The people watched in amazement as Jesus created a whip from cords and removed their commercial ventures. He drove them out with their sheep and oxen, and He overturned the tables of the moneychangers. And the people said, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” What?
Maybe they heard about the sign Jesus did in Cana, we don’t know. It’s the same word, sign. But in our vernacular, they were saying, “Who do you think you are? What gives you the right to disrupt our business here?” They questioned Jesus’ authority, as the majority of people around the world do today. Who do you think you are, telling us how to run our business, order how lives, and practice our worship? What gives you the right? Prove that you have the authority to do this in our temple! So… Jesus did. He answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” What?
He didn’t challenge their right to question His actions, of which they had none. Instead, Jesus answered them by prophesying about His own death and resurrection. Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days. They hadn’t a clue what He was saying, and they made that clear. It has taken 46 years to build this temple, and it is still not finished, and YOU would rebuild it in three days? John then wrote, “But he was speaking about the temple of his own body.” John didn’t understand that at the time Jesus said this, none of the disciples did. Not until after Jesus was raised from the dead.
Malachi 3:1-4 is considered a prophecy about this time in Jesus’ ministry. “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. 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, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.” You see the double reference in that text, to His first coming and His cleansing of the temple, and to His second coming, and final judgment. The religious leaders had corrupted true worship. Jesus confronted them and cleansed the temple, and no one could stand before Him. But then Jesus went further, by telling them what or Who the temple actually is. The temple, and the tabernacle before it, was the place where man met God. Jesus told them that now He is the only “place” where anyone can meet God. “No one comes to the Father except through Me,” He said later in John. The temple was also the place where sacrifices were made for sin. Not anymore. He is the final sacrifice. Jesus gave His blood for sin, once for all, for all those who come to Him by grace and through faith. Jesus told them plainly, but they did not understand, that His body would be destroyed on the cross, but God would raise Him up in three days.
The temple Jesus cleansed was destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Romans and has never been rebuilt. There is a mosque now where the temple once sat. The Jews who still look for the Messiah long for the temple to be rebuilt. Even many Christians long for it as well, because they believe it is a final sign that Jesus is about to return. But the temple has been rebuilt. Christ is our temple. Paul preached on Mars Hill and addressed those who worshiped all the gods they could think of except the true God. And He said, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Our assurance that Jesus will return comes from the fact that He is raised from the dead. His church is established, the day is fixed, and His return will be glorious. Because of that, we may worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Christ our temple.
