New Thoughts (7/11/05-7/18/0)
I shall begin my comments with a question. Why is it that we can read this account, and think that somehow the folks questioning Jesus should have understood what He meant? The simple answer, of course, is that we already know the story, even as John’s readers would already be well aware of how the story ends. We who know the end may tend to read it into the beginning. Knowing what is coming, we think those who experienced the events first hand should also grasp the import, but it simply is not that way. In all fairness, there can be no expectation that these people, standing in the courts of the Temple, would think of any other thing but that Temple when Jesus spoke of rebuilding it. Clearly, and particularly after Herod’s efforts, this was a building designed to impress. Herod’s abilities as an architect were, after all, of great renown, even if his other characteristics were reprehensible.
No, it is perfectly reasonable that the people about the temple markets that day should think He spoke of the Temple. No doubt, His own disciples thought likewise until future events made it plain to them. John hints at this in his coverage here, when he says they remembered this event after Jesus’ resurrection. Now, I’m sure that they remembered this many a time before then, like on that other occasion when Jesus would clear these courts out (and yes, I do believe there were two occasions, but more about that later). They would remember what He had said, but always with questions. When would He do this great thing? Surely such a feat as that would get the nation on His side! This must be how He intends to establish the kingdom over which He rules. No, they would understand no better than the crowds until His return from the grave made it understood.
How we tend to react to the story should, then, serve as a bit of a lesson to us. As we minister, we need to be careful that we are not dragging into our conversations with the lost terminologies and ideas that are only understandable by our own experience. In other words, when we seek to lead a man to Christ, we cannot do so in a fashion that assumes he knows all our clever Christianese, that he already grasps all of our doctrines and truths. No! He must be assumed to be coming to the story fresh, as one first encountering the events, and encountering them with no history to put them in proper context.
It is, I suppose, human nature to more or less assume our own understanding is shared by those to whom we are speaking. The art of teaching is, at least in part, a matter of overcoming that assumption. After all, if I assume that my hearers already know what I know, what point is there in teaching it to them? No, it is necessary to first establish what is known by a student, to assess where it is they will be starting from. Only then can we fashion our own presentation to best satisfy their particular readiness to receive. If I come to both child and adult with the same presentation of Truth, either the one must be left largely in the dark by things that are yet over their heads, or the other must be bored to the point of distraction by things put so simply as to lose their interest.
Yet, in many teaching settings, particularly as it applies to Christian teaching and preaching, the group to which we would teach is of a very mixed degree of learning. Some are simple, not in any derogatory sense, but in the sense that they understand as the common man understands – by common sense. Others are of a more intellectual bent, wanting sound reason and logic. Still others grasp things more by emotion. Add to this the disparity of age, for there are teens and younger sitting out there as well as the adults; multiple generations with their own unique experiences and perspectives, all listening to one teacher with one message. What is the teacher to do?
Well, praise be to God that the teacher is given a truth to teach that God has designed to reach the entire range of listeners! His Truth is such that common sense can recognize its veracity. His Truth is such a complex thing that the intellectual can chew on the intricacies of it for years on end to great satisfaction. We can look at the Apostles, those who established the church, and see this. Peter stands as the apostle of the common man. Paul comes with great learning and logic, adding the intellectual arguments to support what common sense already grasps. Contrast Paul and John, and one sees a difference in age that I suspect spans at least one generation, yet these two worked as equals in God’s kingdom.
All of these three, whose writings we are familiar with, had one message to deliver, one Gospel to preach. I have read theological treatises that speak of a Pauline doctrine, a Johanine doctrine, and a Petrine doctrine, as though these three men had taken what God gave and came up with their own version of things. Stuff and nonsense! There is one Gospel, one doctrine, one God of Truth, and it is this One of whom all three teach and write. It takes the same preconception of ideas that threatens to lead us astray in reading this account to make of their teaching three different gospels. No! There is a unity of purpose, and a unity of message between the Apostles, as there was bound to be, given the divine source from which they taught. One Holy Spirit, indwelling all who labor in Jesus’ purposes, ensures one message, one Truth, one unified whole towards which all are working.
There is a subtlety of wording in this passage which has not survived translation. As John lays out the story for us, he tells us how Jesus found the temple made a marketplace. Later, we read that Jesus said that if the temple were destroyed, He would raise it up in three days. However, the terminology used to speak of the temple has changed between these two points, and in an important way.
In those opening verses, where Jesus’ actions are described, John uses the word hieron to indicate the temple. This word, in the Greek, talks about the whole of the temple area, all its courtyards, its storehouses, its walls, porches, gates, and so on, as well as the temple structure itself. Later, as attention turns to what Jesus said, He uses the word naon when He talks of raising the Temple. This is a far more restrictive term, and considers only the main structure of the Temple proper, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.
Now, I am feeling any number of directions I could take this, any number of lessons to be drawn. I shall begin in considering that the Greek words fit the Jewish temple structure well, but the words existed because they also fit the structure of the Greek temples. One might suppose that this similarity had come about because Herod had had his hand in the construction, and he was well acquainted with Greek and Roman style. In part, this would be true. As Fausset’s noted, none of the previous Temple complexes had had such an expanse of courtyards as did Herod’s. The outer court, in particular, was an improvement he devised that was not to be found in either Solomon’s original, or in the rebuilt temple.
Yet, it is to be found in God’s plan and purpose. This was not, as it might seem, Greek culture invading and informing Jewish. Quite the contrary, this was Herod, by no means a friend of God, doing God’s bidding quite unaware of the fact. See, Ezekiel had already written of this outer court many long years in the past. He had seen it as he contemplated the new Jerusalem that would mark the establishment of God’s kingdom. Ezekiel spends a great deal of time detailing the Temple that will stand in that place, and it is quite evidently not the temple that was rebuilt in Nehemiah’s day. Indeed, the Fausset article points out that the outer courtyard that Ezekiel saw was of a scale that would encompass all that was Jerusalem when Herod was building his version of it.
