Well, turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 2.

I must confess, I was reminded this week of God’s sense of humor. Because as we were doing a lot of things, getting ready this week and in the last few weeks, getting ready for this rummage sale, which is a big event. on our calendars and the things that we do to get ready for that and all the things that go into that to raise money for our mission strip. Then I also, fitting in time to study for this sermon, opened our passage for this week and saw that it was on Jesus cleansing the temple for making it a marketplace. I was like, huh, that’s interesting. It’s not what we were doing, but it just is a funny thing that happens sometimes.

But we are in John chapter two, and we began John chapter two last week. And there we saw the first of Jesus’ signs. Jesus came with his disciples to a wedding in Cana, where his mother already was. And when the wine ran out at this wedding, Jesus miraculously turned the water into wine. Jesus subverted the laws of nature and he turned real water into real wine. It was a true miracle. It had no scientific explanation. There was no process of testing and experimentation or reproducing what Jesus did. He performed a miracle in front of his disciples and in front of the servers at this wedding. It was truly a glimpse of the glory of God on display.

And as John had explained earlier in John 1:14, he, along with the other disciples there, beheld his glory. He beheld the glory of Jesus, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. The glory that they saw had to be as of the only begotten from the Father. And that glory, while it was still veiled in his humanity, it wasn’t fully on display, it wasn’t the full glory of God, but that glory was visible for all who had eyes to see it. And that is what happened with his disciples following this miracle.

We see there in John chapter two, verse 11, the last verse. left with last week, Jesus did this in Cana of Galilee as the beginning of his signs, and he manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him. His disciples, though already believing enough to follow this new leader of theirs, only being with him a week or less, because of what Jesus did, because of the revelation of that glory, They believed. They believed even more. And we have moments like that in our walk of faith as well.

There are times when we face things that on the other side we can feel like our faith is strengthened. And as often when we come through a trial or a time when God provides for us in ways that we didn’t think possible. And though we wouldn’t say that we didn’t have faith before that time, it feels as though our faith is deeper and stronger and more galvanized because of what happened. That we are even more convinced of what we already believed. And those times are important because when we face trials in the future, we rely on the assurance we’ve seen in the past. We can look back to those faith-building moments as assurance for our faith-testing moments. And we saw in the first part of John chapter 2 a faith-building moment for the disciples, where they were reassured. Their faith was strengthened.

They were confirmed in what they had already done in following Jesus, which was good. because these young Jewish men that were following this new leader were about to see something that would surely present them an opportunity to question this man, to question this new leader they were following. They would see a whole new side of the teacher that they just met and began to follow. And as with many accounts that John tells us in his narrative sections of this gospel, he follows a similar pattern here. He begins with setting the stage for us, and then he tells us the details of the story, and then he follows up with a summary, or the purpose of why he told us this.

Or to alliterate it for you, in our episode in this text we see, first of all, the occasion. The occasion for what happened. We see that in verses 12 through 13. Then we see the offense in verse 14. Verses 15 and 16 show us the overturning. And lastly, verse 17 is the occurring. So I’m going to read for us, once again, our passage of Scripture. Verses 12 through 17 of John 2.

John 2, 12 through 17. This is the word of the Lord. After this, He went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brothers and his disciples. And they stayed there a few days. And the Passover of the Jews was near. And Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves. And the money changers seated at their tables. And he made a scourge of cords, and he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And to those who were selling the doves, he said, take these things away. Stop making my father’s house a place of business. His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me.

Was Jesus a revolutionary? Some have seen him that way. Some have seen him as a rebel, a leader of a revolutionizing force. In Jesus’ day, there were men known as zealots. Simon the zealot would later become a disciple of Jesus. In fact, that word is used here in verse 17. The word zeal is the word zealos, which is where we get the term zealot. From seeing this episode happen and then remembering this quote from Psalm 69 about zeal, you could see how a group like the zealots and other revolutionaries of his day could identify with what Jesus was doing here. They could see him as their hero. Many of the zealots of that day carried swords or daggers and they were frequently involved in political assassinations and things like that. And eventually, the zealots would lead a political revolt that ended up in a war and finally would result in the Roman General Titus decimating Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70.

