December 8: The Holy One and Resurrected Redeemer

December 8

The Holy One and Resurrected Redeemer

Advent reading: Psalm 16; Job 19:23-27

Reading through the Old Testament, we find passages that seem to be only partially fulfilled. These texts call us to some future hope and fulfillment. One thousand years before Christ, King David evokes such a hope:

Psalm 16:10 (ESV) — For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.

And yet, on the Day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter would quote this passage and point out “the patriarch David… both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day” (Acts 2:27-29). David’s tomb was proof that the verse was to find its fulfillment not in David, but in the “holy one.”

Who was “the holy one”? The angel Gabriel told Mary, “The holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35, NIV). Demons called Jesus “the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34). The Apostle Peter confessed,

John 6:69 (ESV) — and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

So Peter announced that David spoke prophetically of his Offspring, the Son of David:

Acts 2:31–32 (ESV) — he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.

This resurrection of Christ, the Son of David, would be the guarantee of our future resurrection. As Job longed to see God, he knew that on the last day, the Resurrected Redeemer would him up:

Job 19:25–27 (ESV) — For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another…

“Because I live,” Jesus said, “you also will live” (John 14:19).

The Reality of the Resurrection

A very happy Resurrection Sunday to you! On this Resurrection Sunday morning, I would like to ask you a question. Just how important to the Christian faith, is Christ’s physical resurrection from the dead?

If archaeologists were to discover the bones of Jesus tomorrow, would you walk away from Christianity? What difference would it make if Christ were not raised from the dead?

Some Christians claim that if it could be proved to them beyond any doubt that Jesus did not rise from the read, their faith would nonetheless remain intact, that they would continue to love and serve Christ, knowing that he had never risen from the dead.

Other Christians understand that our faith is not some mystical experience but that it is rooted in history, that Jesus lived a real human life and died a real human death and was raised from the death with a real human, though glorified, body.

On several occasions, Jesus not only predicted his imminent death; he also predicted his resurrection.

Mark 8:31 ESV And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Mark 9:31-32 ESV for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” ³² But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.

Mark 10:33-34 ESV saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. ³⁴ And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”

As Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias has said,

If Jesus had been a fake, he would have said that he would rise again spiritually, and they would never be able to falsify it. But he did not. He said that he would bodily rise from the dead. That is empirically falsifiable. All they would have had to do was to show the body.

Christianity is unique. No other religion claims that its founder was not only a man, but also God. No other religion claims that its founder not only died, but was also resurrected. And no other religion stakes everything on the historical resurrection of its founder. Christianity stands or falls on the resurrection of Christ.

The Apostle Paul said it like this,

…if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain (1 Corinthians 15:14 ESV).

…if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless (1Co 15:14 NLT).

What does it matter if Christ was not raised from the dead? Christianity stakes everything on the literal physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Disprove the resurrection of Christ, and you have disproved Christianity.

1.        The Reality of the Crucifixion

But before the resurrection, there is the fact of Christ’s death.

The crucifixion of Jesus is one of the best-attested facts of history. No serious historian doubts the existence and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Islam denies the death of Christ by crucifixion. Coming along 600 years after Christ’s death, Muhammad said, “That can’t be! I don’t believe that God would allow his prophet to die such an awful death.” And so, he denied Christ’s death by crucifixion. Muslims don’t believe Jesus actually died on the cross; they believe that it only appeared that he died.

However, those who were much closer to the historical setting than Muhammad, affirmed that Jesus did indeed die by crucifixion.

It is to be noted that the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ were public events. His death and resurrection were not private affairs. His death and resurrection were not done in a corner somewhere and proclaimed elsewhere. He died for all the world to see, and his resurrection was well attested by hundreds of witnesses.

Eyewitnesses verified the facts of Christ’s death:

• Roman soldiers who specialized in putting criminals to death attested that Jesus was dead (Matthew 27:27, 36, 54).
• The chief priests, scribes, and elders watched him die (Matthew 27:41).
• The mother of Jesus, her sister, Mary Magdalene, and the wife of Clopas were witnesses.
• The apostles including Matthew and John witnessed his death.
• Mark was also a likely witness, and Luke carefully researched his gospel so that his readers would know the certainty of all that was reported.
• Roman historian Tacitus (55-120 A.D.) wrote that “Christus… suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.”^[1]
• Lucian of Samosata (115-200 A.D.) refers to early Christians as those “who worship the man in Palestine who was crucified…”^[2]

Yes, the crucifixion of Christ is one of the best-attested facts of history. One historian wrote, “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus … agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact.”^[3]

As the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:3,

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:3 ESV).

