The LORD Comes to His Temple
JASON MARTIN / General Adult
Jesus in the Gospels / Temple Cleansing / John 2:13–22; Malachi 3:1–2; Haggai 2:6–9; Isaiah 56:6–8; Matthew 21:12–17; Mark 11:15–19; Luke 19:45–48; Jeremiah 7:1–15; Matthew 23:38; Matthew 24:1–2
• If we could put ourselves in the city of Jerusalem during Bible times, the biggest and most beautiful thing we would see would be the Temple
• It was to represent the place that overlaps with God’s Heavenly home - where He could live with His people on Earth and where He ruled as King
• The Bible begins in a garden, moves toward a temple, and ends with a city where there is no temple — because God Himself dwells with His people.
• So why, at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, does He walk into the temple and confront it?
• John 2 gives us one of the biggest clues about why Jesus came.
Read John 2:13-22
• If God walked into His house today, what would He think?
• not about the music
• not about the lighting
• not about the building
• The Temple in Jerusalem very impressive
• But it no longer served the purpose that God established it for
• Then one day - the Owner walks in
Forgotten Purpose
Why does the Temple Matter?
Without understanding the Temple - we can’t understand John 2.
1. Eden functioned as the first Temple
a. God dwelt there with mankind
b. God commissioned Adam to ‘work it and keep it’ (ʿābad and šāmar)
i. this is the same language used when the priests are given their duties in the Temple
Genesis 2:15 ESV
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Numbers 3:5–8 ESV
5 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 6 “Bring the tribe of Levi near, and set them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister to him. 7 They shall keep guard over him and over the whole congregation before the tent of meeting, as they minister at the tabernacle. 8 They shall guard all the furnishings of the tent of meeting, and keep guard over the people of Israel as they minister at the tabernacle.
Numbers 8:23–26 ESV
23 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 24 “This applies to the Levites: from twenty-five years old and upward they shall come to do duty in the service of the tent of meeting. 25 And from the age of fifty years they shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more. 26 They minister to their brothers in the tent of meeting by keeping guard, but they shall do no service. Thus shall you do to the Levites in assigning their duties.”
c. The garden wasn’t just a garden.
i. It functioned as the place where Heaven and Earth overlapped
1. where God walked with mankind
2. sin drove mankind East from God’s Presence
2. The Tabernacle allowed for God’s dwelling with sinful mankind
Exodus 25:8 ESV
8 And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.
a. From the beginning, God has made clear that He wants to dwell with His people
i. but sinful people cannot casually approach a Holy God
3. Solomon’s Temple
1 Kings 8:10–13 ESV
10 And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, 11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. 12 Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness. 13 I have indeed built you an exalted house, a place for you to dwell in forever.”
a. even after experiencing this, Solomon knew that this building could never contain God.
1 Kings 8:27 ESV
27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!
i. It was always meant to point forward to something better
Hebrews 8:5 ESV
5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.”
4. The Glory Departs
a. Israel filled God’s house with idolatry (Ezekiel 8)
b. The Glory leaves the Temple (Ezekiel 10)
c. The Glory leaves Jerusalem altogether (Ezekiel 11)
i. This is one of the darkest moments of Israel’s history
1. the Temple still stood
2. the sacrifices continued
3. the rituals remained
4. But God’s Glory had left (in stages - the same way He would return)
ii. The building remained, but it’s purpose did not
The Lord Suddenly Comes to His Temple
• Fast forward 600 years...
• The second Temple has been built
• Herod made it so magnificent that even the Greeks and Romans - who knew a thing or two about grand architecture - were astonished by it
• But Israel has gone centuries without a prophet
• Then comes one of the greatest fulfilled prophecies in Scripture
Malachi 3:1–2 ESV
1 “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. 2 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.
• Read carefully
• He will come to Rome? nope
• Caesar? nope
• to Herod’s palace? nope
• He will come to His Temple
• Who can endure?
• He comes to refine
• He comes to purify
• He comes to judge
• John 2 is Malachi inaugurated
• The Lord has arrived
Haggai 2:6–9 ESV
6 For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. 7 And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. 9 The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’ ”
• Many people mourned because the second Temple - although beautiful - lacked the Glory of Solomon’s Temple
• Then what made it greater?
• not Herod’s expansion of it
• it was greater because Jesus walked into it
• the Glory returned - but not as a cloud
• as the Incarnate Word of God
The Cleansing Was an Act of Judgment
1. This is not uncontrolled anger or rage - It is prophetic symbolism like;
a. Isaiah walked barefoot (Isaiah 20:2-4)
b. Jeremiah shattered a jar (Jeremiah 19:10-11)
c. Ezekiel built a model of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 4:1-3)
2. What’s the scene?
a. Merchants selling oxen, sheep, pigeons/doves
Deuteronomy 14:24–26 ESV
24 And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, 25 then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses 26 and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household.