But the zealots lived on after that, and living in secluded regions of the mountains and the deserts, and there are even elements in Judaism today that identify with the cause of the zealots. And some scholars even view Jesus as party to their cause. Even popular political commenter, though not a Christian, But the Jewish man, Ben Shapiro, recently said that Jesus was merely a rebel that got killed for his trouble. That’s how Jesus is often viewed. He was just a rebel that led a political movement, and he was killed for it. They see the similarities between Jesus’ words and those of the zealots. Because both the zealots and Jesus said that the kingdom of God was at hand. The zealots, just like Jesus, criticized Herod. And Jesus even called Herod a fox. And Jesus was crucified under the charge of political revolution.

In Matthew 27, 37, we read this, above his head they put up the charge against him, which read, this is Jesus, king of the Jews. That was the charge. And then in our passage today, we see behavior that was similar to the tactics of those rebels in his day. They would come in, cause a stir, cause trouble, cause chaos.

So was Jesus a revolutionary? Well, it depends on what you mean by that. Would Jesus have identified with the violent, rebellious elements like the zealots in those days? No, he never did. And while the rebels may have identified with some of the things Jesus said, There were things he said that they would have a big problem with as well.

Matthew 5:39, Jesus said, I say to you, do not resist an evil person. Whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And in Matthew 26, verse 52, Jesus said, put your sword back in its place for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. And then again in Matthew 5, verse 44, I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. And in this gospel, in John’s gospel, chapter 18, Jesus distances himself from these political uprisings.

In John 18, 36, Jesus answered and said, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would be fighting so that I would not be delivered over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” So if Jesus was a revolutionary in the sense that the zealots were, he was not a very good one. And just because he was killed for being a rebel doesn’t mean that that was a just accusation. Yes, he did have a disciple who was a zealot, but he also had one that was a tax collector.

And as we see in this text today, he wasn’t a revolutionary in the sense of a political rebel. But what he said and did was revolutionary in the face of what the Jewish religious customs and rituals and business had become. He didn’t seek to revolutionize their worship to something new. He sought to reform their worship back to what it always should have been. So as we consider this text before us this morning, the first thing we see, number one, is the occasion, the occasion for this episode that John gives us.

We see in verse 12 and 13, after this, he, Jesus, went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brothers and his disciples. And they stayed there a few days. And the Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. So here John is just giving us the account of their movement after this wedding. He starts with after this, and that’s a frequent connective phrase that he uses, and it doesn’t really give us any indication of time. We don’t know how long after the wedding they went down to Capernaum. We don’t know if it was a week, a month, how long it was.

Capernaum was on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, about 16 miles from Cana. And because it was on the shoreline in a mountainous region, travelers literally went down to Capernaum. And again, nobody knew His name as following Jesus after the miracle in Cana. He still has His original disciples that we learned about in chapter one. His mother is mentioned and his brothers are mentioned. And that’s the group that leaves the wedding and goes down to Capernaum. But it doesn’t mean that his brothers or mother were disciples yet, because we learn later on that they resist him.

But it does show that he has brothers, meaning Mary had other children. So Mary was not a perpetual virgin. The Catholics have that one completely wrong. The perpetual virginity of Mary is a completely made up and anti-biblical doctrine. And some will claim in defense of that doctrine that, well, the word for brother there can also mean cousin. So these were Jesus’ cousins, not his real brothers. But that’s wrong too, because there’s a word for cousin. In Colossians 4.10, you see it. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you greetings. Also mark the cousin of Barnabas. There’s a word for cousin, and John doesn’t use it. These were his brothers. So you can save that little nugget for next time you’re in a discussion with a Roman Catholic about this very doctrine.