Christianity is a religion that is rooted in history. It is not rooted in anyone’s dreams or visions or imagination. Its claims can be investigated historically. It is not necessary for the historian, in coming to the New Testament writings, to regard them as inspired. He may merely regard the New Testament as a collection of Greek documents that serve as sources of ancient history. The majority of New Testament critics, even those teaching at secular universities and non-evangelical seminaries, accept the central facts of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Christian apologist William Lane Craig gives a number of historical facts about the resurrection of Jesus that are accepted by most historians.

FACT #1: After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea.

This means that Jesus was buried at a site that was known to both those who followed Christ and those who did not. The disciples could never have proclaimed the resurrection in Jerusalem had the tomb not been empty. Not only did the disciples know where Jesus was buried, the enemies of Jesus knew where he was buried. In fact, they sealed the tomb and posted a guard of soldiers at the tomb of Jesus.

According to the late John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge University, the burial of Jesus in the tomb is “one of the earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus.”1

FACT #2: On the Sunday following the crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers.

This is significant. Again, as the Apostle Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15,

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:3-4 ESV).

To state that a dead man was buried and that he was raised implies that his grave was left empty. The reference to the third day — he was raised on the third day — refers to the visit of the women and others who went to the tomb on the third day and found it empty.

In reading the accounts of the empty tomb, we find that they are told with simplicity and without embellishment — without additional elements. In other words, the four Gospels simply tell the story without adding anything to what happened. This is quite different from the wild legendary stories found in apocryphal gospels that were written in the second century, a hundred years later. For example, one so-called gospel (the Gospel of Peter) has Jesus coming out of the tomb with his head reaching up above the clouds. He is followed by a talking cross! That is what a legend looks like! But the New Testament accounts of the resurrection are told with simplicity: nothing but the facts.

It is important to note that the first witnesses to the empty tomb were women. The Jews considered the testimony of women to be worthless and would not allow it to be admitted into a Jewish court of law. The only reason that the Gospels tell us that the first witnesses were women is because that is how it must have happened. The Gospel writers would never have invented such a story that the first witnesses to the resurrection were women. If the Gospel writers were inventing the story, they would have had some prominent and well respected person being the first witness to the resurrection.

It is interesting to note that the Jewish authorities themselves acknowledged that the tomb was empty. When the disciples proclaimed that Jesus was risen from the dead, the authorities did not point to his tomb and say, “Look! What do you mean, he’s risen from the dead? There’s his body!” They could not, for the tomb was indeed empty. Instead, they paid the guards to say that the disciples had stolen the body. They thus admitted that the tomb was empty.

FACT #3: On multiple occasions and under various circumstances, different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead.

The Apostle Paul gives a list of witnesses to the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8,

and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me (1 Corinthians 15:5-8 ESV).

Paul is writing this in the early 50s, about 20 years or so after the resurrection of Christ. He tells the Corinthians that the risen Christ was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, and that most of those witnesses are still alive. Paul says, in effect, “You can check this out. The witnesses are still alive. Hundreds of them. They will tell you that Christ was raised from the dead. He is indeed alive.”

Some have said that the disciples hallucinated. But no serious historian accepts that theory. Hundreds of people don’t have the same hallucination at the same time.

One of the cults operating in Vanuatu today claims that Christ was not raised from the dead with a real body, but that he evaporated! But that is not what the records say. When Jesus first appeared to the disciples in the upper room that first Sunday night of the resurrection, the disciples could not believe their eyes and wondered at first thought that they were seeing a spirit, but Jesus told them,

“Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? ³⁹ See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” ⁴⁰ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. ⁴¹ And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” ⁴² They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³ and he took it and ate before them (Luke 24:38-43 ESV).

Evaporations don’t have scars, eat fish, or have flesh and bones.

John tells us that before the resurrection, even the brothers of Jesus did not believe in him (John 7:5). There would be no reason to invent such a story. But after the resurrection, James became a believer and a leader in the Jerusalem church. According to the first century Jewish historian Josephus, James was martyred for his faith in Christ in the late A.D. 60s. What would have convinced him to die for his belief in his brother? Paul tells us, “Then he appeared to James” (1 Corinthians 15:7).

