Going Out Of Business

John 2:13-22

When you read the gospels you should keep in mind that they are not meant to be biographies of Jesus but accounts of what He said and did,...and that these events in His life are not necessarily in chronological order.
If the gospels were mere biographies, we would expect to read more of Jesus’ childhood and teen years, and also more about His family.
Certain events are sometimes reported together even though they didn’t happen at close to the same time in order to make a larger point.
Such is the case with the Wedding at Cana episode and the account of the Cleansing of the Temple. Turning water into wine at the marriage feast at Cana was Jesus’ first miracle while cleansing the temple occurred near the end of Jesus’ ministry, a week or so before He was crucified.


There must be a reason John put these two events close together, and I believe it was to illustrate a larger point than the obvious. What is the greater message or sign? Early in his gospel John makes mention of the greatest sign of all,...the resurrection of Jesus Christ.


In cleansing the temple Jesus was demonstrating His extreme displeasure at what Judaism had degenerated into. Instead of a house of worship and prayer where God would meet with His people it had become more of a shopping mall where the worshippers were being cheated.

Just as the Wedding at Cana represented that a new joyous relationship was beginning for God and His people, the Cleansing of the Temple symbolizes the fact that the old system would be done away with.
The Passover was the annual feast in which The Exodus was remembered, Ex. 12. All males, 12 years and up, were required to attend, Deut 16:16.
A male, one year old lamb without blemish was killed in the afternoon, the fat was burned and the blood was poured onto the altar. Then the family took the meat and ate it at home observing the Paschal meal in a private ceremony.
Bitter herbs reminded them of the bitter bondage and bread without yeast recalled how quickly they had to leave Egypt when God said “Go!”
During the meal the father would retell the story of how God delivered their ancestors from the cruel Egyptian bondage so the children would never forget.
(Christians observe a similar ritual in the Lord’s Supper which replaces the Passover and reminds us of what God did for us in the death of Christ to deliver us from the bondage to sin.)

The temple proper encompassed about 14 acres with several courts: Gentiles, Jewish women, Jewish men, priests, high priest.
Since it was required that all males attend the Passover with a sacrifice, and since it was so inconvenient to carry an animal over many miles, the merchants set up shop in the temple compound to sell animals for the sacrifice. These merchants were cheating the people and when Jesus saw what was going on He turned over the tables and ran the dishonest merchants out.
The lamb we read about in John chapter one (1:29) has all of a sudden become a lion!


The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, was written by C. S. Lewis. In The Chronicles of Narnia, Narnia is a mythical place where it is endless winter and never Christmas caused by the white witch.
And everyone is waiting for the winter to end.When Mr. and Mrs. Beaver tell the children about Aslan who is the Lion who represents Christ. At first they are scared, and ask “Is he safe?” Mr. Beaver replied, “Of course he isn’t safe,...but he is good.”
Does it surprise you to see our Lord Jesus, meek and mild, getting angry? Does it bother you? Why?
Does our God get angry? I’ll guarantee you our God gets angry, especially when His name is blasphemed and His righteous and holy things are prostituted and abused and marketed for selfish gain and profit.
Daniel 5...Drunken, blasphemous Belshazzar held a drunken party and worshipped the false gods with the holy things taken from the temple. That night he saw the handwriting on the wall, was slain, and his kingdom defeated by the Medes and Persians.

God is good, and He is the God of love, but outside the grace of Jesus Christ, our God is a consuming fire who will, one day, judge all unbelievers and cast them into the lake of fire. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, Heb. 10:31.

They asked Jesus for a sign wanting Him to show by what authority He was doing what He was doing, and He gave them the sign of the resurrection.
They didn’t understand it, nor did His disciples until after the fact,...but it was the only sign He would give.
There are those today who can’t bring themselves to accept the doctrine of the resurrection. Books have been written to explain it away, but it is THE sign, the foundation of our Christian faith. If there is no resurrection, there is no salvation and our faith is rendered useless,...less than useless. (I Cor. 15)

At His death and resurrection, there would be no need for the temple, priesthood, sacrifices, altars, sabbaths and feasts. Jesus’ coming would fulfill and complete these.
Jesus’ purpose was not just to cleanse the temple of it’s abuses, but to shut it down and make it an irrelevant relic of the past. Now our faith and zeal is in Christ alone.