i. buying sacrifices was permitted
b. Money-changers converting foreign currency into Tyrian shekels
Exodus 30:11–16 ESV
11 The Lord said to Moses, 12 “When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. 13 Each one who is numbered in the census shall give this: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as an offering to the Lord. 14 Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the Lord’s offering. 15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the Lord’s offering to make atonement for your lives. 16 You shall take the atonement money from the people of Israel and shall give it for the service of the tent of meeting, that it may bring the people of Israel to remembrance before the Lord, so as to make atonement for your lives.”
i. money changing itself was necessary
3. Understand the setting;
a. Passover crowds
b. Temple tax
c. Tyrian Shekel
d. Sacrificed animals
4. Commerce itself wasn’t sinful. So what was?
a. The Court of the Gentiles
i. This was where the Gentile nations could seek and worship God
ii. but those that came would be surrounded by
1. livestock
2. bargaining
3. commerce
4. distractions
Isaiah 56:6–8 ESV
6 “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— 7 these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” 8 The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”
i. Israel turned evangelical space into commercial space
5. Why the whip?
a. Read carefully
i. Jesus didn’t whip people
ii. He drove out animals
iii. He poured out coins
iv. He overturned tables
v. He is measured and intentional
vi. He does not lose control
vii. He demonstrates perfect Authority
John 2:16 ESV
16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”
1. No prophet talks like this
2. The Temple belongs to His Father - and therefore it belongs to Him
3. Only the Owner has authority to inspect the House
a. “The LORD would come to His Temple”
b. “My Father’s House”
Judgment of the Temple - The Second Cleansing
This wasn’t just about merchants - it was about another Covenant failure
1. The Temple cleansing that we read about in John 2 is a warning to repent
a. The second cleansing is an escalation
ii. Mark 11:15-19
iii. Luke 19:45-48
Mark 11:15–19 ESV
15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. 19 And when evening came they went out of the city.
b. Jeremiah’s warning
Jeremiah 7:1–15 ESV
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. 3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ 5 “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever. 8 “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? 11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. 12 Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. 13 And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, 14 therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim.
i. A den isn’t where robbers commit robbery - it’s where they retreat to afterwards when they think they’re safe
1. the Temple had become a refuge for people living in rebellion while assuming religious activity saved them from judgment
2. At the first cleansing, Jesus says not to make His Father’s house a house of trade
a. the second cleansing, He said it has become a den of robbers
3. The first cleansing He called it My Father’s House
a. after the second cleansing, He pronounces the judgment
Matthew 23:38 ESV
38 See, your house is left to you desolate.
b. from My Father’s House to your house
i. terrifying
ii. God’s Presence has been rejected
iii. Israel’s unfaithfulness to the Covenant reaches it’s climax when they reject the Messiah
Matthew 24:1–2 ESV
1 Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2 But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
1. Not one stone
a. the Temple that rejected it’s Lord will not stand
b. Fulfillment in A.D. 70 when the Romans destroy it
Jesus Replaces the Temple
Now John gives us the point of the whole story
John 2:18–22 ESV
18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore 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.
1. They didn’t ask what they did wrong. They asked what gave Jesus the authority to point it out.
2. Everything the Temple represented now is in Christ. He is;
a. The Substance
Colossians 2:17 ESV
17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
b. God’s Presence
John 1:14 ESV
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
c. The High Priest
Hebrews 4:14–16 ESV
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
d. The Perfect Sacrifice
Hebrews 9:11–14 ESV
11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
e. The meeting place between God and man
1 Timothy 2:5 ESV
5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
John 1:51 ESV
51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
3. The Church believers become God’s Temple / dwelling place
Ephesians 2:19–22 ESV
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 3:16–17 ESV
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
1 Corinthians 6:19–20 ESV
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
1. Notice the progression
a. Eden
b. Tabernacle
c. Temple
d. Christ
e. Church
f. New Creation
Revelation 21:22 ESV
22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.
i. and God again dwells directly with His redeemed people - this time for eternity
• Notice that Jesus never once whipped Rome
• They were Idolatrous, sexually immoral, violent pagans
• Yet Jesus never stormed Caesar’s palace.
• He went to His Father’s house.
• 1 Peter 4:17 “17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”
• Revelation 2-3 shows us that Jesus is still inspecting His people, just like He inspected the Temple in Jerusalem
• “I know your works...”
• Ephesus
• Pergamum
• Thyatira
• Sardis
• Laodicea
• “I know your works..”
• Revelation 2:1 “1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.”
• He walks among them
• He evaluates
• He praises
• He rebukes
• He calls for repentance
• This is exactly what He’s doing in John 2 - only now His Temple is His church
Application
I've heard people say, 'Sometimes you've just got to flip tables like Jesus.'
But before we go looking for tables to flip in the culture, maybe we ought to ask what tables Christ would flip in us.
Before we reach for a whip to drive sinners into better behavior, we should let the Word of God drive sin out of our own hearts.
Jesus never commissioned the Church to police the world into righteousness. He commissioned us to preach the gospel that brings dead sinners to life.
The world acts like the world because it does not know Christ.
But the people of God are called to be holy because Christ has made His home in us.
So when He inspects our temples....His Temple.… what would He drive out?
Exported from Logos Bible Study, 10:11 AM July 22, 2026.