TEXT: John 2:13-22

SUBJECT: The Temple Rebuilt

Today all over the world Christians are gathering to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a fine thing to do, so long as you do not limit the party to one day a year. The Early Church marked the event every Sunday, by greeting each other—

We would do well to imitate our fathers and mothers in Christ and, with all due respect, to do them one better: by rejoicing in the Resurrection every day of the year, every year, until this Article of Faith becomes an Object of Sight.

The Resurrection of our Lord is a fact of history, and like other facts, it cannot be un-facted or de-facted. We can ignore it, deny it, and publish learned books against it, but we cannot undo it. Whether we believe it or not—

If you read the accounts of the Resurrection in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you’ll find nothing mythological or existential about them. They don’t read like legends or fairy tales, but like police reports: Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. These facts, moreover, take place outside the disciples’ heads and hearts. They have nothing to do with what Peter felt or what John wanted, what James hoped for, or what Thomas believed! The men did not believe in His Resurrection; they didn’t feel it or even hope for it.

But There He is—alive and well. What are they going to do with Him? One of them is going to repent of his stupid and proud unbelief, fall down before Jesus, and confess—

What he did then and there, I invite you to do here and now. Give up your skepticism, your indecision, your fear of being wrong, and prostrate yourself before the One who—

The fact of the Resurrection is of primary importance. The first preachers spent far more time proclaiming it than explaining it. The Undivided Church followed their cue, and instead of larding up the Creeds with interpretations, they were content with the facts—

If the facts come first, they don’t come alone: the meanings follow close on their heels. We know what the Resurrection of Christ is, but what does it mean? For one thing it means: the Promise God made by raising the Temple in Jerusalem, He kept by raising His Son from the dead! We’ll get to this shortly, but first, the context.

Early on in His public career, Jesus went up to Jerusalem to observe the Passover. When He came to the Temple that day, He found it in disarray. Instead of being God’s House and a place of prayer for all people, it had become a market, where profit meant more than piety, and where cheating was the order of the day.

By now, the people were so used to the corruption, they hardly noticed it. A few of them sighed for better days to come, of course, and maybe one or two of them raised a half-hearted protest now and then, but ‘you can’t fight city hall’. Leave it to Messiah: He’ll know what to do.

They were right: He did know what to do. Horrified by what He saw, Jesus tore into the Temple in a towering rage, flipped the money-tables, drove out the livestock with a whip, and shamed the people for what they had done in—

A lesser man would have been arrested on the spot, but His moral authority burned so hot no one laid a hand on Him.

If the people stood in awe of Him for a time, it was only for a time. It wasn’t long before the keepers of the Temple took Him in for questioning.

If you were in their place, what would you ask the Man who did what He did? I’d want to know: (1) Why He did it, and (2) Who gave Him the right to do it. At other times, these questions were put to Him. But not now.

Because they already knew. While nobody expected this Man to do it this day, everyone expected someone to do it someday.

Because the Bible says so. Many of the prophets referred to it, but none more precisely than Malachi 3:1-3—

The Israelites knew their Temple was polluted. If you read the Law of Moses (especially Leviticus) you’ll find two words appearing time and again: clean and unclean. When the two things touched, what happened? Did the clean make the unclean clean? Or did the unclean make the clean unclean? For example, if a priest touched a pig, did the pig become a clean animal? Or did the priest become an unclean man? Clean things did not sanctify the unclean, but unclean things polluted the clean.

Israel was an unclean country at the time—and the people knew it. Because they were occupied by the Romans who polluted it with their idols. Because the Temple was in an unclean land, it too, was unclean.

No one said the Temple didn’t need cleansing and no one said the Messiah shouldn’t or wouldn’t do it. He should and He would.

This is why they came to our Lord with the demand—

In other words, You say you’re Messiah: Prove it.

He would satisfy their demands by performing a sign. They don’t say exactly what sign they were looking for, but presumably, it was one of the wonders done in the Wilderness by Moses. If the Lord would give them what they wanted, He would have their backing.

Sometimes the Lord balked at their demands—

But this time, He doesn’t. If they want a sign, He’ll give them one; He’ll perform the greatest miracle in the history of the world. But He will do it in God’s good time.

What will He do to prove He’s the Messiah in a way no one could miss? He tells them in v.19—

The critics were thrown back by His audacity. The Temple had been worked on for forty-six years already, and it wasn’t nearly finished. That would take another thirty-five years! Now, if it took kings supported by the Roman Empire, eighty years to build a Temple, how could one man do it in three days?

The Rulers must have taken Him for a madman, and not worth prosecuting.

As for the disciples? They were as stumped by His words as anyone else. They had no idea what He was getting at. Yet.

What did He mean by these mysterious words? What Temple would the Jews destroy and He raise up in three days? We don’t have to guess: John makes it clear—

Up to now, He has had little or no persecution. But Jesus knows what’s in a man and He knows these men will soon hate Him, harass Him, and finally hang Him. He’s daring them to destroy Him. And then watch Him spring back to life. But not back to the same life they had taken before (and could again, I suppose), but to a new kind of life, eternal life, or the Life of the Resurrection!

This is the sign He will give and it will justify His every bold move and outrageous claim.

Not the least of which is: He would take the place of the Temple. We’ve heard this so many times, it makes us yawn. The Jews, however, had never heard it, and it made them either (1) want to worship Him, or (2) want to kill Him.

Think about what the Temple was to them. It was the House of God. It was the meeting place of the nation. It was the place from which the favors of God proceeded. One day, it would be the Throne of the World.

The claims are insane, blasphemous, or true. His brothers said, ‘insane’; the rulers said, ‘blasphemous’, but God said—true! Speaking of the Resurrection, He said—

Paul adds—

If Jesus is the Messiah, He is also the Temple. John was a pious Jew who loved God’s House. When He saw a vision of heaven, however, he found no Temple in it—and didn’t regret it. Why? Because he was no longer a religious man? But of course he was a religious man! He didn’t miss the Temple because it wasn’t needed. What He saw in Heaven was not a magnificent building, but a Magnificent Man (who is also God!)

Everything the Temple suggested, but couldn’t quite be, Christ is. If the Temple was God’s Dwelling Place, in Christ

If the Temple was the meeting place for God’s People, we now meet around Christ. If some of God’s blessings flowed from the Temple, they all flow from Christ. If the Temple would one day be the throne of the world, Christ is the One sitting on the Throne—

When the first Temple was built in the days of Solomon, the great king led the people in public prayer. Since the Temple was God’s House, let it be the place in which all His favor could be found. If the Jew came to the Temple, Lord, give him what He seeks. If the Gentile heard of the Temple, and turned this way, though he be ever so many miles away, let him have what he needs too.

That very day the king’s prayer was answered—in part. But it was not until another day that it was answered in full. That Day was the day we remember this day: the day our Lord rose from the dead.

Do you want forgiveness? You can have it. Do you want wholeness? You can have it. Do you want hope? You can have it. Do you want purpose? You can have it. Do you want God? You can have Him too. But only in Christ. So, what are you waiting for? Look to Christ. Look and live!