the prophet (Jer_7:2-11). Here is the angel of the covenant foretold by Malachi (Mal_3:1-5). Here is the obedience that eighteen years previously had asked, “Must I not be about My Father’s business?” (Luk_2:49).—Dr. R. Kögel.
Joh_2:17. “The zeal of Thine house.”—The disciples who heard Jesus had also heard Him speak of the heavenly ladder—Himself—on which the angels of God should ascend and descend. They had been witnesses of the wondrous change of water into wine at His command. Thus so little were they perplexed at the action of our Lord, that they saw in it the fulfilment of the Psalmist’s words, “The zeal of Thine house,” etc. (Psa_69:9).
Joh_2:15-17. The distinction of this incident from the similar incident recorded in the Synoptists.—I. The Synoptists narrate a cleansing of the temple as having taken place on the day of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem before the last passover (Mat_21:12; Mar_11:15 ff.; Luk_19:45). Of such an incident there is no trace in St. John (Joh_12:12 ff.), and curiously the Synoptists have no trace of an earlier cleansing. It has been supposed that the event has been transposed in the synoptic narratives owing to the fact that they give no account of the Lord’s ministry at Jerusalem before the last journey; but a comparison of the two narratives is against the identification.
1. The exact connection of the event is in each case given in detail.
2. There is a significant difference in the words used to justify the acts (Joh_2:16; Mar_11:17).
3. In the record of the later incident there is no reference to the remarkable words (Joh_2:19) which give its colour to the narrative of St. John, though the Synoptists show that they were not unacquainted with those words (Mat_26:61; Mar_14:58).
II.
1. There is no improbability in the repetition of such an incident. Both were connected with the revelation of Jesus as Messiah—first when He claimed His royal power at the entrance of His work, and again at the close.
2. In the interval He had fulfilled the office of a simple prophet. In the first case, so to speak, the incident was doubtful; in the second it was decided. Hence the difference in details, e.g. the force of the addition “a house of prayer for allnations” in prospect of the Passion and His rejection by the Jews, which has no place in the first incident, when He enters as a son His Father’s house. Again, the words a house of merchandise are in the second incident represented by its last issue: “a den of thieves.” John records the incident which occurs at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, because it was the first crisis in the separation of faith and unbelief. The Synoptists, from the construction of their narratives, included the later incident; and as the latter was virtually included in the former, St. John does not give it.—A bridged from Westcott.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Joh_2:14-15. Christ cleansing His Church.—For us this cleansing of the temple is a sign. It is a sign that Christ really means to do thoroughly the great work He has taken in hand. Long ago had it been said, “Behold, the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple; and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.” He was to come to sift the true from the false, the worldly and greedy from the devoted and spiritual. He was not to make pretence of doing so, but actually to accomplish the separation. To reform abuses such as this marketing in the temple was no pleasant task. He had to meet the gaze and defy the vindictiveness of an exasperated mob; He had to make enemies of a powerful class in the community. But He does what is called for by the circumstances: and this is but a part and a sample of the work He does always. Always He makes thorough, real work. He does not blink the requirements of the case. We shrug our shoulders and pass by where matters are difficult to mend; we let the flood take its course rather than risk being carried away in attempting to stem it. Not so Christ. The temple was shortly to be destroyed, and it might seem to matter little what practices were allowed in it; but the sounds of bargaining and the greedy eye of trade could not be suffered by Him in His Father’s house: how much more shall He burn as a consuming fire when He cleanses that Church for which he gave Himself that it might be without spot or blemish? He will cleanse it. We may yield ourselves with gladness to His sanctifying power, or we may rebelliously question His authority; but cleansed the house of God must be.—Dr. Marcus Dods.
Joh_2:17. True zeal.—Let us take heed we do not sometimes call that zeal for God and His gospel which is nothing else but our own tempestuous and stormy passion. True zeal is a sweet, heavenly, and gentle flame, which maketh us active for God, but always within the sphere of love. It never calls for fire from heaven to consume those that differ a little from us in their apprehensions. It is like that kind of lightning (which the philosophers speak of) that melts the sword within, but singeth not the scabbard; it strives to save the soul, but hurteth not the body. True zeal is a loving thing, and makes us always active to edification, and not to destruction. If we keep the fire of zeal within the chimney, in its own proper place, it never doth any hurt—it only warmeth, quickeneth, and enliveneth us; but if once we let it break out, and catch hold of the thatch of our flesh, and kindle our corrupt nature, and set the house of our body on fire, it is no longer zeal, it is no heavenly fire—it is a most destructive and devouring thing. True zeal is an ignis lambens, a soft and gentle flame, that will not scorch one’s hand; it is no predatory or voracious thing: but carnal or fleshly zeal is like the spirit of gunpowder set on fire, that tears and blows up all that stands before it. True zeal is like the vital heat in us that we live upon, which we never feel to be angry or troublesome; but though it gently feeds upon the radial oil within us, that sweet balsam of our natural moisture, yet it lives lovingly with it, and maintains that by which it is fed; but that other furious and distempered zeal is nothing else but a fever in the soul.—R. Cudworth.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On v13 Joh 2:13-25. “And the Passover of the Jews was…
PURIFICATION 0F THE TEMPLE
Joh 2:13-25. “And the Passover of the Jews was nigh, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” The Passover began April 14th, through all the ages of Israel, celebrating the exodus out of Egypt, when the destroying angel slew the first-born in every Egyptian home, and passed over the houses of Israel because he saw the blood of the slain lamb — which vividly typified the blood of Christ shed on Calvary — sprinkled on the doorposts and lintels of their houses. As this great Passover festival, to which the myriads of Israel gathered annually and spent eight days, typified the atonement Christ came into the world to make, it plays a most conspicuous part in our Lord’s ministry, marking the inauguration and the conclusion; as our Savior’s ministry occupied three years, beginning at a Passover, and winding up at another, and including two in the interim. You will find the division of our Lord’s ministry by these four Passovers a great convenience in studying the Gospels. The prophets had predicted that Christ would come at once to the temple, and purify it at the very beginning of His ministry (Mal 3:2-3); as you remember, He told His mother at Cana that His time to preach and work miracles had not yet come, contemplating entering upon His ministry at the Passover, which speedily followed.
