Clearing Out The Temple

In John 2 there is the story of Jesus clearing out the the temple and overturning tables  and showing His anger. I have heard talks from speakers abou this event and generally they explain the parallel between Jesus and the temple and the justifying of  righteous anger and other such points. 

My thoughts on this passage today, are more about what this means to us personally. 

So to explain my thought, I will build some context by going back to the time of Joshua and the Israelites and the destruction of  Jericho. Remember the story when the walls came tumbling down. This is found in Joshua 6. 

Briefly, in this story we find the Israelites after crossing the river Jordan going through to the promised land. They immediately come up against an impenetrable walls protecting the philistines. 

So what did they do? We read that they gathered together in pray and were given Gods assurance of victory. They then did as instructed and marched around the walls once a day while the priests blew their trumpets as the arc of the covenant was carried behind them.

The next day they did the same again. And they did this every day for 6 days.

On the seventh day they walked around the walls doing the same as before but this time they walked around the walls seven times and at the very end there was a long blow of the rams horn and the people shouted. When they did this the walls collapsed. 

As I have written before in other blogs the numbers have meanings in this passage but I will get to that soon. See if you can work it out before I tell you.

The metaphor for this story is that the Israelites were going to the promised land but their were pockets of rebellion in that land. The walls collapsed because of God’s power and nothing the Israelites did except for complete surrender to His will.  Again this is like our life. We have pockets of rebellion in us and it is only through surrender to God’s will and power that God eradicates the sin or rebellion in our life. Nothing we can do except believe and surrender will root out pockets of rebellion or sin in our lives. 

Back to the numbers again. Yes, the number 6 is humanity without God. They walked 6 times over 6 days and nothing happened. Yes the walls remained and so did the philistines. But on the 7 day and the seventh time the people shouted out and victory was done. It is perfection (represented by #7) that eliminates pockets of rebellion or sin in our lives. Where perfection resides there is no darkness.

Now back to Jesus in the temple. The parallel is striking. Here we see Jesus cleansing the temple just like God was cleansing the land the Israelites were going to occupy. God will do anything to take those things out of our lives. He wants to dwell in our body or temple and by our submission He will root those pockets of rebellion or sin out of our lives. We cannot do this ourselves. It must be Jesus power alone. He loves us so much and wants nothing to prevent or spoil our relationship with Him. 

When Jesus was in the temple he said “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” Interestingly the traders were selling animals for sacrifice. So in essence they were justifying their actions by doing something that was needed for the Temple sacrifices. However they were doing it for the wrong reasons and thus were defiling the Temple. You see they had got to a point where their actions were rationalised and they thought it was ok.

So Jesus is showing us that of ourselves we cannot root out pockets of sin that hurt our relationship withHim. Remember He is a jealous God and wants all of us. So Jesus is the only one who can cleanse the Temple that is Jesus is the only one who can cleanse us. Only he can drive out those things that defile the Temple. 

So if we ask Him to live in us be prepared that He will enter and change us from within. Just like Joshua and Israelites God will destroy those things in our lives that defile His paradise.

Getting back to the sentance “do not make my Father’s house a house of trade” I want to add that we cannot trade with God either. We cannot trade our degree of submission in our own lives. We cant submit 95% of us and still want to have some control. There is no trade off here! It is 100% submission and nothing less. Give it all to Him and He will enter your temple and cleanse you from within. When you surrender your temple to Him, Jesus lives in us. It is then His presence will be seen by others and they too will be moved to seek Him.