Now, there are those who would look at the similarity of the Jewish and Greek approach to temples, the presence of these courtyards surrounding a central shrine, and conclude from that that the Jews had simply drawn from the surrounding culture in fashioning their own religion. In fairness, there can be little doubt that the Jews were constantly succumbing to such outside influences on the fabric of their faith. Of course, God had warned them of this when first they came into Canaan. He had warned them of the dangers of not eradicating the Canaanites from the land, but they felt they knew better. They let it stand.
God, You are opening so many vistas here! How shall I keep up?
Here is lesson number one for me. After all, I have the same basic issue. I leave things standing. In spite of the warnings to separate myself, in spite of the repeated calls to holiness, I leave the sinful things around me. I can argue that I have little choice in the matter. I must go make a living. I must do any number of things to sustain my family. These require that I go out and mix it up with the unsaved. But, that’s not really the point here. Israel had been given direct command to go in and eradicate the sinful presence that was polluting their own land, God’s own land. They disobeyed. Pure and simple, they were derelict in their duty.
They left the pollution flowing. They made themselves friends and neighbors to the most reprehensible idolatry. They caused themselves to look on the ‘fun’ that these sinners were having, allowed their flesh, their passions to be inflamed by the lustful pursuits they saw the Canaanites enjoying. They were sucked in. Soon, they were participating in these acts. Oh, they could doubtless comfort themselves that they didn’t really believe in whatever god was being honored, they just wanted to join in the fun. It was God in His temple that really had their faith, but in the meantime, they felt they ought to fit in. Before long, they had been deluded into offering their own children as sacrifice to these gods they played with. Was it still fun? I don’t think so. Was there still any sense in them that they were just trying to fit in? I don’t think so. Was there any hope in their minds that they could break free? I don’t think so.
This is what comes of allowing sin to stand. We think we’re just playing with it. We think that it’s ok, because our faith is in God. We think, and more fool us for thinking so, that we can set it aside and forget about it whenever we want to. And we continue to think that right up until we decide we want to and discover we can’t. Indeed, we realize that things have progressed far beyond what we planned to allow. We realize that the ‘fun’ we had pursued has become deadly, with not even the slightest hint of fun remaining. We realize that it is no longer in our power to stop ourselves, to free ourselves.
Do you know, every sin is a sin of idolatry! Every sin is, in some way or another, rejecting God’s sole claim to sovereignty and setting up another in His place. If every sin is idolatry, then every sin is playing about with the devil, every sin becomes an act of demon worship, just as every man who ever bowed down to an idol had bowed himself down to a demon. That’s the reality of it, and if we think these demons are going to treat their worshipers well, we simply haven’t learned a thing from all the history of mankind! No, the pattern continues to run the same. Offer an enticing tidbit to draw the crowds – perhaps a bit of prostitution, they love that sex stuff! Yes, draw them in with all manner of sensual delight, and once we have them hooked, well, we can take away the pleasures and reveal the chains, the bonds that now hold them in place. We needed give them any further incentives. What matter incentives when you hold the key to their prison cell?
The personal risk in leaving these things standing in our presence are great, but they are not the only danger. There is also the danger that we will begin accepting such things as a part of our own worship. Wasn’t this at least a part of what had happened in Jerusalem? Why were these rather Grecian additions to the Temple accepted by the priests? It might be that they simply felt they had no choice but to accept Herod’s offer, but that would hardly be in keeping with the general temperament of the people. They had not shown themselves particularly willing to accept what they did not like, even when no choice was offered. Rather, I think the answer lay in the fact that the priests saw a chance to increase their revenues. They had seen how priests in these other temples were doing. They were well off, turning a fine profit on those who came to ogle their idols. Why shouldn’t the priests of God get a cut of that action? By all means, put in a courtyard for those from other nations to visit. They can leave their offerings to our God, even if we will not allow them to approach too closely. Oh, and you are surely aware that our God is very picky about what is offered Him. It’s ok, though, we’ll provide the offerings. We’re not nearly so picky about your money.
It still happens in our churches today. Just follow the story on gay marriage, as church after church suddenly decides that God doesn’t determine their policy, popular sentiment does. What do they have left to offer to a people in need, when they refuse to confront the need? What help are they when they have become yes-men to fallen man? Look, for that matter, at the mega-church movement, the televangelistic explosion. It’s all about hype. It’s all about packaging, just like any other product. It’s all about making the numbers for the quarter.
I know I comment on this pretty regularly, but it remains a stench on the spiritual landscape that our Christian bookstores have become purveyors of trinkets, gift-shops full of tacky ornaments, junk stamped with the name of Jesus to make it acceptable to a people with no discernment. If I take our local examples as typical, I find two or three aisles out of the entire store that have actual books on the shelves, instead of statuettes, plaques and other items that would be more at home in a tourist trap gift shop. Of those few aisles from which the business has taken its name (it is a bookstore, after all, at least according to the sign outside), one aisle is devoted to Bibles of all sorts, especially those new ones that are targeted to specific audiences. You know, God’s Word for Teens, The Bible for Moms, The Scriptures for Single Moms, The New World Translation for the Apostate. Name it. Label yourself. We’ve got a special variant reading to fit your lifestyle! How long before the NHV hits the shelves, the New Homosexual Version, with all the condemnations against that lifestyle conveniently removed so you won’t be embarrassed?
