Temple or Den?

For your consideration and comment:


Base Scripture: “Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.'"(Mt 21:12-13. See also Mk 11:15-16, Lk 19:45-46, Jn 2:13-14)

Ever since I can first remember hearing stories about Jesus, the one about Jesus casting out the money changers and merchants from the Temple has always been used as an example of how it’s OK for us to be “righteously” angry towards things or people because, after all, Jesus did it. Yet, after I became born again and began studying the Word in depth, it always bothered me that the words “anger” or “angry” never appeared in any of the translations I’ve read; it was always just assumed. Whenever the story would come up in group Bible studies I was participating in, I would always point out this anomaly, but I would be “poo-pooed” for suggesting that this story wasn’t necessarily about Jesus getting mad or justification for our right to do the same. Even the few sermons I’ve heard on these Scriptures have varied little from this premiss.

Anyway, this story happened to come up in its usual context during an online Christian forum (www.Christianity.com) I was engaged in during my prayer time the other day, when the Spirit of the Lord sounded off as clear as a bell in my spirit and said, “That Scripture is NOT about Jesus getting angry!” He proceeded to tell me that He was going to show me what that story is about and for me to write about it. Needless to say, He got my attention! I’m excited, because what follows is some of the things He shared with me about this event - and I think that it’s some pretty good stuff.

First of all, have you noticed (I didn’t prior to this) that this is one of those few events which shows up in all four of the Gospels? I don’t know about you, but when I see that the Holy Spirit has inspired the reproduction of the same story or Scripture in all of the Gospels, especially when the wording is almost exactly the same in three of the occurrences, I tend to sit up and take notice. I believe that this is God’s way of putting special emphasis on that subject.

Here’s something else to consider: In three of the Gospels, the Temple cleansing event is one of the last things Jesus does before His crucifixion and death, and in fact may have been the “straw that broke the camels back” as far the Pharisees were concerned; it may have been the act that sparked the final solution to their problem. In the Gospel of John, however, the opposite is true: It was one of the first things Jesus did after the miracle at Cana, and from some of the differences between his description of the events and the quote that Jesus used from that of the other Gospel writers, many conclude that there may very have been two separate occurrences. To me, that seems to indicate that Jesus set the stage early on for one of the great principles of the New Testament, where God would leave the temple building and come live inside the bodies of believers after Jesus “cleans house,” and that the final event a week before He was to die served to emphasize the transformation that was about to happen.

Another important tidbit for you concerns the place in the Temple where these events occurred: The section of the Temple called the “Court of the Gentiles.” This area of the Temple was the only place where Gentiles were allowed to enter the Temple and participate in worship and sacrifice ceremonies. The fact that vendors were allowed to peddle their wares only in this area was an obvious slight by the Jewish leadership against Gentiles and the idea of God allowing non-Jews to participate in a relationship with Him. That Jesus would so publicly challenge the authorities through this act helped seal and, indeed, expedite His fate with them.

You see, I believe that the main thing that the Father revealed to me about this Scripture is that it is not about Jesus’ cleaning up the church or justifying righteous anger. It is an allegory for what Jesus does when He comes to live in us as part of the born again experience, and what He continues to do when we allow Him to be in control!

Do you recall that the Bible says that you and I are God’s temple; that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? (1 Cor 3:16 & 6:19, 2 Cor 6:16). Do you also remember that in the Gospel of John, Jesus said that “The thief (robber) comes only to to steal and kill and destroy...?”(Jn 10:10) Those scriptures fit hand-in-glove with the scriptures Jesus spoke to the buyers and sellers He cast out in the first three descriptions of this event. If you agree with theses scriptures about our being God’s temples, and you believe that Christ comes to live in us when we become born again, then Jesus is saying that our bodies are houses of prayer, and that we must not allow them to become dens for Satan and his demons. What’s more, He is standing there inside of us with a whip in his hand and fire in His eyes to help us achieve this ideal! Glory be to God, what an awesome picture that presents...Reminds me of Rich Mullin’s “Awesome God” song!

If you get a chance, please check this out yourself and let me know what you think. I would be very interested in hearing from you about this revelation.