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14. “And He found in the temple those selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers sitting.” Many and magnificent buildings at that time stood on the great and beautiful Temple Campus, containing thirty-five acres, in order to accommodate the thousands of Israel assembling at their great periodical feasts. These pollutions were not in the temple proper, but in those other buildings which stood on the whole ground, and were consequently included in the dedication to God. The end in view was to keep on hand a supply of sacrificial animals, ready to sell to the pilgrims, who came from afar to worship the God of Israel, the more wealthy purchasing an ox; the middling class, a sheep; and the poor, a dove. As all these foreign pilgrims brought Greek and Roman money, or that of some other nation, they had to exchange it for the Jewish half-shekel, the temple offering prescribed in the law, foreign money being rejected.
“Having made a whip of rushes, He cast them all out of the temple, both sheep and oxen, and poured out the money of the exchangers, and overturned their tables, and said to those selling the doves, Take these away; do not make the house of My Father a house of merchandise.” The conclusion that He used the whip on the people is not sustained by the original. The long, nimble rushes were lying in quantities on the floor for the animals to lie down on. Taking some of these, He plaited them into a whip, and drove all the animals out, pouring out the money of the exchangers and turning over their tables. We see here a very obvious manifestation of His Divinity, as no other man in the world, ranking simply as a private volunteer, would have been permitted thus to interfere with all of those people in their business transactions. A Divine awe settling down on them held them, in a semi-paralytic suspense; astounded and lost in wonder, they are incompetent to interfere and prevent the expurgation which they see so strangely going on around them, through the intervention of this total stranger, their own acquiescence and non- intervention turning out to them even a greater surprise than the astounding invasion of the uninitiated Young Man, who is thus paradoxically exercising so much authority.
“His disciples remembered that it has been written, The zeal of Thine house doth eat me up.” (Psa 64:9.)
Oikos here means, not simply house, but family. Jesus is our Paragon. He was literally carried away and consumed with zeal for the promotion of God’s family in the earth. Lord, help us to walk in Thy footprints, sacrificing everything, “spending and being spent,” in the interest of God’s family and for the upbuilding of His kingdom in every nation!
“Then the Jews responded and said to Him, What sign do you show us, that You do these things? Jesus responded and said to them, Destroy this temple, and I will build it in three days.” The authority by which He was purifying the temple was simply the fact of His Christhood, as that temple did not belong to man, but to God alone. Therefore His Messiahship, identifying Him with very and eternal God, actually gave Him personal charge of God’s house. Now, in view of the fact that His Christhood was confirmed and demonstrated by His death and resurrection, He points them to these great salient facts of His ministry as a demonstrative proof of His right to control the temple. “Then the Jews said, Forty and six years was this temple being built, and dost Thou rear it up in three days? But He spoke concerning the temple of His body. Then when He was risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this, and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus said.” The Jews had even a superstitious veneration for the temple, running into idolatry in that way. Consequently they held this declaration against Him, clamoring over it ever and anon, and even founding on it a charge of blasphemy, for which, having hounded Him the three years of His ministry, on the day of His death they hideously howled for His blood; yet all this time having stupidly misapprehended His words, applying them to the temple edifice, while He meant the temple of His body, thus beautifully affirming His resurrection as the indubitable confirmation of His Messiahship. At that time, forty-six years had rolled away while building the beautiful and magnificent temple, under the patronage of King Herod, who ascended the throne sixty-eight years previously to that date, amid great political perturbations and much opposition, which, under Roman support, he, in a few years, exterminated in blood, thus centralizing and consolidating his kingdom, he devotes the balance of his thirty-eight years on the throne to rebuilding the temple in greater magnificence than any of his predecessors since Solomon. At the time of this record the temple was not yet entirely finished. So they continued the work, reaching its final completion A.D. 64. In A.D. 66, Gallus Cestius, the Roman general, laid siege to Jerusalem at the head of a great army, followed, in 68, by the Emperor Vespasian, who continued it two years, being succeeded by his son, the Emperor Titus, who consummated the destruction of the temple, the city, and the desolation of the land, in A.D. 73. As Jesus predicted that one stone would not be left on another, the Roman soldiers utterly demolished it, taking up the very foundation, hunting for the hidden treasures.