So, what have we on the other shelves? Well, let’s see. There’s an aisle or so of self-help treatises disguised as religious training. There’s several aisles of second-rate romance novels that mention God and Jesus sufficiently often to satisfy the pious. Yep, and we’ve got them for your kids, too! Why should they suffer reading anything like real literature. Feed ‘em this pap up front, and they’ll do fine! There’s probably a shelf or three of autobiographical tomes on the various pop icons of modern faith. Then finally, we find that one rack of books that have some serious use, the commentaries, dictionaries, and classic, serious texts of Christianity. Oddly, the sales people seem almost surprised to find this rack in their store. They certainly haven’t heard of any of these texts. Their authors apparently didn’t have a sufficient PR team working for them back in the earlier centuries.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll doubtless say it again. You can’t just stamp the word ‘Jesus’ on the world and suddenly have something righteous. You can’t just wrap a Scripture around the things of the world and thereby make them acceptable in the sight of God. It’s not about trinkets and trappings, folks! When God said to write His words on the walls of your house, He wasn’t offering a decorating tip. He was making a point. The point is that you’re so infernally forgetful that you need to have these reminders right under your nose wherever you turn. The point is that you are surrounded by the influences of the world, and if you’re not paying attention to what God really said, you’re going to convince yourself that the way the world is is the way God wants it. You’re going to slide into thinking everything’s just fine when in reality you’re slipping those manacles over your wrists and resuming your place in the prison cell. Yes, the manacles look like a nice bracelet. Yes, they probably have some catchy phrase, a nice symbol, maybe a handy chapter & verse reference on them, but they are not Christianity. They are garbage, sucking the funds out of the church and returning them to the world. Last I read, the Church was supposed to benefit from the transfer of wealth from the wicked, not give it to them wholesale!
Perhaps the church should try and remember the story of Manhattan. History tells us that the original occupants of that land sold it off to the foreigners for a few handfuls of pretty beads. It puts me in mind of Esau, giving away the inheritance that was his in God for a lousy meal of baked beans. But, we’re doing the same thing! We’re pouring out cash to some Chinese shop stamping out red rubber bracelets and thinking that this is somehow a religious statement. Look around, folks! There are bracelets of every color out there. Everybody’s got one. Shoot, most of ‘em have at least four, each with its word to remind the wearer of. They don’t make a statement any more, beyond ‘oh, look, another rubber bracelet.’ Then we’ve got our car magnets, ribbons of random coloration, each with their thing we ought to remember, except we can’t read them traveling at 65MPH, so all we remember is that it seems every car out there has its collection of ribbons, and somebody in China’s getting rich on these things. Clue in! The folks making this junk could care less what’s written on them. They don’t read them any more than you do. What they read is the profits coming into the company month by month. If a particular word in a particular color sells, then boom! Sell it! They’re just as happy to sell you your anti-abortion bracelets as they are to sell the opposition their pro-choice bracelets. They don’t care about issues, folks! And they’re getting rich feeding ammo to both sides.
Now, let me return to this idea that the temple, that Jewish religion in general, was an amalgam of preceding religions. One must grant that there are similarities, for instance, between the record of the Old Testament and the records of other early populations. The Flood, for instance, is not spoken of solely in Genesis. The modern skeptic looks at this data and, having rejected the Flood as a possibility, determines that one of these stories must have copied the other. So, since the other texts are from an older time, they decide that whoever it was who wrote Genesis must have been thinking of that earlier myth, and simply modified it to fit his audience.
Well, let’s consider it from the other side for a moment. If the Flood was a real and actual occurrence, wouldn’t it be rather shocking if record of it wasn’t found in these ancient records? If the Biblical account of the Flood is accurate, and only Noah and his family survived the event, then is it really surprising that other descendants of his line than the Jews might have memory of it? Given that those other descendants had chosen to reject God in favor of other deities, is it surprising that they would change the details of this event they felt was undeniable so that they could at least deny the God behind the event?
The question, then, becomes this: who copied who? Which is the real and which the counterfeit? I would have to maintain that how one answers that question is largely dependent on what one chooses as a starting point. If you have already decided the Bible is false, then you, like those other ancient civilizations, will do what you need to do to maintain that belief. You will insist on perceiving life and history through whatever lens allows you to continue in denial of the Biblical account. You will not be bothered with trying to make sense of that account, having already discounted it as a possibility. To suggest that with such a mindset you can proceed to review and interpret the facts without prejudice is nonsense.
In fairness, if I come to it with a belief that the Bible is true, I am no less free of bias. Face it. Nobody comes to the evidence without bias. The only questions are what bias, and do we come to things aware of our own bias. See, as one who believes the Bible to be God’s word, and therefore believes the things that the Bible teaches, I see that there has been a falling out in heaven that predates the events of this world we know. I see that there are spiritual forces roving the earth that are sworn enemies of the God of creation, that despise man and will do whatever is in their power to cause man, that object of God’s special attentions, to turn on God. If this is the real situation, is it not to be expected that the false religions this enemy sets up will bear some resemblance to the real? If the Devil who leads this enemy was, as the Scriptures indicate, once an important member of God’s heavenly courts, would he not have at least some knowledge of what God’s design of a temple to Himself might be like? If he were set on deceiving those whom God had directed in their worship of Him, would he not of necessity borrow heavily from those directions in designing his mimicries?
Now, this whole conversation might seem like a separate discussion than that of the state of our current Christian marketplace, but I don’t think it is. The question remains who is copying who? The problem is that in large part the answer has become we are copying the world. In style of music, in style of dress, we are no longer willing to stand out from the crowds of the lost. Instead, we envy them, we emulate them. How many times is our pastor going to have to shout from the pulpit that the way we are dressing in God’s house is an offense to Him we claim to worship? How long will he need to decry the fact that God’s children are coming into His house dressed to entice? How long will we choose to draw each other into sin rather than to strengthen each other in holiness?
