Matthew 21:12-17 – The real purpose of the Temple

In 2 Samuel 5:6-10, we read of the account of how David motivated his men to capture Jerusalem and wrestled it from the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the Land. The latter was so cocksure that David and his men wouldn’t be able to reach them because Jerusalem was on a hill and quite well-fortified. So they taunted David by saying all they needed was to have the blind and lame men do the job of securing the city. David and his men managed to find a water shaft to Jerusalem and through it captured that city. Of course David never forgot the scorn of the Jebusites. So he made a law that the lame and the blind were not welcomed into the house. The house of course was the Temple.

 

Now thousands of years later, we are told that Jesus came to Jerusalem and to the house, the Temple. Here we are told that He cleansed the temple. He overturned the tables of the money changers as well as the tradition of the Temple. The reason is pure and simple. The Temple should be the place when ceaseless worship to God would be offered. It was a place where people come to be connected to God. But the chief priests and the elders had made it a place of exploitation. People would come to offer animals as sacrifices to connect with God. Many of those animals whom they brought to Jerusalem could be killed on the way or injured and hence could not be offered. So they had to acquire animals from the temple which used a Temple coin for transaction. Hence the money changers were there. From a state of facilitating worship, it had become a place of business.

 

The word robbers would better be translated revolutionaries or brigands. These people who believed so strongly in God’s coming Kingdom and justice that they were prepared to take the law into their own hands. The Temple, instead of being a place where people could come and pray, they had made it a hideout for the violence longing of revolutionaries. They were looking to forcefully and aggressively bring about the Kingdom of God through a revolt. We need to know that violence was everything that Jesus was opposed to in all His teaching and ministry. A clear-cut illustration could be seen in the Sermon of the mount. 

 

With the backdrop of how David captured Jerusalem, we can understand verse 14 better. Jesus wanted to ensure that the lame and the blind who were unwelcomed during David’s time were now welcomed. So He healed the lame as well as the blind. But when the Chief priests and the scribes saw that, and also the children cheering and shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were extremely angry. They came to Jesus asking if He had heard what the children was saying. Of course Jesus did, He is the Messiah so why shouldn’t people who recognize that fact acknowledge it. So he responded to them by referring them to the words of Psalms 8:2 to show how it had been fulfilled. 

 

Our call is to worship God and not to worship the system or the structure. We must respect and honor everything that is right and proper. But we must also realize that system should facilitate worship not stifle it. In whatever ministry we are serving, let’s be reminded that we are to facilitate worship and prayer. We should not rigidly enforce rules to a point that prevent people from connecting with God.