“And when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed on His name, seeing His miracles which He was doing. But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knows all people, and He has no need that any one would witness concerning man; for He knew what was in man.” He is our only Exemplar. From His verdict and procedure here, we should learn a most important lesson; i.e., never to put confidence in a human being. They are all fallible, mutatious, and unreliable. More human woe, wreck, disappointment, and ruin come in that way than any other. We should have no faith in man, but all in God, who never disappoints. Here our Savior inculcates a glorious lesson on entire sanctification, which throws a total eclipse over all the world, so we wear it like a loose garment, ready to drop it off at a moment’s warning; meanwhile, the true and genuine experience of full salvation sinks us away into God.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On vv13, 23 Subdivision 6. (Joh 2:13-22.)
Subdivision 6. (Joh 2:13-22.)
The purging out of evil.
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There follows, at Jerusalem, upon the occasion of the "Jews, passover," as John characteristically calls it, a first purging of the temple by Him, which He repeats, as we have seen in other Gospels, after His presentation to them openly as their King. It is given as one of the features of millennial blessing by the prophet Zechariah, that "there shall be no more a Canaanite" -or "trafficker" -"in the house of the Lord of hosts" (Zec 14:21). The profanation of that which, till he finally leaves it, He always calls His Father’s house stirs within Him the zeal for it which, as the psalmist is cited here as saying, consumed Him. How much did that house, God’s dwelling-place among men, mean for Him whose great work was to establish it! In His own Person God had come down, and in such a way as implied no mere temporary visitation. His Name Emmanuel had told that out. Wisdom’s delights were with the sons of men; yet with iniquity He could not dwell. The precious blood shed for their sins could only make their persistence in them after this more hideous and more hateful. Thus the house must be purged in which God is to dwell; and the glory of God and the blessing of man required its purgation.
As Son of God, therefore, Christ casts out the defilement, taking openly a place of authority which none dare openly dispute. The shadow of future judgment falls upon them and scatters them. The Jews ask what sign He can show that the authority He claims belongs to Him. He answers them with a challenge to "destroy this temple and in three days He would raise it up" -referring to His death and resurrection: a parable which they could not interpret, and applied falsely to Herod’s building, still unfinished; while even the disciples understood it only when it was fulfilled. The eyes of those held by externalism were not on Him; while as yet it held even those of true disciples. Thus the blow had to fall even upon the temple itself which left not even one stone upon another, and scattered its worshippers also far and wide over the earth; while the new temple of His humanity, glorified by the out-breaking of the glory that was within, becomes in heaven an open sanctuary, whence the divine Light shall irradiate the earth.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv16, 19 JOHN ii. 16.
John
CHRIST CLEANSING THE TEMPLE
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JOHN ii. 16.
The other Evangelists do not record this cleansing of the Temple at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, but, as we all know, tell of a similar act at its very close. John, on the other hand, has no notice of the latter incident. The question, then, naturally arises, are these diverse narratives accounts of the same event? The answer seems to me to be in the negative, because John’s Gospel is evidently intended to supplement the other three, and to record incidents either unknown to, or unnoticed by, them, and, as a matter of fact, the whole of this initial visit of our Lord to Jerusalem is omitted by the three Evangelists. Then the two incidents are distinctly different in tone, in setting, and in the words with which our Lord accompanies them. They are both appropriate in the place in which they stand, the one as the initial and the other as all but the final act of His Messiahship. So we may learn from the repetition of this cleansing the solemn lesson: that outward reformation of religious corruptions is of small and transient worth. For in three years-perhaps in as many weeks-the abuse that He corrected returned in full force.
Now, this narrative has many points of interest, but I think I shall best bring out its meaning if I remind you, by way of introduction, that the Temple of Jerusalem was succeeded by the Temple of the Christian Church, and that each individual Christian man is a temple. So there are three things that I want to set before you: what Christ did in the Temple; what He does in the Church; what He will do to each of us if we will let Him.
I. First, then, what Christ did in the Temple.
Now, the scene in our narrative is not unlike that which may be witnessed in any Roman Catholic country in the cathedral place or outside the church on the saint’s day, where there are long rows of stalls, fitted up with rosaries, and images of the saint, and candles, and other apparatus for worship.
The abuse had many practical grounds on which it could be defended. It was very convenient to buy sacrifices on the spot, instead of having to drag them from a distance. It was no less convenient to be able to exchange foreign money, possibly bearing upon it the head of an emperor, for the statutory half-shekel. It was profitable to the sellers, and no doubt to the priests, who were probably sleeping partners in the concern, or drew rent for the ground on which the stalls stood. And so, being convenient for all and profitable to many, the thing became a recognised institution.
Being familiar it became legitimate, and no one thought of any incongruity in it until this young Nazarene felt a flash of zeal for the sanctity of His Father’s house consuming Him. Catching up some of the reeds which served as bedding for the cattle, He twisted them into the semblance of a scourge, which could hurt neither man nor beast. He did not use it. It was a symbol, not an instrument. According to the reading adopted in the Revised Version, it was the sheep and cattle, not their owners, whom He ‘drove out.’ And then, dropping the scourge, He turned to the money-changers, and, with the same hand, overthrew their tables. And then came the turn of the sellers of doves. He would not hurt the birds, nor rob their owners. And so He neither overthrew nor opened the cages, but bade them ‘Take these things hence’; and then came the illuminating words, ‘Make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise.’