How long will we choose to copy the world that we are supposed to change? If we will not stand up and be different, if we will not insist on living our lives in the way God has required, if we will not reject out of hand the culture of sex that has permeated everything around us, how can we hope to have any impact? How can we hope to stand before our Maker? How can we think that He is pleased with us?
The church at large is busily looking to the world around it for ideas. It has accepted the idea of marketing. You won’t find any support for that in the Bible. Far from it! I see God forever thinning out the numbers, lest man get it in his head that he’s really something. I see a church looking to the business world to tell it how to run its affairs when the church ought to be standing out as an example to the business world. What sort of ethics can we possibly expect to gain from an entity solely focused on profit, on mammon? Come on! How do we think we’re going to turn the world upside down if all we’re doing is copying the world’s every vice? How are we going to help the sanctity of marriage by sharing, even besting the world’s divorce rate? How are we going to foster honor for the order of God’s creation by welcoming same sex marriage at the altars given to Him who condemns the idea of such unions? How are we going to heal the sin of such unions when we install the unrepentant practitioners of that very sin in the pulpit? How will we purify the community around us if we refuse to purify ourselves?
Considering the structure of the Temple area, with its several courtyards, the idea of there being these valences of holiness came to mind. In the structure of the atom, we are taught that the electrons orbit the nucleus in different valences. The Temple was built with a similar idea. Each part of the complex in succession, as it provided closer approach to the Holy of Holies, required a greater degree of holiness. The farthest court was the Court of the Gentiles, those who were God seekers, but not of the ‘chosen people.’ Then there was the Women’s Court. These were, in the thought of that culture, not as righteous as the men. The distinction had come down even from Moses, who specified a longer period of purification after the birth of a daughter than after a son was born.
Next came the Men’s Courtyard, closer, even approaching on the Holy Place, but not given entry to that building. Only the priests and Levites could enter into the Holy Place, the final chamber before reaching the Holy of Holies. That last chamber only the high priest was given leave to enter, and that only on the one day of the year that God permitted it, for this was the place of God’s abode.
I bring this up because it has some significance for the life of the believer. Now, it seems clear that the arrangement of courtyards was not entirely in keeping with God’s design. Certainly those last two places, the places of greatest holiness were, but the multiplicity of courtyards beyond seems to have gone beyond what was commanded. Still, it gives us a good example.
See, those electrons orbiting their nucleus are capable of gaining or losing energy, and with those fluctuations they may move from one valence to another. If the fluctuations are too great, there is the possibility that they will cease orbiting that nucleus in favor of another. I see that in the courtyards, albeit in a rather reversed order. The electron moves farther from the nucleus as its energy increases. We, on the other hand, are able to draw closer to the central Holy of Holies as our ‘energy’ of righteousness and sanctification increases.
We begin in that outermost court, perhaps hanging at the very edges. We are curious about this God we’ve heard about, but not yet willing to commit to the life He presents. Eventually, though, the draw of His light brings us closer, more fully into that outer courtyard. Yet, we are far from clean. We dare not to approach Him too closely, for we are at least aware enough to realize our own condition. Oh, but how we want to be cleaner, so we can go into that next courtyard, so we can be that much nearer to Him!
Well, this we know: He is faithful to continue the work in us to allow that closer approach. He begins whittling away at the sins we have attached to ourselves, begins scrubbing away the filth of our old life. As His purifying process proceeds, we find we are able to approach closer to His abode. Yet, there remains that point we cannot proceed beyond. The cleansing must be more thorough before we can pass to the nearest courtyard. I am quite certain that if we come to a point where we are allowing Him to work but not actively pursuing righteousness in what strength we have, then we will never pass beyond those courtyards. We will be as those who attain to heaven, but have made a close thing of it. If we would proceed beyond the courtyards, into the Holy Place, we must expend our own effort. We must work out our own salvation (Php 2:12), even as we recognize that our only hope of success and salvation lies in Jesus Christ alone.
Is that not the very lesson we learn from the rebuilding of the Temple? Is that not exactly what God’s people were doing in that return from exile? They knew it was beyond them to complete the work of rebuilding, yet they went to it with everything that was in them. But at one and the same time, they prayed as though they couldn’t do a thing, as though there were no strength in them at all. So it is with our salvation, our sanctification. We can not hope to achieve it by our own effort, yet at the same time we cannot hope to achieve it without our own effort. It will take everything we have to reach a condition that is satisfactory for gaining entrance into the Sanctuary of God’s Presence, for He will not abide the least sin in His presence. Yet everything we have doesn’t even begin to be enough. It needs Christ Jesus, and it needs the Holy Spirit whom He has sent as our Counselor and our Comfort. It takes prayer without ceasing added to our own resistance of temptation. Otherwise, we will remain in those outer courts, sensing the nearness of God, yet never really seeing Him, never really knowing Him.
In this idea of greater requirements as one comes closer to the central shrine, the Jewish temple was not different from the temples of the Greeks. In structure and in organization, the similarities are there. It is this similarity that provided the Greek language with the distinction of words needed to describe the Temple. They already understood the organization of the inclusive heiron surrounding the central naos. It was exactly as their own temples were designed, the one central shrine, with all its rules and restrictions and limited access, surrounded by various courtyards and chambers to which one gained entrance only by the appropriate compliance. The further from the naos, the less one needed to comply with.
If I’ve not noted it yet, I’ll note it here. Both of these words are used in the text at hand. Jesus takes action in the heiron, the overall grounds of the Temple, but when He offers the requested sign, He speaks of the naos, the Temple itself, God’s habitation. In between the event and the word, He makes a comment to those selling pigeons – and it is interesting that He reserved this message for those salesmen in particular. In that comment, He complains of their making “My Father’s house a house of merchandise”. Here, He is introducing a third term, oikon. Oikon is a word that speaks of something more than a building or its grounds. It is specific in its application. It indicates an inhabited dwelling, a house; but not only the physical structure of that house, but also those who dwell within the house, the family.
