Day 3 The Battle Lines

The Battle Lines

The battle lines are drawn. Jesus’ last entry into Jerusalem in Matthew 21 means His conflict with the temple and all it stood for is about to come out into the open. The crowds still only see Jesus as a prophet (21:11) and not the Messiah.
But when He entered the temple He did two things. Firstly He cleansed the temple (foretold in Malachi 3:1-5) by overturning the money tables. The temple charged exorbitant amounts for “acceptable” sacrifices. But Jesus statement tells us more: ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer but you are making it a robbers’ den’ (21:13). The word for robbers means someone using open violence and was distinguished from a thief who didn’t. So the word carried more the meaning of a revolutionary. Jesus was saying: those who looked after the temple were revolutionaries against the true God of the temple.
The second thing Jesus did was to heal the blind and the lame (21:14). A thousand years earlier the Jebusites had taunted David that their Jerusalem fortress was so impregnable that the blind and the lame could defend it against David’s army (2 Samuel 5:6).
Jesus turned this statement on its head (as He had done to the tables of the money-changers). The blind and the lame, those scorned by even Jewish polite society, were not outside the temple but inside, and were being healed!
The temple had failed to link humanity to its God. The priests served themselves. God’s patience had run out. Temple sacrifices were finished. God’s one and only sacrifice for sins had come. God’s Son would do what the temple had failed to do – unite God with His people forever. Only Jesus could do that.

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