But in any case, this group of Jesus’ disciples, his mother and his brothers, they stay at Capernaum for a few days. They went down to Capernaum and eventually, again, we don’t know how long, but eventually they go up to Jerusalem. And the reason they went to Jerusalem was for the Passover. Now notice the chronological markers here. It’s very important, as we’ll see in a moment. But these are a succession of dates. After the wedding, they go to Capernaum, then they go to Jerusalem. That’s important to remember. But the reason they go to Jerusalem is for the Passover.

And Jesus was an Israelite. And he was the true Israelite that obeyed God perfectly like every Israelite should have. And part of that obedience was obeying God’s command to observe the Passover. And so that’s what he did. The Feast of Passover was to remember Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt. You read that account in Exodus. And there in Egypt, by the angel of death, the Lord killed all the firstborn in Egypt. But he passed over the houses of the Israelites who had marked their doors with the blood of the lamb as they were instructed.

And Passover was celebrated every year on the 14th day of the month Nisan, which is typically March to April on our calendars. And on that day, between three and six o’clock in the evening, lambs were slaughtered and the Passover meal was eaten. So again, in obedience to that institution of Passover, we find that in Exodus 23, Jesus went up to Jerusalem to observe the Passover, and then following that, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They went together. And this is the first of three Passovers mentioned in John’s Gospel. You have here in chapter two, then again in chapter six, and the third one is in chapter 11. And up until this point, Jesus and his disciples, they’d been around relatively few people.

They were out in the wilderness at the Jordan River with John the Baptist. Then they go to the small town of Cana for a wedding. And they’d been traveling around basically in obscurity. Nobody really knew who they were. But that was not the case now. As they come to Jerusalem at Passover, it would have been packed with people. Jerusalem would have been full. It would have been difficult to merge onto the Jerusalem Expressway at this time of year. There was a lot of people in Jerusalem. They weren’t in obscurity any longer. So that is the setting for this story, this episode that John tells us, the occasion, verses 12 and 13. And next we come to the offense. As they arrive in Jerusalem, this is immediately where we see the offense in this story.

Verse 14, and he found in the temple, So as they come to Jerusalem for the Passover, they go to the temple and he found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. Because of the masses of people who came from all over, Jews who lived in all the surrounding regions, some of them traveled long distances to come to Jerusalem for the Passover. The Passover meant big business. for the merchants in Jerusalem. And inside the temple grounds, they’d set up shop, and vendors were selling animals for sacrifice, oxen and sheep and doves. And there were money changers there, seated at their tables.

The people who were traveling long distances, often it was impossible for them to bring these animals that far. But the merchants were there and they sold them animals that were required for the sacrifices and they were selling them at greatly inflated prices. And the money changers also provided a necessary service because every Jewish man, 20 years of age or older, had to pay the annual temple tax. It was their tax season. They had to pay their temple tax. But that could only be paid using Jewish or Tyrian coins because of the content of silver in the coin. They had to have a certain type of coin in order to pay with. So foreigners that come from other countries that didn’t use those coins, they had to have acceptable money for their sacrifices and for their tax. And because these money changers really had a monopoly on the market, They were charging a crazy exchange fee to turn their money into the acceptable money. Instead of just one for one, they were charging interest. They were charging high rates in order to provide this service.

One scholar estimated it to be as high as 12.5% just to turn your money from one into the other. And I’m sure these practices had begun as a service for the people. There was a use for it. People coming from other countries didn’t have the right money, so they needed to exchange it. Or they didn’t have the animals to bring that far, so they needed to purchase them when they got there. So it wasn’t necessarily that these services were being provided. The problem was that what had begun as a service, under the corruption of the leadership in the temple, the chief priests and so on, it had turned into exploitation and usury. and they were doing it in the temple. They turned the temple into their business. Religion had just become a materialistic ritual. They were making money off people going through the steps they needed to.