Once again, it seems God is putting a number of things in mind that I ought to pursue here. Let me start with His choice of reserving this message for the pigeon salesmen. Why these in particular? Well, I am reminded that the pigeon was the sacrifice reserved for the poorest of the poor. In fact, the whole point of allowing the pigeon as a sacrifice was that it was the one thing that the poor could get hold of without paying for it! Even the family with absolutely nothing to their name could go out into the lands around Jerusalem and catch a pigeon or two to offer to God. Yet, here on the very grounds of His Holy House, His own servants were taking these poor folks money in exchange for what they ought to have had for free!
Now, as I discussed at home group this week, the idea of buying your sacrifice rather than taking it from your own goods was already a cheapening of the matter, and therefore an offense to God. The sacrifice had been reduced to a mere gift. It was no longer a giving of oneself, but just giving. It was the difference between tithing and just tossing a few bills in. However, in selling pigeons, the offense was increased. Whereas the other issues cheapened the sacrifice, turning a profit on making the people’s offering a worthless mockery, this matter of the pigeons did all that and added to the mix the fact that they were extorting from the poor. Is it any wonder He was offended!
Now, I’m looking again at the comment He makes specifically to these men. They make “My Father’s house a house of merchandise.” I want to look at that in three pieces. First, there is the incredible challenge contained in Jesus identifying the place as My Father’s house. It is not just The Father, but My Father. There is a claim that lies within that choice of words that the priests and rabbis could not fail to miss. It was a claim that in the course of three years would become such an offense in their minds that they would have Jesus put to death for it. Only One could make such a claim of that place, and of the Father who dwelt therein, and as much as Israel awaited that One, the ones who tended to His house and His people were not so anxious. His arrival, it seemed to them, would bring an end to their power. If the King is in residence, what need remains for His deputies? They had lost sight of their purpose, and made their own position their purpose. It was this abuse of power that had led to the presence of these markets in the Temple courtyards to begin with. If my memory serves correctly, the markets had existed for some time, but had been located away from the Temple in years past, so that God in His house would not be disturbed by the noise.
This was in keeping with what I read of the quarried stone used to build the Temple. All the finishing work of chiseling that stone into proper shape for its position in the wall was done while the stone remained at the quarry. Only when it was perfectly prepared was it brought to take its place in the building. Why? Because they would not have it that God was disturbed by the construction projects on His house.
Now, let me turn to that word ‘house.’ It is not just the building Jesus is bringing up here, it is the house and the family that live there. Who is that family? Is Jesus thinking solely of the Temple, God’s habitation as He declares this, or is He thinking of the whole grounds? It’s an important distinction, for if He has the naos in mind, then those who dwell in the house would be God alone. If, however, He is thinking more along the lines of heiron, then those who dwell in the house, it seems to me, includes all those who believe on God. This last certainly seems to fit the setting more fully. It was not, after, in the naos that these men had set up their stalls, but in the heiron. It was not God who was so negatively impacted by their perversion of worship, but His family, His children, those who came seeking to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
Thinking of the Father’s house in that sense, look at that last point, that they have made it a ‘house of merchandise.’ It comes back to that cheapening of the sacrifice. The house of God, His family, because of the perversion of worship introduced by a profit hungry priesthood, was no longer a family whose hearts and minds were wholly on God, but rather a family whose hearts and minds were wholly on how much the sacrifice was going to cost them, whether they could successfully haggle over the price, and where they would come up with the funds to buy anything in the first place. They were made a house of merchandise. Product and commerce was their father, and God was reduced to little more than a reason for commerce.
As offensive as this abuse of the courtyards was, in the sight of God, it was as nothing when compared with the abuse of His family. Think of it in human terms. If somebody damages my house, my car, my property, I can get over that pretty quickly. If I find a bit of trash in the front yard that somebody has thrown out in passing, it’s annoying, but I throw out the trash and move on. But, start trashing my wife, my child? Do them harm? Lead them astray? We’ve got trouble! Though forgiveness is required of me, it’s going to be a challenge, and you might want to stay away until God’s had a chance to work it out with me. Indeed, don’t be waiting around for an invitation to come back. Even if there’s forgiveness, the likelihood that I’m going to lay my family open to another attack from you is pretty slim. Well, if we, who are sinful, are so worked up over the harm done to our family, how much more do you suppose God is angered by those who abuse His family? I tell you, He who has declared you the apple of His eye is a most jealous guard over the welfare of your soul. How His wrath burns against those who would lead you into the pathways of sin! How His wrath burns against those who would give you false hope, who would make of your earnest love for Him a mockery, who would seek to convince you to seek adoption by some other family. Their end will not be pleasant.
The cleansing of the Temple is one of the few things that all four Gospels cover. However, when one looks at the other three accounts, it is found near the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Skeptics will look upon this as proof that the stories are inconsistent. I find that this is not the case. For one thing, it seems clear from the rest of John’s gospel that he is more concerned with filling in the gaps in the other three accounts. He doesn’t pursue another version of the same events. Those have been covered perfectly well, but there is so much more that happened in those three years.
Secondly, I notice some very clear distinctions between the event that John describes and that which the others write about. Foremost amongst these is the focus of Jesus’ concern. In this earlier event, He speaks of them making His Father’s house a marketplace. In that latter case, He declares that they have made it a robbers’ den. Furthermore, in this first event, His concern is wholly upon the salesmen and their wares. He chases them out and disperses their goods. However, when we come to the account that the others relate, we find Him driving out not only the sellers, but also the buyers (Mt 21:12, Mk 11:15, Lk 19:45).
Something has changed between these two events. That the Temple authorities should have reinstituted their profitable markets is hardly surprising. I don’t think Jesus was taken by surprise when He found the salesmen back again. Yet, He is more disturbed this time. I think we might suppose that it is because this time, the buyers ought to have known better.
