“13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. 23 When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to testify about anyone, for he himself knew what was in everyone” John 2:13-22.
This story above finishes chapter 2 in John’s Gospel. At Passover time Jesus made the customary pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The usual commercial activity was taking place in the Temple, but Jesus forcibly interrupted it, clearing the Temple courts of traders and bankers. The Jews not unnaturally asked for proof of the His authority which alone could justify what Jesus had done; His answer was a dark saying which the Jews misunderstood and the disciples understood only after the resurrection, for Jesus’ remarks referred to His resurrection: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” v. 19. By this reply Jesus in effect refused to give them a sign; yet v. 23 implies that signs had taken place in Jerusalem that led to people believing in Jesus, but it was a superficial faith on the part of many beholders. Jesus, however, being omniscient, rated this faith no higher than its true worth. This is clearly an act of overt rebellion against the Jewish authorities of the nation of Israel.
But here John begins to develop his main theme, that in Jesus the eternal purposes of God find their fulfillment. Since the historic ministry of Jesus was set in the context of Judaism it was necessary first to set forth Christ as the fulfilment of the religion of the Jews. Here Jesus reveals Himself authoritatively in the Temple, but his authority appears even more clearly in the words he spoke than in His acts: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” v. 19. His own body, first destroyed and then raised from the dead is to be the true Temple, the house of prayer for all the nations.
Jesus is the place where God and human nature are joined in one, as John points out earlier in chapter 1: “14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth…51 And He said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’” John 1:14, 51. We see it again later in John when Jesus prays to His Father, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me” John 17:21.
John also says that Jesus is the place where God and human nature are joined in one in the church, not in the Temple, where the new People of God includes Gentiles as well as Jews: “16 I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd” John 10:16, and “Jesus was about to die for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God” John 11:52.
As you pray today, consider what John wishes to say time and time agin in His Gospel, that in Jesus the eternal purposes of God find their fulfillment.
It is in Jesus that you and I find our fulfillment. Consider that!
Lord Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” Romans 8:28.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” Jeremiah 29:11.
“In Jesus we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” Ephesians 1:11.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” John 3:16.
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” Matthew 28:19-20.
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