12 ¶ After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and
his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not
many days. 13 And the Jews’ passover was
at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, 14
And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and
the changers of money sitting: 15 And
when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple,
and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew
the tables; 16 And said unto them that
sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of
merchandise. 17 And his disciples
remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.
18 Then answered the Jews and said unto
him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
19 Jesus answered and said unto them,
Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. 20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was
this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? 21 But he spake of the temple of his body.
22 When therefore he was risen from the
dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they
believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.
Jesus, his mother,
brothers, and disciples all go to Capernaum. From there Jesus went to observe
the Passover at Jerusalem. The phrase, “at hand,” in verse 13, means that it
was an event to happen soon. Notice in the following verse how Isaac’s death is
coming soon;
Genesis 27:41 And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing
wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of
mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob.
“At hand,” can
also be near. “Nigh,” meaning near, is often used before the phrase for
emphasis;
John 19:42
There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day;
for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.
What follows is a
controversial episode in this gospel. It appears, from a literal reading of all
four gospels, that there would have been two times when Jesus ran money
changers out of the temple, in the beginning and at the end of His ministry.
Here, He says;
16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take
these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.
In Matthew 21 He
said, alluding to Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11;
13
And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of
prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
He does the same
in Mark 11:17 and Luke 19:46 which makes these instances somewhat different
from John’s gospel. The key here is how you view the Bible. If you view it from
the point of view of what it says about itself, being, “given by inspiration of
God,” then there really is no problem with this passage.
2Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God,
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness:
Job 32:8
But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth
them understanding.
2Peter 3:15 And account that the longsuffering of our
Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the
wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
In fact, some
heavy-hitters in the history of Bible commentary also saw that there must have
been two separate events where Jesus caused an uproar in the temple with this
type of action. Both Augustine and Chrysostom are both reported to have agreed
on this.
Modernists of all
persuasions will declare one of two things; the liberal will say it is a
mistake on John’s part and proof the Bible is unreliable while the fundamentalist
will say it is a mistake but doesn’t matter as it doesn’t change the message.
Both of these parties received their talking points from German theology and
so-called Higher Criticism of the 18 and 1900’s through heretics like David
Strauss, Albert Schweitzer, and Hermann Reimarus.
A similar lack of
reading comprehension is found in any study of the popularly named, “Sermon on
the Mount.” The modernist will say that there are two accounts of the same sermon,
one found in Matthew 5 and one found in Luke 6, even though they are two
completely different sermons given at different times under different
conditions. They have a similar ring to them so the modernist who lacks basic
reading comprehension skills is unable to distinguish between the Sermon on the
Mount and the Sermon on the Plain.
Verse 17 is a
reference to Psalm 69:9.
The Jews, in
keeping with what was said before about Israel being born in signs and wonders,
required some kind of visible proof that Christ had the authority to do what He
did. Christ replied with a reference to His body which the Jews misunderstood
and then misused the misunderstanding maliciously.
Matthew 26:61 And said, This fellow said, I am able to
destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.
Jesus did not say
His body was “like” the temple which would have been a figure of speech called
a simile or that His body was the temple which would have been a metaphor. He
used a figure of speech which E.W. Bullinger called in his voluminous Figures of Speech Used in the Bible a hypocatastasis,
where Christ’s body represented the temple. (5)
It can be said,
in the Bible, that the struggles, failings, and triumphs of Israel represent
each Christian’s life which is a microcosm of the road Israel took, always
remembering that in the end God never abandoned His people regardless of how
backslidden they were. But, they caused themselves immense tribulation by
disobedience as we do. It can also be said that the kingdom of Israel’s history
is a microcosm of the world at large and we can see the failings and corruption
of all human government within the framework of Israel’s history.
The physical
temple that was part of this reference was built under King Herod’s, the Roman
puppet ruler, command. As his crowning effort to try to placate and please the
Jews he erected a magnificent temple for them which was, “so transcendently
beautiful that Josephus [the most significant Jewish historian of the first
century] seems tireless in describing its splendors, and even Titus [the Roman
general and future emperor who destroyed it], out of regard for its
magnificence, was anxious to spare it when the city fell in 70 A.D.” (6)
The figure of
speech was explained in verse 21 and yet neither the Jews nor His disciples
believed this until His disciples did, after His Resurrection.
(5) E.W.
Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the
Bible: Explained and Illustrated (London: Grapho Press, 1898), 746.
(6) Merrill F.
Unger, Archaeology and the New Testament (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing, 1962), 61.
No comments:
Post a Comment