In Matthew 21, Jesus cleanses the temple because it had become a den of robbers. That’s how he describes it. So Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, and he sees what’s going on. And he basically finds something like the strawberry festival happening in the temple. $15 for a lemonade? Are you out of your mind? Jesus was outraged. He was appalled. He was offended at what he saw.

The temple, which should have been this worshipful atmosphere, This somber and reverent place where the God of the universe is rightly adored and worshiped. That was all completely absent. The worship of God should have been a time of honor and adoration and reverence. And instead, he found a place of chaos and commerce and business. That is the offense. That is what Jesus finds as he comes to Jerusalem for the Passover. Verses 15 and 16, we come to what I’ll call the overturning. It says in verse 15, and he made a scourge of cords, and he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen, and he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

And to those who were selling the doves, he said, take these things away. Stop making my father’s house a place of business. Jesus comes to the temple. He sees what he sees. He doesn’t mess around. He takes swift and decisive action. He realized the purity of worship, the purity of the temple was a matter of honor to God. The way they treated the temple reflected how they treated God. It says he made a scourge. This was a whip or a lash made out of ropes or leather straps. And he may have used the cords that the animals were tied up with. after releasing them, but he found these cords and he makes them into a whip. This was a different type of whip than you see with flogging. It was less deadly, and the whip used for flogging was called a flagulum. But this is called a scourge, it’s a different word. And it was typically used to drive animals with. But he makes a scourge of cords. And he drives them all out.

He drives out the merchants with their sheep and their oxen. He drives them forcefully out of the temple. And then he takes the coins of the money changers, the piggy banks that they had set up, and he dumps them all over the place. And he overturns their tables. This was impressive for one man to do in a crowded temple. There’s a lot of people there, and I’m sure he’s facing some resistance from these men as he’s doing this. I guess Jesus wasn’t all gentle and lowly. He wasn’t gentle or lowly here. Jesus uses an impressive amount of force to drive these people out of the temple. And he would have immediately created more chaos than was already there.

The animal sellers, the merchants would have been chasing their animals around as Jesus lets them free and starts driving them with a whip. I’m not sure if you’ve ever worked with animals. But once an animal senses that it has a little bit of freedom combined with being scared of your whip, that’s bad news. You’re not gonna catch that animal for a long time. And then the money changers. Jesus is making a mess of what they’re doing. And as they are concerned about their money, as he’s dumping it all over the floor and throwing their tables, I’m sure they’re scrambling to pick up all of their coins, as well as everyone else there, scrambling to pick up those coins. And then the priests would come and see what all the commotion was about, and we’ll see next week in that passage what they have to say.

But Jesus would not tolerate mockery in the worship of God. Jesus was angry and he angrily rebuked those in the temple. It says specifically to those who were selling doves, he says, take these things away. Stop making my father’s house a place of business. Jesus is angry. And Jesus’ reference to God as his father here. was a reminder not only of his deity, but of his sonship. Jesus, being the loyal son that he is, is defending his father, defending the honor of his father here, defending his father’s house and cleansing it of this vile and impure worship.

And this was a shadow of what Christ will do in his second coming. The prophet Malachi speaks of Christ, the Messiah coming, and he speaks of elements of both his first and his second coming together. Prophets do that a lot, but Malachi specifically does that in Malachi 3. We saw this when we talked about John the Baptist, because he starts Malachi 3, verse 1, with, behold, I’m going to send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. He continues, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. And the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, saying, or says Yahweh of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming?

Here you can see the… Shadows of the second coming in Malachi’s reference. Who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like a smelter’s fire and a fuller’s soap, and he will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver so that they may present to Yahweh offerings in righteousness. Jesus cared about the purity of the worship of God. And if you think this cleansing of the temple is harsh, wait till you see what he has in store when he comes again.

Several years later, at the end of his ministry, Christ would cleanse the temple again. Some commenters believe that John is actually referring to that later cleansing here, and he’s moved things out of chronological order, but that doesn’t make any sense. Because I told you about the chronological succession in the beginning, the setup of this story. They came from the wedding to Capernaum, then to Jerusalem. John’s very clear about that. But again, their explanation for why this is misplaced is not convincing.