Even Gert Lüdemann, the leading German critic of the resurrection, himself admits, “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”3

FACT #4: The original disciples believed that Jesus was risen from the dead despite their having every predisposition to the contrary.

1. Their leader was dead.
2. He died the horrible death of crucifixion.
3. He was executed as a criminal.
4. T. Wright, an eminent British scholar, concludes, “that is why, as a historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him.”5

 

2.        The Reality of the Resurrection

What about the resurrection? Does it really matter? What difference does it make?

This is what the Apostle Paul says about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15,

And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. ¹⁵ And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. ¹⁶ And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. ¹⁸ In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! ¹⁹ And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world (1 Corinthians 15:14-19 NLT).

If Christ was not raised from the dead,^[4]

2.1.        We Worship a Dead Man

If there is no resurrection, then Jesus Christ has not risen from the dead. We worship a dead man. Jesus went to the cross, he died, he was buried, and his body decayed to dust just like everyone else’s. Christians are followers of a dead man.

If Christ did not rise from the dead, Christianity is hardly different from any other religion. We have put our hope in a spiritual leader, a guru, who lived and died. We may try to follow some of his teachings, but we would have to reject much of what he said about himself and about why he came.

If Christ was not raised from the dead,

2.2.        We Preach a Useless Message

And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless… (1 Corinthians 15:14 NLT).

We are wasting everyone’s time. This is nothing but idle talk, worthless myths and legends.

If Christ was not raised from the dead,

2.3.        Our Faith Is Empty.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain (1 Corinthians 15:14 ESV).

We have faith in a Christ who is dead.

If Christ was not raised from the dead,

2.4.        We Misrepresent God

We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised (1 Corinthians 15:15 ESV).

We are false witnesses.

If Christ was not raised from the dead,

2.5.        We are lost in sin.

¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins.

We are still dead in our trespasses and sins.

If Christ was not raised from the dead,

2.6.        We have no hope beyond this life.

We have hope only in this life:

19 And if our hope in Christ is only for this life…(1 Corinthians 15:19 NLT).

If Christ was not raised from the dead,

2.7.        We are pitiful.

we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world (1 Corinthians 15:19, NLT).

We are living an illusion.

All this is to say that the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ really matters.

Pastor Timothy Keller said,

If Jesus rose from the dead, you have to accept all he said, if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about anything he said…. If Jesus rose from the dead, it changes everything.^[5]

1. It is not a dead man that we worship, but the living Lord of Life!
2. It is not a useless message that we preach, but the gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes.
3. Our faith is not empty, but rooted in the foundation of historical reality and directed to the One who has a name that is above every other name, Jesus Christ our Lord.
4. We do not misrepresent God, but bear witness to the truth of what God has done in Jesus Christ.
5. We are not lost in sin, but are saved by the One who was delivered for our offenses and raised for our justification.
6. We are not among those who have no hope, but have in Christ’s resurrection the guarantee of our own resurrection on the day that he shall raise our mortal bodies and this mortal will put on immortality.
7. We are not pitiful but hugely blessed of God with many great and precious promises.

3.        The Importance of the Resurrection

Christ is risen. His resurrection is one of the best-attested facts of ancient history. So what?

Don’t we have to ask ourselves what implications this has? Why does it matter? Or is this some dry, dusty old piece of history that has no relevance to our lives? I believe that the resurrection is the most important truth in the world. It has far reaching implications on our lives.

Matt Perman sums up the importance of the resurrection of Christ:^[6]

3.1.           First, the resurrection proves that the claims Jesus made about himself are true.

What did Jesus claim? He claimed to be God. One might say, “I don’t believe that He claimed to be God, because I don’t believe the Bible.” But the fact is that even if we take only the passages which skeptical scholars admit as authentic, it can still be shown that Jesus claimed to be God.

3.2.           Second, have you ever wondered what reasons there are to believe in the Bible?

Is there good reason to believe that it was inspired by God, or is it simply a bunch of interesting myths and legends? The resurrection of Jesus answers the question. If Jesus rose from the dead, then we have seen this validates His claim to be God. If He is God, He speaks with absolute certainty and final authority. Therefore, what Jesus said about the Bible must be true. Surely you are going to accept the testimony of one who rose from the dead over the testimony of a skeptical scholar who will one day die himself—without being able to raise himself on the third day. What did Jesus say about the Bible? He said that it was inspired by God and that it cannot error.