Let me explain. From what I gather both from the text, from the general sensibility of the Jews and from other reading, it seems that these markets had been set up in the court of the Gentiles. Why do I say this is fitting? Well, to begin with, this courtyard was an addition that Herod had made to the place. It is more surprising that the priests acquiesced to Herod’s plan without a fight than that they made such use of it as they did once it was there. This idea of the outermost courtyard was not something they could find example of in the history of the Temple. Solomon’s temple hadn’t had one. Ezra’s temple hadn’t had one. Only in the visions of Ezekiel was such a thing mentioned. I doubt even this had come to their minds as a reason to approve, though. The motive was pure profit.
They could not allow the Gentiles to enter into the Temple complex. Too much of their religious code forbade the very idea, and the people would never tolerate it. Well, to their way of thinking, this was depriving them of a source of income. The new courtyard was just the thing to allow for that income to come to them. Not only that, but these foreigners who came to make their offerings to the God of Israel would not know what was right and proper. All the other temples were considerate enough to make sure that the worshipers coming to their shrines would have the appropriate offerings to give. Why not Israel? And, of course their foreign coin could not be accepted in the coffers of the Temple. It must be converted to the proper shekel first.
Now, why would they have needed moneychangers if the markets were for the Jews? This is one evidence that the purpose was to draw in the Gentiles, but not too close. Sadly, though it had been Israel’s purpose from the start to draw the Gentiles to God, to make God known to the nations, they had taken such an isolationist view of the job that most of their energy was spent keeping the nations away from their God. Now, though they made this concession to the rest of the world, they weren’t doing so to make God known to the nations, nor to draw the nations to God. They were doing it for mammon. They didn’t particularly want the Gentiles around, but they’d take their money. And, since they were little more than dogs in the mind of the Jew, what did it matter how noisy and noisome their courtyard was made by all this livestock?
Another clue to the location of the marketplaces lies in Mark’s account of that second cleansing. The others note Jesus as having said that God’s House was to be a house of prayer. Only Mark captures a critical addition to what was said. It was to be a house of prayer for all nations (Mk 11:17). Given Jesus’ penchant for drawing His words from the scenes unfolding around Him, this would suggest, at least, that He was among the representatives of those nations, that is to say, the Gentiles in that outer courtyard.
Finally, there is a seemingly unrelated event towards the end of John’s Gospel that one must consider. Looking ahead to John 12:20-23, we see a scene wherein a group of Gentile God-seekers approaches Philip, seeking audience with this Jesus. Why Philip? Because He was from Bethsaida, a city where Jews and Gentiles had long interacted. He wasn’t so aloof from them as the Jerusalem natives were. He was approachable. Why were they so curious about Jesus? Because He had shown care for them in this clearing of the Temple. It was their courtyard He had cleared. Nobody else had shown any concern for their ability to worship God. The officialdom of the Temple had merely taken their money and misled them as to what honored the God they sought to please. Jesus had twice sought to put an end to this nonsense, and those that were their with an earnest desire to pursue the God of all creation recognized that in Him they had found the One who would help them in that desire, rather than simply seeking to profit from them.
I think this is part of why Jesus was upset with the buyers only on that second occasion. The first time He came, they knew no better. They knew only what the Temple authorities were telling them. After all, if the priests of the Temple said this was the acceptable way, what reason did these who were newly come to faith have to think otherwise? But, having once cleared out the marketplace, He had reason to expect that they would then understand the error in what they had been shown to do. They had had two years now to seek Him out, yet they had not come to Him. He had freed them from their bondage, but they had returned to that bondage of their own accord, rather than accept the freedom He had given them.
Oh my! There’s the lesson. I wrote earlier about what had happened to Israel because they had left the influence of idolatry in the land, rather than obeying God in full. Isn’t this the same issue? The offering that the Gentiles had been trained to make was nothing but idolatry brought into the house of God. It was not the earnest offering it ought to have been. We could look at them and feel pity upon them for having been misled. We could lay the blame wholly at the feet of those priests who had led them astray. We could, except for this one thing: One came, saying that this was wrong, and rather than finding out what was right, they went back to that wrong thing.
It’s an equation of sin. It’s a reflection of the daily battle of the believer. We come to God imperfectly. It’s a given. We come, hopefully, doing our best to honor Him as we ought, to worship Him as we ought. Yet, if any one of us looks honestly at himself, he will no doubt find things that are not as they ought to be. If we don’t see that, it’s only because we are not looking, at least not with honest and open eyes. However far we may have progressed in faith and sanctification, if we think we have arrived at the acceptable state before we reach that time when we will see Him as He truly is, then we have fooled ourselves, and increased our sinfulness in that very thought!
No, we will not know perfection this side of heaven. Yet, the clear counsel of Scripture is that we must not give up trying. Though sanctification is wholly by Jesus’ blood and effort, still we are told to work it out for ourselves. Though His sacrifice as bought forgiveness for all our sins, yet we are called to resist the devil, to flee the temptations. We are warned that we dare not use His forgiveness as our excuse to continue unchanged. We are told to persevere, for we have not yet resisted sin unto bloodshed (Heb 12:4). Indeed, we are to strive against sin, but always with the understanding that it’s going to be Jesus who breaks us free, or else we will remain in bonds.
What, though, after He has brought that freedom? The temptation to return to our bonds is strong. The one who holds the chains is deceptive. He knows how to make them look inviting again. He is, we are told, a roving lion, looking to and fro to see whom he might destroy and devour. Too often, we find ourselves perfectly content to return to our prison cell, even though He has procured our freedom. Isn’t this exactly what had Jesus upset when He found the marketplace going full force again? He had bought freedom for the Gentiles, had pointed out the error of the cheap and artificial forms of worship they were being led into, but rather than pursue the Truth, they had returned to the comfortable forms of idolatry. They showed a preference for offending God by insisting on the ways they knew, rather than honoring Him by the way He commanded.