Now this incident is very unlike our Lord’s usual method, even if we do not exaggerate the violence which He employed. It is unlike in two respects: in the use of compulsion, and in aiming at mere outward reformation. And both of these points are intimately connected with its place in His career.
It was the first public appearance of Jesus before His nation as Messiah. He inaugurates His work by a claim-by an act of authority-to be the King of Israel and the Lord of the Temple. If we remember the words from the last prophet, in which Malachi says that ‘the Messenger of the Covenant . . . shall suddenly come to His Temple, and purify the sons of Levi,’ we get the significance of this incident. We have to mark in it our Lord’s deliberate assumption of the role of Messiah; His shaping His conduct so as to recall to all susceptible hearts that last utterance of prophecy, and to recognise the fact that at the beginning of His career He was fully conscious of His Son-ship, and inaugurated His work by the solemn appeal to the nation to recognise Him as their Lord.
And this is the reason, as I take it, why the anomalous incident is in its place at the beginning of His career no less than the repetition of it was at the close. And this is the explanation of the anomaly of the incident. It is His solemn, authoritative claiming to be God’s Messenger, the Messiah long foretold.
Then, further, this incident is a singular manifestation of Christ’s unique power. How did it come that all these sordid hucksters had not a word to say, and did not lift a finger in opposition, or that the Temple Guard offered no resistance, and did not try to quell the unseemly disturbance, or that the very officials, when they came to reckon with Him, had nothing harsher to say than, ‘What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things’? No miracle is needed to explain that singular acquiescence. We see in lower forms many instances of a similar thing. A man ablaze with holy indignation, and having a secret ally in the hearts of those whom He rebukes, will awe a crowd even if he does not infect them. But that is not the full explanation. I see here an incident analogous to that strange event at the close of Christ’s ministry, when, coming out from beneath the shadows of the olives in the garden, He said to the soldiers ‘Whom seek ye?’ and they fell backwards and wallowed on the ground. An overwhelming impression of His personal majesty, and perhaps some forth-putting of that hidden glory which did swim up to the surface on the mountain of Transfiguration, bowed all these men before Him, like reeds before the wind. And though there was no recognition of His claim, there was something in the Claimant that forbade resistance and silenced remonstrance.
Further, this incident is a revelation of Christ’s capacity for righteous indignation. 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, nestling among the Galilean hills, 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. Taken together, one may say that they cover the whole ground of His character, and in some very real sense are a summary of all His work. The programme contains the whole of what is to follow hereafter.
We may well take the lesson, which no generation ever needed more than the present, both by reason of its excellences and of its defects, that there were no love worthy of a perfect spirit in which there did not lie dormant a dark capacity of wrath, and that Christ Himself would not have been the Joy-bringer, the sympathising Gladdener which He manifested Himself as being in the ‘beginning of miracles in Cana of Galilee’ unless, side by side, there had lain in Him the power of holy indignation and, if need be, of stern rebuke. Brethren, we must retain our conception of His anger if we are not to maim our conception of His love. There is no wrath like the wrath of the Lamb. The Temple court, with the strange figure of the Christ with a scourge in His hand, is a revelation which this generation, with its exaggerated sentimentalism, with its shrinking, by reason of its good and of its evil, from the very notion of a divine retribution based upon the eternal antagonism between good and evil, most sorely needs.
II. Now, secondly, notice what Christ does in His Church.
I need not remind you how God’s method of restoration is always to restore with a difference and a progress. The ruined Temple on Zion was not to be followed by another house of stone and lime, but by ‘a spiritual house,’ builded together for ‘a habitation of God in the Spirit.’ The Christian Church takes the place of that material sanctuary, and is the dwelling-place of God.
That being so, let us take the lesson that that house, too, may be desecrated. There may be, as there were in the original Temple, the externals of worship, and yet, eating out the reality of these, there may be an inward mercenary spirit.
Note how insensibly such corruption creeps in to a community. You cannot embody an idea in a form or in an external association without immediately dragging it down, and running the risk of degradation. It is just like a drop of quicksilver which you cannot expose to the air but instantaneously its brightness is dimmed by the scum that forms on its surface. 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. Of course, if I were preaching to ministers, I should have a great deal to say about that. For men that are necessarily paid for preaching have a sore temptation to preach for pay. But it is not only we professionals who have need to lay to heart this incident. 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, and to say ‘Make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise’? He will come; He does come; He is always coming if we would listen to Him. And at long intervals He comes in some tremendous and manifest fashion, and overthrows the money-changers’ tables.
Ah, brethren! if Jesus Christ had not thus come, over and over again, to His Church, Christian men would have killed Christianity long ago. Did you ever think that Christianity is the only religion that has shown recuperative power and that has been able to fling off its peccant humours? They used to say-I do not know whether it is true or not-that Thames water was good to put on board ship because of its property of corrupting and then clearing itself, and becoming fit to drink. 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? This tree has substance in it when it casts its leaves. 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. And so I, for my part, believe that very much of the organisations of all existing churches will have to be swept away. But 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.