3.3.           Third, many people are confused by the many different religions in the world.

Are they all from God? But on a closer examination we see that they cannot all be from God, because they all contradict each other. Jesus is the only religious leader who has risen from the dead. All other religious leaders are still in their tombs. Who would you believe? Some dead prophet or prophetess, or the Living Lord of Life who died but rose again and showed himself to be alive to hundreds of people over a period of 40 days before returning to heaven as his disciples watched him ascend. I think the answer is clear: Jesus’ resurrection demonstrates that what He said is true. Therefore, we must accept his statement to be the only way to God: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, except through me” (John 14:6).

3.4.           Fourth, the resurrection of Christ proves that God will judge the world one day.

The apostle Paul said, “God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). The resurrection of Christ proves something very personal and significant to each of us—we will have to give an account of ourselves to a holy God. And if we are honest with ourselves, we will have to admit that we do not measure up to his standard. We are sinful, and therefore deserve to be condemned at His judgment.

3.5.           Which leads to our fifth point. The resurrection of Christ provides genuine hope for eternal life.

Why? Because Jesus says that by trusting in Him, we will be forgiven of our sins and thereby escape being condemned at the judgment. The New Testament doesn’t just tell us that Christ rose from the dead and leave us wondering why He did this. It answers that He did this because we are sinners. And because we have sinned, we are deserving of God’s judgment. Since God is just, He cannot simply let our sins go. The penalty for our sins must be paid.

The good news is that God, out of His love, became man in Jesus Christ in order to pay the penalty for sinners. On the cross, Jesus died in the place of those who would come to believe in Him. He took upon Himself the very death that we deserve. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 4:25 that ”He was delivered up because of our sins.” But Paul goes on to say “He was raised to life because of our justification.”

The night before his crucifixion, Jesus looked beyond the cross to his resurrection and told the disciples, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19 ESV).

3.6.           Let me close with the sixth reason why the resurrection is significant.

The Bible says that Christ’s resurrection is the pattern that those who believe in Him will follow. In other words, those who believe in Christ will one day be resurrected by God just as He was. The resurrection proves that those who trust in Christ will not be subject in eternity to a half-human existence in just their souls. It proves that our bodies will be resurrected one day. Because of the resurrection of Christ, believers will one day experience, forever, the freedom of having a glorified soul and body.

Is the resurrection of Christ important? Nothing could be more important. Unbelievers will face Christ as their judge on the Day when God will judge the world through the One that He has raised from the dead. Believers will be invited to enter into the eternal life that we have already begun to experience because Christ is alive.

Sign-Off

This Resurrection Day, and every Sunday, I urge you to turn to Christ the Savior. Find a church where the Bible and only the Bible is taught, preached, and lived. Walk with Christ in the power of the resurrection.

Thank you for tuning in to FM 107 and listening to the Joyful News Broadcast. This has been a ministry of Joy Bible Institute. You can visit our website at joybible.wordpress.com. Our prayer is that the joy of the Lord would be your strength.

10 SIGN-OFF JOYFUL, JOYFUL, WE ADORE THEE

 

^[1] http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-great-offense-was-jesus-really-crucified?utm_source=Desiring+God&utm_campaign=9b080eac96-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6da5f8315b-9b080eac96-99525301

^[2] http://radicaltruth.net/index.php/learn/radical-truth-christianity/117-was-jesus-crucified

^[3] Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#cite_note-fox-6

^[4] http://www.challies.com/articles/if-dead-men-dont-rise

^[5] Timothy Keller, The Reason for God, 202, quoted by Adrian Warnock, Raise with Christ, 27.

^[6] http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection

John 02:13-25, “Christ Cleanses the Temple”

Scripture: John 2:13-25

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. ¹⁵ And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”

¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

¹⁸ So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” ¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰ The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”

²¹ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. ²² When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

²³ Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. ²⁴ But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people ²⁵ and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man (John 2:13-25 ESV).

The temple was supposed to be a place of worship, a place to meet God, a place where people could say,

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! ⁷ For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand (Psalm 95:6-7 ESV).

SONG: FERNANDO ORTEGA – COME, LET US WORSHIP (Psalm 95:6-7) – 12 sec lead – 3:40

Context

John’s purpose in writing this Gospel is that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing, have life in his name (20:31).

