By T. Austin-Sparks
Reading: John 2:13-22.
It is doubtless known to you that on two occasions the Lord cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem. The first occasion was that of which we read in this passage in John's Gospel. The second, and the last occasion, is mentioned by the other writers of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. John does not repeat in his record that occasion, and they do not touch upon the first occasion. John wrote so long after the other three that doubtless he knew what they had written, and therefore much of what he wrote was supplementary. He knew what they had left out, and puts in a very great deal that they had not recorded. This is one of those things peculiar to John's Gospel.
There is a significance about the fact that the Lord Jesus cleansed the Temple twice. Perhaps the significance attaches, in the first place at least, to His having done it at the commencement of His ministry, and at the close, for John puts this cleansing very early in His public life. The record of the second instance comes right at the end, amongst the final scenes of His life in Jerusalem; and that He should have made it one of His first activities in Jerusalem, and one of His last, carries with it a meaning which is not far to seek, and the significance of which lies very near the surface.
It would say to us that the Lord had His Father's House very much in view from the beginning, and that all His life activities were in that direction. We may say that foundationally His life and ministry had to do with the House of God, and that He never departed from that early position which He had adopted. Right at the end He came back to it. We are told that He was moving to and fro between Jerusalem and Bethany, and in that final week of His life, one evening He went into Jerusalem and into the Temple and looked round on all things, and then went out to Bethany without doing anything. But the next morning He went in and evidently put into a very definite and strong form of expression the results of His having taken account of the situation, and purged the Temple once more.
His life here on earth, then, was bounded, we may say, by His relationship with and attitude towards His Father's House. If it be true that the Father's House was set in His vision in a very definite relationship in His life from start to finish, and that His life at both ends is found in relation to that House, then it is important to notice what His attitude towards His Father's House was as to His spirit. He was consumed by a great devotion and passion for the House of God. His life, as represented by this twofold activity, from beginning to end was a life bounded by zeal for God's House, intense and fervent, so that it could be said that it consumed Him.
For what did that zeal exist? What was it in relation to the Father's House that was consuming Him? What was the nature of His devotion? Clearly it was the holiness of His Father's House; its absolute sanctity, its perfect cleanness, its complete separation from the influences and orders of this world, and from all personal interests and elements. Those things are represented by what was taking place here on both of these occasions. A worldly system had crept in, and it was being pursued for personal ends. All such things in His mind were unholy and vile. It was the holiness of His Father's House which was the character of His consuming zeal.
Then one more thing is seen in this attitude towards His Father's House, and that is His assuming authority over it. There is here a foreshadowing of that word in the letter to the Hebrews: "But Christ as a Son over God's house...". He is speaking of this Temple as: "My Father's house". He is the
Son of the Father. What is His place in it as the Son of the Father? It is the place of absolute authority: "A Son over God's house...". And here He assumes His authority in the House of His Father, and His authority is to deal with everything that is out of harmony with that House. That is the position with which we meet immediately as we read of these instances.
Then, as it always is with John, the thing is never left there in the realm of earthly, temporal history. John never leaves things with the illustration or the type, because John is not on the earth. The other three may be giving us historic records, but John is not just doing that. John always gets out of the merely historical, earthly, and carries things through into the realm of the universal, the spiritual. He shows us what is not shown elsewhere, and gives us a meaning related to this thing which we do not find elsewhere.
We could imagine John perhaps reading the narrative of one of the other apostles, or through the oral Gospel (as it was called) having the whole thing repeated to him, and he would say: I wonder why they missed out that first cleansing of the Temple! I wonder why they did not put that in! They have overlooked that, and it is very important; I must put that in! And so he would put it in, and in his mind there would be this far greater connection, and he would put down what the Lord Jesus said, not only what He did, as the larger significance of His act. He follows through, as you notice with this: "The Jews therefore answered and said unto him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
Reading: John 2:13-22.
It is doubtless known to you that on two occasions the Lord cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem. The first occasion was that of which we read in this passage in John's Gospel. The second, and the last occasion, is mentioned by the other writers of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. John does not repeat in his record that occasion, and they do not touch upon the first occasion. John wrote so long after the other three that doubtless he knew what they had written, and therefore much of what he wrote was supplementary. He knew what they had left out, and puts in a very great deal that they had not recorded. This is one of those things peculiar to John's Gospel.
There is a significance about the fact that the Lord Jesus cleansed the Temple twice. Perhaps the significance attaches, in the first place at least, to His having done it at the commencement of His ministry, and at the close, for John puts this cleansing very early in His public life. The record of the second instance comes right at the end, amongst the final scenes of His life in Jerusalem; and that He should have made it one of His first activities in Jerusalem, and one of His last, carries with it a meaning which is not far to seek, and the significance of which lies very near the surface.
It would say to us that the Lord had His Father's House very much in view from the beginning, and that all His life activities were in that direction. We may say that foundationally His life and ministry had to do with the House of God, and that He never departed from that early position which He had adopted. Right at the end He came back to it. We are told that He was moving to and fro between Jerusalem and Bethany, and in that final week of His life, one evening He went into Jerusalem and into the Temple and looked round on all things, and then went out to Bethany without doing anything. But the next morning He went in and evidently put into a very definite and strong form of expression the results of His having taken account of the situation, and purged the Temple once more.
His life here on earth, then, was bounded, we may say, by His relationship with and attitude towards His Father's House. If it be true that the Father's House was set in His vision in a very definite relationship in His life from start to finish, and that His life at both ends is found in relation to that House, then it is important to notice what His attitude towards His Father's House was as to His spirit. He was consumed by a great devotion and passion for the House of God. His life, as represented by this twofold activity, from beginning to end was a life bounded by zeal for God's House, intense and fervent, so that it could be said that it consumed Him.