III. Lastly, note what Christ will do for each of us if we will let Him.
It is not a community only which is the temple of God. For the Apostles in many places suggest, and in some distinctly say, ‘ye are the temples’ individually, as well as the Temple collectively, of the Most High. And so every Christian soul-by virtue of that which is the deepest truth of Christianity, the indwelling of Christ in men’s hearts by faith-is a temple of God; and every human soul is meant to be and may become such. That temple can be profaned. There are many ways in which professing Christians make it a house of merchandise. There are forms of religion which are little better than chaffering with God, to give Him so much service if He will repay us with so much Heaven. There are too many temptations, to which we yield, to bring secular thoughts into our holiest things. Some of us, by reason not of wishing wealth but of dreading penury, find it hard to shut worldly cares out of our hearts. We all need to be on our guard lest the atmosphere in which we live in this great city shall penetrate even into our moments of devotion, and the noise of the market within earshot of the Holy of Holies shall disturb the chant of the worshippers. It is Manchester’s temptation, and it is one that most of us need to be guarded against.
So engrossed, and, as we should say, necessarily engrossed-or, at all events, legitimately engrossed-are we in the pursuits of our daily commerce, that we have scarcely time enough or leisure of heart and mind enough to come into ‘the secret place of the Most High.’ The worshippers stop outside trading for beasts and doves, and they have no time to go into the Temple and present their offerings.
It is our besetting danger. Forewarned is forearmed, to some extent. Would that we could all hear, as we go about our ordinary avocations, that solemn voice, ‘Make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise,’ and could keep the inner sanctuary still from the noises, and remote from the pollutions, of the market hard by!
We cannot cast out these or any other desecrating thoughts and desires by ourselves, except to a very small degree. And if we do, then there happens what our Lord warned us against in profound words. The house may be emptied of the evil tenant in some measure by our own resolution and self-reformation. But if it is not occupied by Him, it remains ‘empty,’ though it is ‘swept and garnished.’ Nature abhors a vacuum, and into the empty house there come the old tenant and seven brethren blacker than himself. The only way to keep the world out of my heart is to have Christ filling it. If we will ask Him He will come to us. And if He has the scourge in His hand, let Him be none the less welcome a guest for that. He will come, and when He enters, it will be like the rising of the sun, when all the beasts of the forest slink away and lay them down in their dens. It will be like the carrying of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of the whole earth into the temple of Dagon, when the fish-like image fell prone and mutilated on the threshold. If we say to Him, ‘Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest, Thou and the Ark of Thy strength,’ He will enter in, and by His entrance will ‘make the place of His feet glorious’ and pure.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On v13 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XXIV. A. Jesus…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XXIV. A. Jesus Cleanses the Temple].
P A R T F O U R T H. FROM THE FIRST TO THE SECOND PASSOVER. (Time: One Year.)
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XXIV. JESUS ATTENDS THE FIRST PASSOVER OF HIS MINISTRY. (Jerusalem, April 9, A. D. 27.) Subdivision A. JESUS CLEANSES THE TEMPLE. dJOHN II. 13-25.
d13 And the passover of the Jews was at hand [We get our information as to the length of our Lord's ministry from John's Gospel. He groups his narrative around six Jewish festivals: 1, He here mentions the first passover; 2, another feast, which we take to have been also a passover ( Joh_5:1); 3, another passover ( Joh_6:4); 4, the feast of tabernacles ( Joh_7:2); 5, dedication ( Joh_10:22); 6, passover ( Joh_11:55). This gives the entire length of our Lord's ministry as three years and a fraction], and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. [It was fitting that he should enter upon his full ministry in this city, as it was still the center of what was recognized as a heaven-revealed worship. The fitness of Jerusalem for such beginnings was afterwards recognized in the preaching of the gospel of the New or Christian dispensation-- Act_1:8.] 14 And he found in the temple [Our English word "temple" includes two Greek words; namely, 1. The naos, or [121] sanctuary--the small structure which contained the holy and most holy places, and which answered to the tabernacle used in the wilderness. 2. The heiron, or entire court space which surrounded the naos, and which included some nineteen acres. The heiron was divided into four courts, and as one entered toward the naos from the east, he passed successively through them, as follows: 1, Court of the Gentiles; 2, of the women; 3, of Israel; 4, of the priests. It was in this outer or Gentiles' court that the markets described in this section were held] Those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting [This market in the temple was for the convenience of the people, and the nearness of the passover increased its size. Oxen and doves were constantly needed for sacrificial purposes, and as each family which ate the passover required a lamb, they would be in the market in great abundance. Josephus tells us it required about two hundred thousand lambs for the passover feast, but his exaggerations will stand a liberal discount]: 15 and he made a scourge of cords, and cast all [The rest of the verse shows that "all" does not refer to men, but to sheep and oxen. The scourge was used in driving them out] out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the changers' money, and overthrew their tables [The Jews were each required to pay, for the support of the temple service, one half-shekel annually ( Exo_30:13, Mat_17:24). These money-changers sat at small tables, on which their coins were piled and counted]; 16 and to them that sold the doves he said, Take these things hence [As the doves were in cages of wicker-work, they could not be driven out; hence Jesus called upon their owners to remove them. Though Jesus cleansed the house, he wrought no waste of property. The sheep and oxen were safe outside the temple, the scattered money could be gathered from the stone pavement, and the doves were not set free from their cages]; make not my Father's house a house of merchandise. [Jesus bases his peculiar authority over the temple on his peculiar relationship to Him for whom the temple was built. [122] As a Son, he purged the temple of his Father. In the beginning of his ministry he contested their right to thus appropriate his Father's house to their uses, but in the end of his ministry he spoke of the temple as "your house" ( Mat_23:38), thereby indicating that the people had taken unto themselves that which truly belonged to God, even as the wicked husbandmen appropriated the vineyard ( Luk_20:14, Luk_20:15). The rebuke of Jesus was addressed to the priests, for the market belonged to them, and the money-changers were their agents. Edersheim says that this traffic alone cleared the priests about three hundred thousand dollars a year. Though churches differ widely from the temple, they are still God's houses, and should not be profaned. Religion should not be mixed with traffic, for traffic tends toward sin. Phariseeism is its fruit--a wish to carry on profitable business, even with God. On this occasion Jesus objected to the use of the temple for trade without criticising the nature of the trade. When he purged the temple three years later, he branded the traders as robbers-- Mat_21:13.] 