So as we consider this event in the life of Jesus in which he cleanses the temple at Jerusalem, we want to especially consider how it demonstrates that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

John’s Gospel is like a piece of cloth where one strand or one thread of the cloth touches many other strands to make the whole piece. Already in the first chapter, Christ’s deity and humanity are tightly sewn together. Jesus is the Word who in the beginning already was, the Word that was with God and the Word that was God. And yet, the Word became flesh—the Son of God became the Son of Man who is like a ladder that links earth to heaven.

John the Baptist had pointed his own disciples to Jesus as the true light. John’s disciples Andrew and John (the son of Zebedee) followed Jesus and rejoiced in finding the Messiah (which means Christ). Philip told Nathanael that Jesus was the one that Moses and the prophets had written about. And Nathanael was amazed to realize that Jesus was the Son of God, the King of Israel.

Now in the second chapter, Jesus’ disciples were with him at the wedding in Cana when he changed the water into wine. They saw his glory and believed in him.

They were also with him in this episode when he cleansed the temple in Jerusalem.

John the Baptist had testified that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Now John the Evangelist, the author of this Gospel, neatly frames Jesus’ act of cleansing the temple by placing it between two references to the Passover, the feast when the lamb was slain on the Day of Atonement:

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem (John 2:13 ESV).

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing (John 2:23 ESV).

We need to understand that this story is not just about cleansing the temple. It is not about unfair and abusive business transactions taking place. It is not just some isolated story about Jesus getting angry at what he found in the temple precincts. The whole point of this story is to reveal Jesus’ identity and his mission.

Cleansing the Temple

In chapter 2:13, John tells us that the cleansing of the temple took place just before the feast of Passover. There were three main Jewish feasts that all Jewish males in Israel were obligated to attend in Jerusalem: Passover, Tabernacles, and Pentecost. Three times a year, Jerusalem would be crowded with men from all over Israel. Even Jews living outside of Israel often travelled to Jerusalem for one or more of these special feasts.

The Feast of Passover was also a time when sacrifices had to be offered. It would have been difficult to travel from distant places with an animal of sacrifice such as a lamb or an ox. So, many people would wait and buy an animal in Jerusalem instead of bringing an animal from their home. An entire industry specializing in animal sacrifices grew up around the temple. At first, the animal merchants had set up their stalls in the Kidron Valley on the slope of the Mount of Olives a short distance from the temple, but now they had set up their shops in the temple, in the Court of the Gentiles.[1]

There were three courts in the temple in Jerusalem. There was the inner court for only male Jewish worshipers. The next separated area was for Jewish women only. Finally, there was the outer court for all non-Jewish people, the Court of the Gentiles. It was in this outer court for the Gentiles that the animal merchants were now carrying on their business.

There were also moneychangers in this part of the temple. During these high feasts, Jews came from all over the Roman Empire. They had to pay a temple tax, but that tax could only by paid with coins of the purest silver coming from Tyre. The moneychangers converted money to the approved currency and charged a percentage for their service.

This was big business. The animal merchants were there “because everyone offered a sacrifice for sins.”[2]

This was convenient worship. You could go to Jerusalem, change your money, buy an approved animal that was “without spot or blemish,” and take it to the priest. No worries!

All this was done for the convenience of the worshipers. You didn’t have to come to worship prepared. You could take care of the necessities at the last minute, and maybe, if you were sharp enough in haggling, you could get a good deal.[3]

This is what Jesus found in the temple in Jerusalem:

In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; he also saw dealers at tables exchanging foreign money (John 2:14 NLT).

This is what was going on in God’s house! Can you imagine the noise? People haggling over prices. Cattle lowing. Sheep bleating. How could anyone worship God with all that going on? Furthermore, there was no place left for the Gentiles at all.

The outer court was the only place where Gentiles could go to worship God, and Jesus called his Father’s house “a house of prayer for all the nations” (Mark 11:17 NRSV). The place of prayer had become a confusing, squabbling, stinking, shrieking mass of people, animals, and business deals. No one could pray.[4]

Worship Distractions

Worship should be an experience of entering into the presence of God, of conversing with God. But there was too much noise and distraction to hear anything from God.

We need to be careful about our worship today. We can be guilty of creating our own distractions. Please allow me to say a few things as a trained musician. Sometimes the music is simply too loud. If the sound system and the keyboard and the drums and the guitars and the singers are so loud that the people in the congregation cannot even hear their own voices, they will not be able to truly enter into worship. Worship is not for a few people up front. This is not a performance. Worship leaders are not the focus of our attention. Worship leaders should lead the congregation into the presence of God. But they must be careful not to drown out the congregation by having the sound system so loud that people cannot hear themselves. The people who run the sound equipment have a very important responsibility to set the sound system so that it does not distract or overpower the worshippers.