As John tells us of this event, the shadows of the story’s end are manifold. This, by the way, is yet another evidence that he wrote for a people long familiar with the other accounts. As I said, he writes with the intent of covering some of those things the others had either forgotten, or simply chosen to omit. Here, he very clearly points to the end of the story, as he notes how the disciples recalled this early event, understanding it only after He had risen.
Another thing I see here is the seed of those charges that would be leveled against Jesus in the final days. They had asked Him for a sign of, some evidence of the authority He displayed. He suggested that if they were to destroy the temple, He would rebuild it in three days. Two years later, in that travesty of a court that the Sanhedrin put together, folks would come forth claiming that Jesus had said He Himself would destroy the Temple and rebuild it (Mt 26:61, Mk 14:58). Now to say He could rebuild the structure was merely an incredible claim, as it was intended to be. To say He could or would destroy the house of God, on the other hand, this was something serious. Was it blasphemous? Quite possibly. But the fact remains that this is not what He had said. It was a corruption of the truth.
Later, finding that destroying Jesus wasn’t enough to stop the Truth, they came to destroy Philip as well. They came with the same nonsense, only stretched even further out of shape. Now, they would claim that he said Jesus would yet come and destroy the Temple, that Jesus would change the Law (Ac 6:14). Now, these claims were patently false. Indeed, Jesus repeatedly said that He had come to fulfill the Law, not to dispense with it. However, the enemy knows that if he can salt just enough of the truth into his lies, we will hear what we want to hear. We won’t hear the truth. We won’t hear the lie. We will hear exactly what we want to.
It is a common recognition that this is what happens as messages are passed on from one to the next. With each new telling, the story changes slightly, the message is garbled a little more, until the final version is unrecognizable as even relating to the original. This ought to serve as a caution to us on so many levels. We need to be careful to listen to those things that are handed to us as truth, to examine them in the light of the Truth and see if they be so. We need to beware that when the lie is told, it will be but a grain planted amidst a field of truths. It will come not as a blatant declaration, but as an almost invisible distortion in an otherwise accurate statement. If we are not careful in our listening, we will miss it. We will not only miss it, but we’ll accept it, and before long we will find that we have wandered terribly far afield.
It would be seen again, this way that expectations distort the truth in our eyes. The new Church, established by God at Jesus’ behest through the agency of the Holy Spirit, still hadn’t accepted that God cared for the whole world, not just their own nation. Their view was still limited. God had to act in decisive fashion to convince them that He meant what He said, that His house would indeed be a house of prayer for all nations. Some will argue that this was the sole purpose of the gift of tongues, simply to convince the pillars of the First Church of Christ Jesus in Jerusalem that it wasn’t just about Jerusalem. Therefore, they explain, we see the Samaritans included, with the evidence that the Apostles felt they needed to hear, the gift of tongues that they had received at their commissioning on that day of Pentecost. Later still, this same gift was poured out on the Gentiles in Antioch. But, the First Church wasn’t ready to accept this yet, and certain members of that Church made their way to Antioch, explaining that these Gentiles must first become Jews by Mosaic Law before they could possibly be acceptable in God’s sight.
Well, God was ready. He had His own representatives in that congregation, and they knew better. They knew what had passed in this Antioch congregation, and recognized that what proof God had offered made the claims of further requirements for acceptance ludicrous. So, the folks in Antioch sent a delegation down to the First Church of Jerusalem, to seek a ruling. These two were chosen very carefully. First and foremost, they were themselves Jews, so there ought be no problem with their reception. Secondly, they were well versed in Jewish Law, and so would be able to argue the case for Antioch in accord with that Law. Thirdly, and most importantly, they were themselves eye-witnesses to the outpouring in Antioch. By the mouths of two or three reliable witnesses, let the truth be established. Well, the evidence they bore to Jerusalem in defense of the Gentile inclusion was simply this: God, Who knows the heart, testifies to them (Ac 15:8). There’s the third witness. How does He testify to them, we might imagine the apostles asking. Paul’s answer is concise, as always. He testifies to them in precisely the same way He has testified to us. He gave them the Holy Spirit.
Well, as much as their expectations had distorted their sense of the Church mission, this certainly set things straight! Here was irrefutable evidence borne to their ears by reliable and authoritative witnesses. It was no matter of rumor, no second or third-hand report, but the direct report of an apostle on the scene. Their expectations, their preconceptions, would have to change to accommodate the truth.
Now, I mentioned that many in the more established denominations view this as the sole purpose of the gift of tongues. Yet, I have to wonder if this isn’t in itself a case of expectations distorting the truth. Of course, it could as easily be maintained, one supposes, that I am the one suffering that issue. However, I offer this simple point: The gift of tongues clearly continued well after the events in Antioch had settled the question of who was acceptable in God’s house. Years later, we still find Paul discussing the topic with the church in Corinth. It is evident from his letter to them that the gifts of the Spirit were still flowing in full at that time. Why? If the only point of that outpouring was to determine who was welcome and who was not, then this continuation was a frivolous act on God’s part, and I don’t find my God behaving in frivolous fashion, especially when it comes to His Church, His family, His bride.
This same viewpoint looks at 1Corinthians 13:10, and finds in it a reason not to accept the gifts today. Why? What has Paul said? He says that the gifts will cease, because they are a partial thing. They are not the perfect perception of all things, the perfect declaration of all things, but a partial revelation, a glimpse of the whole, but not the whole. He then points out that when the perfect comes, these partial things will be done away with. Those who reject the gifts as active today will tell us the perfect has come already, that it came with the earthly ministry of Jesus. Yet, there is not a single example of the gift of tongues given until after He returned to His heavenly home. Indeed, the whole period of that activity could not begin, by His own declaration, until He had returned thence and sent forth the Holy Spirit to counsel and to teach His people.