17 His disciples remembered that it was written [ Psa_69:9], Zeal for [loving concern for] thy house shall eat me up. 18 The Jews therefore answered and said unto him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? [The Jews felt that only a divinely commissioned person could thus interfere with the ordering of God's house. They therefore called upon Jesus to give them a sign as an evidence that he possessed such divine commission. The manner in which he had cleansed the house of its trafficers was of itself a sign, if they had only had eyes to see it. Jesus could not have thus cleansed the temple unaided had he been a mere man. The power which he showed in the temple was much like that which he manifested in Gethsemane-- Joh_18:6.] 19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. [John here records this saying, and Matthew ( Mat_26:61) and Mark ( Mar_14:58) tells us how at the trial it was twisted into a charge against Christ; thus the Evangelists supplement each other. [123] For the temple in this sentence uses the word "naos," or sanctuary, the structure which was peculiarly the seat of God's presence. The sanctuary was a figure or symbol of the body of Christ, and the words of Jesus were a covert prediction that as they were desecrating the symbol so would they destroy his body, which it symbolized. They reverenced the Spirit of God neither as it dwelt in the sanctuary nor as it dwelt in the body of Christ. The body of Jesus was a temple ( Col_2:9), and Christians and the church are also temples ( 1Co_3:16, 1Co_3:17, 1Co_6:19, 2Co_5:1, 2Pe_1:13). God's temples can not be permanently destroyed. They are "raised up."] 20 The Jews therefore said, Forty and six years was this temple in building [The temple which then stood upon Mt. Moriah was the third structure which had occupied that site. The first temple, built by Solomon (B. C. 1012-1005), was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The second temple, built by Zerubbabel and Jeshua (B. C. 520), had been torn down and rebuilt by Herod the Great, but in such a manner as not to interfere with the temple service. The sanctuary was completed in one year and a half, while the courts required eight years. Josephus says eighteen thousand workmen were employed in its erection. Additional outbuildings and other work had been carried on from that time, and the whole was not completed until A. D. 64], and wilt thou raise it up in three days? [To put before him the difficulty of what he apparently proposed to do, they merely mention one item--time. They say nothing of the army of workmen, nothing of a variety and cost of material, nothing of the skill required in the process of construction. How impossible seemed his offer! Yet by no means so impossible as that real offer which they misunderstood. A man might rear a temple in three days, but, apart from Christ Jesus, self-resurrection is unknown to history.] 21 But he spake of the temple of his body [John differs from the other three Evangelists, in that he frequently comments upon the facts which he records. Both history and commentary are inspired.] 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his [124] disciples remembered that he spake this [It was three years before they understood this saying. Thus truth often lies dormant for years before it springs up in the heart and bears fruit-- 1Co_15:58, Ecc_11:1]; and they believed the scripture [several passages foretell the resurrection-- Psa_16:9, Psa_16:10, Psa_68:18], and the word which Jesus had said. [They believed that Jesus had meant to predict that the Jews would kill him, and that he would rise again on the third day.] 23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, during the feast [the seven days' feast of unleavened bread-- Lev_23:5, Lev_23:6], many believed on his name, beholding his signs which he did. [We have no description of the miracles wrought at this time. See Joh_4:45, Joh_20:30.] 24 But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men [The word here translated "trust" is the same as that translated "believe" in the Joh_2:23. They trusted him, but he did not trust them, for he knew them. He did not tell them anything of his plans and purposes, and the conversation with Nicodemus which follows is a sample of this reticence], 25 and because he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man. [John gives us many examples of this supernatural knowledge which Jesus possessed. See Joh_1:42, Joh_1:47, Joh_1:48, Joh_3:3, Joh_4:29, Joh_6:61, Joh_6:64, Joh_11:4, Joh_11:14, Joh_13:11, Joh_21:17. This chapter itself gives us a faithful picture of "what was in man." We find in it temple, profaners, money-makers, sign-seekers, opposers of reform, false and weak professors of faith, etc., but none to whom Jesus could trust himself.] [125]
[FFG 121-125]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v23 II. Eternal Life Imparted:
II. Eternal Life Imparted:
What it is and What it Includes –
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Chapter 2:23-17
The second part of this Gospel contains the blessed teachings the Son of God gave concerning eternal life, how it is imparted and what it includes. Everything in these chapters is new. The story of Nicodemus, the woman at Sychar’s well, the healing of the impotent man, the discourses of our Lord, etc., are not reported by the synoptic Gospels. There is not a word of the Sermon on the Mount reported by John; the many miracles, so significantly arranged in Matthew, are omitted (except the feeding of the 5000); nor do we find a single parable concerning the Kingdom of Heaven. The progressive revelation concerning eternal life will be brought out in the annotations. As already stated the teachings begin with the new birth, in which eternal life is imparted, and end with the destiny of those who are born again. This is revealed in His high priestly prayer, “Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.”