Another distraction is music when someone is speaking to the congregation. When the pastor is speaking to the church, everyone including the musicians should give him their full attention, even if he is only making announcements. There is a time for everything. There is a time to make music, and there is a time to refrain from making music. When someone is addressing the congregation, he should not have to compete with a keyboard or a guitar.

Musicians need to be very careful not to draw attention to themselves. In worship, there is an audience of One, and that One is the Lord God. In our singing and in our preaching and in everything we do, everyone’s attention should be on Him.

Jesus the Man

So Jesus came upon this scene in the temple: merchants selling animals for sacrifice, moneychangers sitting at their tables.

Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables (John 2:15 NLT).

Jesus was no wimp! He was no namby-pamby. He was as courageous as a lion! He is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

Can you imagine him driving out the merchants and moneychangers, the sheep and cattle charging out of the temple area, the coins rolling all over the floor, and people scattering in every direction?

Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” (John 2:16 NLT).

Jesus does not charge them with corruption. He does not charge them with unethical business practices. He says that they should not be in the temple area at all.[5] This is a place of worship.

Jesus the Messiah

This is not the first time that Jesus has been to the temple. Luke tells us that Jesus had gone to the temple when he was a 12-year-old boy. But now he goes not as a boy, but as the anointed Messiah of God. And the first thing that he does is to cleanse the temple. He will cleanse it a second time in the last week of his life.

These are the first words that we hear him speaking in the temple:

“Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” (John 2:16 NLT).

The temple is his Father’s house. “My Father’s house,” he says. The next time that he calls God his own Father is in 5:17,

But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I” (John 5:17 NLT).

In the very next verse, John explains what it means when Jesus calls God his own father:

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because… he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:18 ESV).

When Jesus ordered the merchants to stop turning “my Father’s house into a marketplace,” he was claiming equality with God and the right to purify the temple.

In seeing this,

His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me” (John 2:17 ESV).

Just as the disciples had seen his glory and believed in him when Jesus turned the water into wine, they now see Jesus fulfilling Old Testament references to the Messiah. Passion for God’s house and God’s glory consumed Jesus.

Demand for a Sign

Recognizing that Jesus was the Messiah was not the response of all the Jews. John has already told us:

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. ¹² But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (John 1:11-12 ESV).

The Jewish leaders did not receive him. They demand a sign:

So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” (John 2:18 ESV).

Note that they do not try to defend the sale of animals and the currency exchange in the temple itself. This has become a convenient way to make money for the temple, and perhaps for themselves. But they do recognize that Jesus has made a Messianic claim. He has claimed the right to purify the temple and they understand that this is what the Messiah would do. Four hundred years before, Malachi, the last prophet of the Old Testament, had said that the Lord would “suddenly come to his temple” to purify it.

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. ² But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi… (Malachi 3:1-3 ESV).

Suddenly Jesus has come to the temple. Suddenly he is chasing out the moneychangers and animal merchants. He is purifying his Father’s house. This is exactly what the Messiah would do. But there were two different reactions to this cleansing of the temple:

1. Jesus disciples remembered that zeal for God’s house would consume the Messiah. They recognized that Jesus was the Messiah.
2. The religious authorities saw the cleansing and demanded a sign.

They did not dispute the rightness of his action. They disputed his right to take the action

… “What miraculous proof do you show us to justify your actions?” (John 2:18 MIT).

God does not give signs on demand. He cannot be tamed. He is not our lapdog, called on to do tricks whenever we want. Again religious leaders will demand a sign but his response will be:

“An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah (Matthew 12:39 ESV).

That is the same sign that he gives them here in John 2.

Destroy This Temple

“All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰ “What!” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?” (John 2:19-20 NLT).

At the end of his ministry, Jesus is falsely accused of saying that he would destroy the temple. Yet, he never said, “I will destroy this temple.” The religious authorities asked for a sign. He gave them one. “Destroy this temple,” he said, “and in three days I will raise it up.” He invites them to destroy the temple.

But what temple was he talking about? Later he would prophecy that the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed. Not one stone would be left standing on another. That did happen in AD 70 when the Romans invaded Jerusalem.