The cleansing recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that all takes place right before the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. He comes in on the donkey and cleanses the temple. And the details in the two accounts of the two cleansings, they’re very different. In the other gospels, Jesus quotes the Old Testament as his authority for doing what he’s doing. Here in John, as we’ll see next week, he quotes, he uses his own words. He doesn’t quote, he uses his own words about raising up the temple and destroying it in three days. That’s why he has authority to do this.

And the other gospels record different words that he says to the people there, and John doesn’t mention that. And the other gospels don’t mention Jesus’ prediction of tearing down the temple. But those other gospels do quote that in his trial. So all of the evidence, as it stacks up, it leads to the conclusion that there were two cleansings of the temple. That’s what makes the best sense, and there’s no real reason to separate them.

But in any case, here Jesus finds the temple in corruption and chaos. This is not the way that God wants to be worshiped. This is not the way that God instructed them to carry out these meals and sacrifices and things that they were supposed to continue doing in their worship. And Jesus won’t stand for it. Jesus isn’t just a purist about the type of songs that they sing or the type of instruments they use. Jesus is concerned about the glory of God. He cleanses the temple and he drives out all the animals and merchants and money changers. That is the overturning. This is what Jesus does in response to the offense.

And lastly, verse 17. We see what I call the occurrence, and I call it that because it’s what occurs to the disciples when they see this happen. And this is why John tells us this story. This is why he gives us the account of what happened in the temple. Verse 17, his disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me. This is a quote of Psalm 69, a messianic psalm, and John’s making the connection. That’s why he told us that he cleansed the temple, because his disciples immediately see that and they think, Psalm 69, the Messiah. As they watch in amazement to see this new leader that they’ve been following recently, acting in a way totally different than they’ve ever seen him act.

Up until this point, Jesus was fairly gentle and winsome and convincing them to follow him. And they see him come to the temple where they assume we’re going to worship. And he comes to the temple and makes a whip and starts driving everyone out of the temple. Now, you could think that, well, what’s going through their mind right now?

They could have thought, well, wow, Jesus, that’s a little harsh. Hey, I wouldn’t be exchanging money in the temple, but it’s not my place to tell them not to. It’s the merchant’s right to choose what to do with their own body. You know, shouldn’t we be more focused on loving them, Jesus, than judging them? Hey, Jesus, don’t you think we should be more known for what we are for than what we are against?

But that’s not what they thought. When they see this happen, they remembered what the Bible says. And what they were seeing with their eyes was lining up perfectly with God’s word. Jesus’ passion was clear to everyone that saw him. He had a righteous indignation, a righteous anger that comes from an absolute commitment to the holiness of God. You see, Jesus knew better than anybody how holy God was and what God demands in his worship. And Jesus’ actions reveal his true nature as the judge of all the earth.

And as he typically does when Jesus quotes the Old Testament, he only quotes a portion of it. And he expects you to understand the context of what he’s quoting, as the disciples do. He quotes just a portion of a verse. And the disciples remember, and they think of the portion of this verse, and they think to themselves, zeal for your house will consume me. That’s what this looks like. What does that verse go on to say?

Psalm 69:9, for zeal for your house has consumed me, and it continues, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.” What they do to God, they might as well be doing to me. Jesus took the blaspheming of God personally, and as God’s people, so should we. When someone insults God, whether it be in their mocking or in their false worship, it ought to bother us. That is the heart of the third commandment.

Taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. It doesn’t just mean don’t say, oh my God, although that’s part of it. You shouldn’t be doing that. It also means to seek out the honor and reverence of God’s name. Whatever the Ten Commandments prohibit, they enforce the opposite. If you aren’t supposed to do that, you are supposed to do something else. Don’t take the name of the Lord your God in vain. That means honor His name. Show reverence for His name. Care about the honor of His name. Don’t claim to be one of God’s people and live in such a way that would bring dishonor to God’s name. That’s taking the name of the Lord your God in vain.

