Chapter two is divided into three subjects: TIMING, TEMPLES & TRUST! Let’s go with Temples.
John 1:13-22 JESUS CLEANSES THE TEMPLE
Purpose matters! As Myles Monroe coined back in the 1980’s:
“When you don’t know the purpose of a thing, you will abuse the thing!”
We must connect the dots between why Jesus cleansed the Jerusalem temple and why we need to “present our bodies a living sacrifice to God”. The religious leaders had defiled the purpose of the temple. The focus of the Temple in Jesus’ day was not in line with the purposes God has ordained Moses to establish. While Jesus’ action to make a whip out of cords seems driven by anger, the reality is found in verse 17, which repeats David’s words from Psalm 69:9 –
“Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”
First: Measure the response of Jesus as relevant to what the Psalmist writes in Psalm 69:9
“Because the zeal of Your house has eaten me up,
and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.”
Jesus was always focused on the Kingdom agenda for our redemption. He knew the original purposes of the Old Covenant temple went beyond the practices for ritual and religious purposes. To know God intimately was the purpose behind those practices. What Jesus saw that day mirrored nothing close to His Father’s intentions. His Father’s house should have been a place where people experienced the presence and words of God. Jesus’ enthusiastic energy for which His Father intended it, consumed him. A house of prayer, the temple was not.
Parallel Jesus’ words with Paul’s writing to the Corinthian believers and we gain perspective.
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?” I Corinthians 6:19
The passage in John relates to a building. The Corinthian passage relates to born again disciples. In response to Jesus clearing the temple, the Jews asked Jesus in John 2:18: “What sign do you show to us, since you do these things?” In his reply Jesus reaches beyond what the minds of that day could comprehend: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
Suddenly, Jesus speaks of his crucified body raised from the dead! (John 2:21-22)
John writes a historical account of Jesus’ life but with prophetic implications.
By His blood, Jesus cleanses our temple (our body). In Romans 12:1 we are challenged to “present our bodies a living sacrifice . . . which is our reasonable service or worship!”
Our power to overturn thoughts (not tables) contrary to God’s purpose is powerful.
The purpose of a renewed mind: To free us to experience the transformation of our mind as God intended. Renewing our mind is worship.
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