But that is not what Jesus is talking about here. John explains,

But when Jesus said “this temple,” he meant his own body (John 2:21 NLT).

Perhaps he even made a gesture to refer to his own body, but the religious authorities would not have anyone upset their way of doing things. The loved their position and power.

“What miraculous sign will you perform to show us that you have the right to purify the temple? Prove to us that you are the Messiah.”

As Messiah, Jesus had come as the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. He had come to be the Passover Lamb. He had come to die on the cross for your sins and mine. He would prove that he was Messiah by dying and rising again!

“Destroy this temple—destroy this body—and in three days I will raise it up.”

But he was speaking about the temple of his body (John 2:21 ESV).

As Michael W. Smith says in this song, “Nobody knew his secret ambition was to give his life away.”

SONG: MICHAEL W. SMITH – SECRET AMBITION – 8 second lead in – 3:41

Even the disciples failed to understand at that time what Jesus meant. It was only after the resurrection that they understood what Jesus was talking about. John explains in v. 22

When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken (John 2:22 ESV).

• They remembered.
• They believed the Scripture.
• They believed the word that Jesus had spoken.

The disciples saw more than signs. They saw the glory.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14 ESV).

When Jesus changed the water into wine, his disciples saw his glory and believed in him (2:11).

Notice the contrast that John makes between the disciples and others in v. 23:

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. ²⁴ But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people ²⁵ and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man (John 2:23-25 ESV).

The religious authorities demanded signs.

Others believed because of the signs, but Jesus did not trust them because their belief was based not on his word but on signs. True faith comes not through signs, but through the Word.

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Romans 10:17 ESV).

The spoken word remains. It does not pass away. Heaven and earth will pass away, but God’s Word will never pass away. Faith based on the word remains. Faith based on the Word does not change because the truth does not change.

But faith that is based on signs is in need of continual support.

Like the Jewish leaders, people today constantly ask for signs. They say, “Show me a miracle and I will believe.” Others say: “I read about Jesus’ miracles in the Bible, but I wasn’t there; I didn’t see those things with my own eyes. I’m not going to believe in Christ until I see Him with my own eyes, hear Him with my own ears, or see a miracle done in His name today.”

…The resurrection of Christ is the supreme sign. God will only do it once. God will not send Christ to die and be raised every week. By raising Christ from the grave, God established His church. Christ is the temple, and all men are commanded to come to Him in order to worship and serve the one true God.[6]

The disciples believed the Scripture.

They believed the word that Jesus had spoken.

Jesus came to the temple as Lord of the temple. He came to cleanse it and at the same time replace. Destroy this temple, he said, and I will raise it. As the Lamb of God he would take away the sins of the world. As the Lamb of God he would die for your sins and mine. Here in this second chapter of John, Jesus announces already his mission as Messiah: he would die and rise again.

SONG: MICHAEL W. SMITH — THE WONDERFUL CROSS

You must put your trust in Jesus. Let Jesus cleanse your temple, your heart, your mind. He alone is the only hope for your salvation. He calls on you to receive him as your Lord and Savior. Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Find a Bible-believing church where the Word of God is preached and believers are instructed in how to be disciples of Jesus Christ. And follow Jesus every day.

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[1] Carson, John, p. 178.

[2] Comfort and Hawley, Opening the Gospel of John, p. 36.

[3] Comfort and Hawley, Opening the Gospel of John, p. 37.

[4] Comfort and Hawley, Opening the Gospel of John, p. 37-38.

[5] Carson, John, p. 179.

[6] R. C. Sproul. John (St. Andrew’s Expositional Commentary) (Kindle Locations 499-506). Kindle Edition.

See also “Worship”:

• John 02:13-25, “Christ Cleanses the Temple”
• It Happened on a Sunday!

See also “Gospel of John”:

• The only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent
• John 12:01-19, “The Triumphal Entry in the Shadow of the Cross”
• John 11:01-45, “When God Is Late”
• John 10:30-42, “Jesus, the Most Controversial Person in History”
• John 10:22-30, “Missing the Obvious: Jesus is the Christ”
• John 10:07-21, “The Good Shepherd, Part 2”
• John 10:01-06, “The Good Shepherd, Part 1”
• John 09:01-41, “Blind Man Seeing, Seeing Men Blind”
• John 08:48-59, “Who Does Jesus Make Himself Out To Be?”
• John 08:31-47, “Children of God, or Sons of Satan?”