CHAPTER 2:23-3:36
1. The Many Who Believed on Him. (Joh 2:23-25.)
2. Nicodemus and the New Birth. (Joh 3:1-8.)
3. How the New Birth is Accomplished. (Joh 3:9-21.)
4. The Last Testimony of John. (Joh 3:22-36.)
He worked many miracles in Jerusalem, which are unreported by John. Many therefore believed in His name, but the Omniscient One knew that they were only convinced, but their hearts had not been touched and so they did not receive Him as the Son of God. But there was one who was more deeply exercised, an earnest, seeking soul, Nicodemus. He came to Jesus by night and addressed Him as Rabbi, acknowledging that He was a teacher come from God. The Lord did not permit him to go on with his address nor to state the object of his visit. The Lord treated him in an abrupt, almost discourteous, way and informed him at once of the absolute necessity of the new birth. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again (literally: born from above) he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Not teaching, mere knowledge, was the need Nicodemus had to see the Kingdom, but to be born from above.
But what Kingdom does our Lord mean? It refers primarily to the Kingdom of the Old Testament, promised to Israel. When that Kingdom comes, with the Return of the Lord, only those of Israel will enter in who are born again. The unbelieving and apostate mass of Jews will be excluded from that earthly, millennial Kingdom. Only the believing remnant inherits that Kingdom to come. This may be learned from Eze 36:1-38 and Isa 4:3, and other passages. That is why the Lord said to Nicodemus: “Art thou the teacher of Israel, and knowest not these things?”
But the truth our Lord gave to Nicodemus has a wider application. Man is spiritually dead, destitute of spiritual life. In order to enter the Kingdom of God, to be in the presence of God, man must be born anew. Such a statement is nowhere found in the preceding Gospels. In the Gospel of John, the Gospel of Eternal Life, it is put into the foreground. Nicodemus is the only person to whom the Lord spoke of the absolute necessity of the new birth. He never made such a statement to the publicans and the harlots. And who was Nicodemus? A Pharisee, and therefore an extremely religious man. A ruler of the Jews, which necessitated a moral life. The teacher of Israel, one who possessed much learning. Religiousness, morality, education and culture are insufficient to save man and give him a place in the Kingdom of God. The new birth is the one thing needed. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” The flesh is the old nature which every human being brings into the world; it is a fallen, a corrupt nature and can never be anything else. And “they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Rom 8:8). The natural man may do anything he pleases, become religious and philanthropic, but he cannot please God. What then is the new birth? It is not reformation. Nor is it, as so often stated, an action of the Holy Spirit to make an evil nature good. The flesh cannot be changed into something better. The new birth is the impartation of a new nature, the divine nature, by the Holy Spirit. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” This new nature is absolutely holy, as the old nature is absolutely corrupt. This new nature is the only thing which fits man to be in the presence of God.
But what is the meaning of “water” in Joh 3:5? “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” The water is claimed by ritualists to mean baptism. If a little water is put upon the head of an infant, they would have us believe, regeneration takes place. Others hold upon this statement of our Lord that the water is Christian baptism, and that therefore water-baptism is necessary to salvation. But the words of our Lord have nothing whatever to do with baptism. (Eze 36:25-27 must be linked with Joh 3:5 and must be considered here as a national promise to Israel, how they will enter the Kingdom. But the verses in Ezekiel have absolutely nothing whatever to do with baptism. To apply them thus is ridiculous.) The water cannot mean Christian baptism. Christian baptism (an entirely different thing from the Jewish baptism of John) was not instituted till after His death and resurrection. If it meant Christian baptism, the Lord’s rebuke to Nicodemus would be unjust. How could he know something that was still undivulged? Water in this passage is the figure of the Word of God, which the Spirit of God uses for the quickening of souls. The following passages will demonstrate this fact: Eph 5:25-26; 1Co 4:15; 1Pe 1:23; Jas 1:18. Begotten again by the Word of God, and water is the figure of that Word.
The Lord speaks next of revealing heavenly things (in distinction from earthly things relating to Israel). Then the Cross is revealed by which the heavenly things are realized, and how lost man is to be saved and receive eternal life (the new nature). The Son of Man must be lifted up. He Who knew no sin was made sin for us. “God so loved the world that He gave His Only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”--”In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because God sent His Only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1Jn 4:9-10). Blessed words these! It is by believing on the Son of God, who died for our sins, that we are saved and are born again.