Others avoid this mistake by indicating that the gifts were also there to establish the authority of the Apostles as the founders of the Church. While this allows for the timeframe more readily, though, it doesn’t appear to have any particular correlation to those few cases we have recorded in the text. Paul’s presentation of the Antioch evidence makes it plain that at least a part of the purpose behind these gifts was to deliver God’s own testimony about the hearts of those who claimed to be believers. Yet, his writing to the Corinthians declares a greater purpose, if we will but understand his point. Of course, when the Perfect comes we can forget about the partial. When He has come with the whole picture, what need have we of glimpses. But, to suppose He has delivered that whole picture in His brief visit is to deny, it seems to me, the world in which we live. We still see in part. That was Paul’s point, after all. We see in part, know in part, and therefore, we prophesy in part. We are still here in that condition by which we can only see as in a dim mirror (1Co 13:12). Only when we are in that place where we dwell face to face with our Lord shall we know as fully as we are known by Him. Has that time come? Is there a one amongst those who deny the active gifts of the Spirit in our day and age who will claim that perfect knowledge? I think not!
Why, then, the insistence that the gifts must be seen as an old thing, no longer available to man? What can it be except the expectations of rational man insisting that the truth bend to match expectations? We have grown up in an age that can no longer see the miraculous. We have grown up in an age that demands scientific proof in order to believe, and things such as these gifts deny such proofs. The laws of science are, after all, subject to God, and not the opposite. It is because He detests chaos that there is an order there for us to discern, but as the sovereign Creator of all things, if it is His purpose to allow exceptions to the rule, who are we to declare that He cannot do so?
Quite simply, Augustine is right. Until we are united with Him in eternity, we shall always be in the place of needing His partial revelations. Until we are joined with Him in that place where time does not apply, we shall always have need of those forward glimpses He delivers to us for our good. Of course, it is equally obvious, and that by the word of Scripture, that such gifts will be abused, will be counterfeited. The one who declares himself a prophet is not automatically to be taken as such a one. The word must be tested. The word must agree with what God has revealed of Himself. This is the counter to a further objection raised against the gifts. The charge is that those who practice the gifts place the revelation by gifts above the revelation by God’s written Word. If this is so amongst some of those who lay claim to the gifts, then the fault lies not with the gifts as declared in that written Word, but with those who have either taken to themselves a substitute, or have simply been careless with what was given them.
It strikes me that the counsel of the written Word of God is clear on this. It is made manifestly evident that the gifts in themselves are not the authority. If the prophet speaks what is not in keeping with God’s Word, he is no prophet of God. If the spirit we hear informs us of things that God would never allow, we must know that it is not the Holy Spirit we are hearing, but an imposter. The problem is not with the gifts, but with the recipients. If we are grown too lazy to test what we are being fed, it really matters not whether it is being fed to us by an abuser of the gifts, or an abuser of the pulpit.
The same logic that rejects the gifts because some have abused them, it seems to me must lead us to reject the pastorate for the same reasons. We must, by that thinking, reject the Church in general because some portions of it have gone astray. Now, that is manifest nonsense! If the men of the Reformation had taken that viewpoint, there would be no Reformation church today. But, we look at men like Martin Luther, and find that he had not thought of destroying the church for its errors and abuses, but rather of correction. Let the errors be amended and the abuses brought to an end, and he would have been quite content to remain a Roman Catholic. But they would not.
Today, there are any number of denominations in need of that same spirit of correction. It is as true amongst the more traditional denominations as it is amongst the Pentecostal and the Charismatic denominations. We can point to any number of abuses and failings. Yet, we can also point to those who, so far as can be discerned, still have it right. I doubt not that God has seen the abuses, and He will not suffer them to last long. Neither will He suffer His faithful ones to fall prey to such garbage. There will, sadly, be many who will wander after these ear-ticklers, who will shop about for a church that will condone their favorite sins. There are far too many walking about who prefer the delusion to the reality, who will settle for false comfort in chains rather than join the battle for true liberty and peace.
God, my prayer right now is that You would move to rescue those who are being so misled, who are trusting in mad counsel. Oh God! We need such a revival of sound belief in this nation! I know the fields are ripe, Father. There are so many out there looking for something to believe in. The death of belief that came with rationalism is fading, but now belief has lost its focus. Longing for something to believe in, they will believe anything. Father, You keep shining Your light into that darkness, I know. I see the cracks. I see the scientific community being tossed from the throne they set up for themselves. They sought to take upon themselves a moral authority that they could not attain to, and they have been found wanting. But still, I see a people that will not turn back to You. They cast about for somebody, anybody, to tell them what is right and true, but they will not have the Truth. The Truth is too difficult, and they prefer the easy lie. They claim to seek truth, but they seek only confirmation of their own deceptive imaginations.
Holy One, give us the boldness to continue to speak truth into that deception. Give us the words to reach these darkened minds. They cannot hear except You, Lord, open their ears. They will not understand except You, Lord, give meaning to the message, unless You clear away the cobwebs in their minds. Open their eyes, Lord. Open our eyes.
Lord, I pray that You would keep us from falling. Keep us from accepting the viewpoints that are expressed day in and day out around us. Let us not fall for the deceptive message, but ever and always turn to Your Word to discern the reality. Let us not cease to hear from You, Holy Spirit, as our need for Your counsel becomes greater and greater with each passing day. Oh, Lord, come swiftly! Let the time be short, lest we faint along the way. Come in Your strength and Your power, Mighty God, and declare Your kingdom once for all time!