And if you care deeply about the honor of God’s name, it will burn you when it is dishonored. And that’s what we see in our Lord and Savior in the temple. God is being blasphemed and his honor is being discarded. So how do we represent God’s name as God’s people? Does it bother you to see other people dishonoring his name? Do you just let it go? Or do you stand up for the name of your God? We ought to consider what mattered to our Lord and evaluate whether or not our desires line up with His. You know, the Jewish leaders never forgot this episode, the first appearing of Jesus in public, in His public ministry. He comes to the city, and the first thing He does, is the last thing they remember in his trial. This is one of the main motivations that caused them to pursue his crucifixion.

So was Jesus a revolutionary? No, he was executed wrongly for that. But he does, like other leaders of revolutions, he does require our self-sacrifice, our honor, our devotion. In Matthew 16, Jesus says, if anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Those aren’t just empty words. Those aren’t just symbolic. You are to give your life to follow Jesus. Jesus demanded everything of his followers. And there were very few who found that offer of denying themselves and taking up their cross to be an attractive offer.

So do you? Are you willing to deny yourself to follow him? Will you resist the pull from our society? To pursue comfort and security rather than pursuing Christ and what honors Him. Even if you’re thought to be a radical or a revolutionary. And if you’re told you’re crazy and you should just use common sense and do what everyone else is doing. There were few who followed Jesus for these very reasons.

But there were some zealots, and there were some tax collectors, and there were some politicians and some rulers. There was some blue collar and some white collar who did take up this offer and follow him. They had the courage and the commitment to follow Jesus despite the resistance that he faced. But that wasn’t their own doing. It wasn’t because they had just the right personality for it. It came from the faith that God worked in their hearts. And it came from the assurance they found in seeing him perform his first sign. There’s a reason these two episodes go together. There’s a reason why John tells us both of them. He didn’t tell us the miracle at the wedding in Cana just to show a cool thing that Jesus did. This goes hand in hand with what his disciples saw next. He proved who he was by the miracle he performed, which assured them of their faith. They saw and believed.

The very next thing they saw had to have been a challenge. This is the guy we’re following? This is what it’s gonna cost us? This is what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus? But they had the assurance, the faith-building moment that helped them in their faith-testing moment. It’s not easy to follow Christ. It will cost you something. And if you’re living in a way that doesn’t cost you anything to follow Christ, you might want to consider that. But He will give you the faith that you need to continue following Him if you simply trust Him.

So do you trust Him? If you have not yet trusted Christ as your Savior, you need to come to Him. You need to confess your sins and believe that He is the payment for your sins, that He took the wrath of God that you deserved, and that He alone gives you salvation. So don’t leave here this morning without a relationship with the Lord of the universe. Stay behind and talk to someone if you need to. But consider the cost of following Christ. It’s not always easy, but it is worth it because he is coming again. And his cleansing that will happen when he comes again will be a lot worse than the cleansing of the temple.

Let’s stand and close in a word of prayer. Our God, we thank you. We thank you for what your word reveals to us. As we consider the things that you tell us about yourself, about Christ, about how we ought to worship you, and how the way that we worship you matters to you, that we shouldn’t come to you carelessly and without any honor and reverence for who you are. Lord, we pray that you would examine our hearts and show us where we need to be more devoted to you, more reverent in our worship, committed in our daily following of Christ. We pray that you would refine us, remove those things from our heart, remove our selfishness and our pride, and help us to give more and more of our lives over to Christ. That we walk with him each day in a way that more and more resembles him. Pray that you would work those things in our heart and that we would take the good news of Christ to those who are in our lives, in our communities, in our own homes. We thank you, Lord, for who you are, for what you reveal of yourself to us in your word. And we pray this in Christ’s precious name. Amen.