John bears his final testimony in Joh 3:23-26. He testifies of Christ as the bridegroom, who is to have the bride. John calls himself the friend of the bridegroom. “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Note the three &(must’s” in this chapter. “Ye must be born again”; the necessity of the new birth. “The Son of Man must be lifted up”; the necessity of the death of the Lord to make salvation possible. “He must increase, but I must decrease”; the result of salvation. The final testimony of John the Baptist takes us beyond the cross. (Joh 3:35-36). Blessed assurance! He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.--Solemn declaration! He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv13, 18, 23 The first purging of the Temple:
The first purging of the Temple:
v. 13. And the Jews’ Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,
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v. 14. and found in the Temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting;
v. 15. and when He had made a scourge of small cords, He drove them all out of the Temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables,
v. 16. and said unto them that sold doves, Take these thing hence: m’ My Fathers’ house an house of merchandise
v. 17. And His disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of Thine house hath eaten Me up.
Jesus was a circumcised member of the Jewish Church, and He was very strict in observing its rules and laws. Since the male members of the nation were required to be present three times a year in Jerusalem, at Passover, at Pentecost, and at the Feast of Tabernacles, He was probably present at each celebration. At the Passover festival the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt was commemorated. But when Jesus came to Jerusalem, He was deeply grieved by the evidences of contempt of all holy things which was paraded before the eyes of all visitors. Since it was impossible for many Jews to bring their sacrificial animals to Jerusalem from their distant homes, the practice had been sanctioned of permitting them to buy the sheep and Iambs and bullocks and doves at Jerusalem. It was a profitable business, and one which brought the leaders of the Jews, who controlled the concessions, many a welcome piece of money. Instead, however, of keeping the market in the lower part of the city, it had been brought up to the gates of the Temple, and finally into the very courts of the sanctuary. There were the stalls of the oxen and sheep, there were the coops of the doves, there were also the tables of the bankers, where they made change. So a regular market was conducted in the courts and halls of the Temple, with all the accompanying noise, haggling of the venders and buyers, lowing of the cattle, bleating of the sheep, clinking of the coins, and shouting of children. Jesus was not satisfied with a mere protest, which might have been received with jeering and insults. He quickly braided a scourge out of reeds or cords that could easily be procured in such a busy mart, not to employ it as a whip, but to swing it as a symbol of power and to drive out the animals with it. Incidentally, He turned over the tables of the bankers, of the money changers, causing the small change to roll in every direction. And to the sellers of doves, who were equally guilty with the rest, He gave the command to carry all the paraphernalia of their business away from there; for the house of His Father should not be made a market house, where marketing, buying and selling, trading and bartering, was carried on. It was an exhibition of zeal for pure and uncontaminated service of God. See Psa 69:9. Christ was consumed with His zeal for the honor of His Father. And no man dared to withstand Him. They all gave way and went out of the court with their property. Some of the Lord’s divine glory and power must have been evident in His bearing, which caused them to shrink before the fire in His eye. Jesus wanted to show that He was the Messiah, the Lord, who must cleanse and purge His people of all abominations. And He showed also that such bartering and trading and marketing in the sanctuary is extremely distasteful to Him. In this He ought to be an example to all Christians, especially to pastors. "The more pious a pastor or preacher is, the more zealous he will be. " (Luther.) Every servant of Christ, every believer, should be zealous for the purity of the house of God, of the Christian congregation, in order that it may not be contaminated by great sins and offenses.
There are commentators who claim that John destroyed the chronology of the gospel-story altogether by inserting this story at this point, for they maintain that there was only one purging of the Temple. But the story of John follows chronological lines,. and there is no reason for not assuming two cleansings of the Temple. "But they are questions and remain questions which I do not want to solve; and nothing much depends upon it, only that there are many people that are so keen and sharp-witted and bring forth so many questions, desiring exact speech and answer upon them. But if we have the right understanding of Scriptures and the right articles of our faith, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, suffered and died for us, then we do not miss much, even if we cannot answer every question that is otherwise asked. The evangelists do not observe the same order; what one has at the beginning, the other occasionally has at the end. It may very well be that the Lord did this more than once, and that John describes the first purging, Matthew the second. But be that as it may, whether it be first or last, whether it happened once or twice, it takes nothing away from our faith."
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv13, 15, 17, 20, 23 General Information:
General Information:
Jesus and his disciples go up to Jerusalem to the temple.
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went up to Jerusalem
This indicates that he went from a lower place to a higher place. Jerusalem is built on a hill.
were sitting there
The next verse makes it clear that these people are in the temple courtyard. That area was intended for worship and not for commerce.
sellers of oxen and sheep and pigeons
People are buying animals in the temple courtyard to sacrifice them to God.
money changers
Jewish authorities required people who wanted to buy animals for sacrifices to exchange their money for special money from the "money changers."
translationWords
Passover
Jew
Jerusalem
ewe
dove
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv13, 14, 19, 22, 24 2:13 Passover, an annual spring festival, commemorated Israel’s rescue…
2:13 Passover, an annual spring festival, commemorated Israel’s rescue from slavery in Egypt (Exod 12). Jews traveled to Jerusalem to participate in the festival (Deut 16:1-16). Because John refers to three Passover festivals (John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55), many conclude that Jesus had a three-year public ministry.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.