For what did that zeal exist? What was it in relation to the Father's House that was consuming Him? What was the nature of His devotion? Clearly it was the holiness of His Father's House; its absolute sanctity, its perfect cleanness, its complete separation from the influences and orders of this world, and from all personal interests and elements. Those things are represented by what was taking place here on both of these occasions. A worldly system had crept in, and it was being pursued for personal ends. All such things in His mind were unholy and vile. It was the holiness of His Father's House which was the character of His consuming zeal.
Then one more thing is seen in this attitude towards His Father's House, and that is His assuming authority over it. There is here a foreshadowing of that word in the letter to the Hebrews: "But Christ as a Son over God's house...". He is speaking of this Temple as: "My Father's house". He is the
Son of the Father. What is His place in it as the Son of the Father? It is the place of absolute authority: "A Son over God's house...". And here He assumes His authority in the House of His Father, and His authority is to deal with everything that is out of harmony with that House. That is the position with which we meet immediately as we read of these instances.
Then, as it always is with John, the thing is never left there in the realm of earthly, temporal history. John never leaves things with the illustration or the type, because John is not on the earth. The other three may be giving us historic records, but John is not just doing that. John always gets out of the merely historical, earthly, and carries things through into the realm of the universal, the spiritual. He shows us what is not shown elsewhere, and gives us a meaning related to this thing which we do not find elsewhere.
We could imagine John perhaps reading the narrative of one of the other apostles, or through the oral Gospel (as it was called) having the whole thing repeated to him, and he would say: I wonder why they missed out that first cleansing of the Temple! I wonder why they did not put that in! They have overlooked that, and it is very important; I must put that in! And so he would put it in, and in his mind there would be this far greater connection, and he would put down what the Lord Jesus said, not only what He did, as the larger significance of His act. He follows through, as you notice with this: "The Jews therefore answered and said unto him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
We are not sure whether the Lord Jesus was purposely throwing dust in their eyes, speaking enigmatically. They took Him up as speaking of the Temple which He had just cleansed, but He was not meaning that, and this is where John gives a comment of such tremendous importance: they thought that He spoke of the Temple at Jerusalem, "but he spake of the temple of his body". What has happened with the follow-through? Everything has been transferred to Himself. He has taken it all over in His own Person. The Temple is not this Temple outwardly, about which they were thinking. The Temple of God was Himself.
You notice how all the way through the Gospel of John things are transferred to Christ. It does not matter where you touch a thing that belongs to the Jewish system, it is transferred to Christ every time. In chapter 4 the Temples in Samaria and in Jerusalem are mentioned, and John adds: "Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem...". You see He has come, and so here everything is transferred to Christ. He takes the place of the Temple; He possesses the whole thing in His own Person. Of course they could never understand, because they would not accept Him. He speaks of the Temple of His body and says: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
That is the value of John's record, and, remembering that that stands right at the beginning of His life, it is of tremendous importance that the Lord Jesus has come, and has come in relation to the House of God, and the zeal for His Father's House is consuming Him. He is the embodiment of all that that House means. It is all gathered up into Himself. It is transferred to Christ.
We now have a fuller revelation of that truth, and with our fuller revelation in the Epistles we know two things.
We know now fully how Christ is God's Temple. We have come to see the full meaning and value of the fact that God was in Christ making reconciliation of the world unto Himself, and that all that that Temple in type stood for was Christ. In Him is all the value of shed and sprinkled Blood. In Him is all the value of Mediatorship, Priesthood. In Him is all the value of the provision for the Lord's people. In Him is every thing that was in that Temple in type. He is that to the full. God is only found by us in Christ.
Then we have another aspect also of the one revelation, and that is that Christ has constituted the House of God by uniting with Himself a company called His Body; "the church, which is his body"; "Whose house are we", says the writer of the Hebrew letter. The Body of Christ is now constituted corporately the House of God, God's Temple.
That truth is familiar to us, and we only mention it on the way to the thing which is central to this consideration.
You notice how all the way through the Gospel of John things are transferred to Christ. It does not matter where you touch a thing that belongs to the Jewish system, it is transferred to Christ every time. In chapter 4 the Temples in Samaria and in Jerusalem are mentioned, and John adds: "Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem...". You see He has come, and so here everything is transferred to Christ. He takes the place of the Temple; He possesses the whole thing in His own Person. Of course they could never understand, because they would not accept Him. He speaks of the Temple of His body and says: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
That is the value of John's record, and, remembering that that stands right at the beginning of His life, it is of tremendous importance that the Lord Jesus has come, and has come in relation to the House of God, and the zeal for His Father's House is consuming Him. He is the embodiment of all that that House means. It is all gathered up into Himself. It is transferred to Christ.
We now have a fuller revelation of that truth, and with our fuller revelation in the Epistles we know two things.
We know now fully how Christ is God's Temple. We have come to see the full meaning and value of the fact that God was in Christ making reconciliation of the world unto Himself, and that all that that Temple in type stood for was Christ. In Him is all the value of shed and sprinkled Blood. In Him is all the value of Mediatorship, Priesthood. In Him is all the value of the provision for the Lord's people. In Him is every thing that was in that Temple in type. He is that to the full. God is only found by us in Christ.
Then we have another aspect also of the one revelation, and that is that Christ has constituted the House of God by uniting with Himself a company called His Body; "the church, which is his body"; "Whose house are we", says the writer of the Hebrew letter. The Body of Christ is now constituted corporately the House of God, God's Temple.
That truth is familiar to us, and we only mention it on the way to the thing which is central to this consideration.
