Jesus’ Righteous Anger
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle … Then the Jews demanded of him “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” John 2:13-15,18,19
The temple was the heart of Judaism. It was the centre not only of worship but of politics, of society, of national celebration and even national mourning for Israel. The temple was the focal point for the nation. But towering above all this, it was the place where Israel’s God had promised to live in the midst of His people. Everything that mattered most happened here.
The provision of cattle, sheep and doves, and the exchange of money were all necessary for temple worship. Pilgrims who had come down from Galilee (120 kilometres away) would not bring animals for sacrifice with them. Pilgrims from other countries would need to change their money into the temple currency.
Jesus’ anger had at least two causes. Firstly, we know from other historical sources that the temple priests charged utterly exorbitant amounts for temple sacrifices and massively inflated prices for currency exchange; secondly, all this went on in the Court of the Gentiles, the area set aside for those who were not Jews but who believed in the Jewish God and who had come to pray. Jesus saw this for what it really was.
It was ‘almost time for the Jewish Passover,’ the time when freedom from slavery, rescue and liberation were being celebrated. John the Baptist had already announced that Jesus was God’s Passover lamb (1:29,36). So here is Jesus who will soon become the true sacrifice for sins and who will inaugurate a new exodus of believers on their way to God’s true Promised Land.
Here is Jesus, standing in the temple, the same temple that had moved away from its God-given purpose as the meeting place between God and man. God had now sent His own Son to make ‘his dwelling among us’ (1:14). Jesus was the new meeting place between man and his God.
The temple was meant to be the place of atonement, where humanity could righteously come before its God. Jesus would soon lay down His own life as an atonement for the sin of the world.
The temple was meant to be the intersection between heaven and earth but it is Jesus who has angels ascending and descending on Him (1:51). He is the true intersection between this earth and holy heaven.
So here is Jesus fulfilling all the promises of the temple. No wonder he says “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” John adds the commentary ‘But the temple he had spoken of was his own body’ (2:20).
In this second chapter John has told us two extraordinary stories, turning the water into wine and the cleansing of the temple. Each is a key to Jesus’ mission. He has come to bring the old to an end (the temple) and become the source of God’s new wine of salvation for the world (the water into wine). These will be John’s overriding themes throughout his gospel.
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