Going Deeper: Meeting the Messiah in John 1-4Sýnishorn

Day 4: Out With the Old (John 2:13-25)

Read John 2:13-25

How is it that Jesus can offer us grace upon grace? This surprising episode starts to answer that question. Before we start, we need to know that in Jesus’ day, the temple in Jerusalem was at the heart of Jewish religion. It was the place where people came to meet with God and receive forgiveness from Him. And Passover was the most important festival of the year, a time when people gathered from all over to remember God rescuing His people from slavery in Egypt back in the Exodus.

We can almost hear the packed crowds and the noise of animals and traders, as visitors swapped their money to pay the temple tax and buy animals for sacrifice.

Into this scene steps Jesus, and what He does is shocking: with a whip He drives out the animals and the traders. Picture their money falling to the ground and their tables crashing over (2:15-16). What exactly is Jesus’ problem? Look at verse 16: according to Jesus, they have made His Father’s house into a place for buying and selling. A place that should have been somewhere for quiet prayer and turning to God has been turned into a shopping centre (2:16). His disciples remember a song from the Old Testament, written by the great King David (Psalm 69), where David was so focused on God’s glory that no one could stop him.

It’s no surprise that the people in the temple ask Jesus what right He has to do all this (2:18): wouldn’t you?! His answer might be difficult to understand at first glance. When Jesus says that if they were to get rid of this temple He could build it again in three days, the people around Him take Him literally. They wonder how He could build in a long weekend what had taken them more than 40 years. But Jesus is saying something even more radical than that. We learn here that He is talking about His body, specifically His death and resurrection three days later (2:21).

This means that Jesus, the Messiah, doesn’t just have God’s authority to be in charge of the temple, He replaces the temple. As the wine at the wedding party announced Jesus as the new bridegroom – God Himself – so this announces Him as the new temple. Jesus is now the place where we meet with God and have our sins forgiven. This is part of the answer to the question of how He can offer us grace. And so, as the Son of God, He has every right to put the temple straight.