Text: John 2:13-21
Beloved
in Christ, is there a temple in the New Testament era? The Old Testament temple
was destroyed in 70 A.D. But do we Christians have to worship in a temple or
are we free to worship anywhere we choose? The answer to that question might
surprise you.
Now
most people in our country would probably say that there is no temple in the
New Testament era nor do we need such a thing. Many Christians in our land
would say that temples (along with the priesthood and the sacrifices) were so
much hokum that belonged to the Old Testament era but have no place in the more
enlightened era of the New Testament. Others, especially non-Christians, would say
that the important thing is that we are all spiritual people, whatever we
believe, and we can be spiritual whether in the woods or by a lake or even in
our homes.
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| Salomon de Bray, The Queen of Sheba before the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem |
But
the real answer is that we absolutely do need a temple, just as we need a real
high priest and sacrifice. What that temple, high priest, and sacrifice consist
of may surprise you, but we’ll get to that soon enough. For now let me stress
that God has been on a temple-building mission ever since the dawn of humanity.
Yes, that’s right. The temple is God’s project, not ours. It is about God
coming to us and bringing His holiness and His love into our midst and
transforming us and then the whole world. The heathen temples are all about us doing
something good for God. But the Scriptures proclaim the opposite: the LORD
God’s temples are about Him doing something good for us.
The
very first temple was Eden. God had made a good world, but it had not yet
entered into absolute perfection. There in Eden was where He intended it to
begin. He would meet with Adam and Eve there. They would cling to His Word and
thereby be His holy people. They would guard that sacred area from every form
of evil, including talking serpents that badmouthed the LORD God. They would
cultivate and tend the garden, for it would be a sacred place to be cherished.
And in the very heart of Eden were two trees that would enable mankind to
radiate with holiness, if we responded to each as God had commanded. God was
the one who had planted these trees there so that they could serve His holy
purpose. One tree was the tree of life, which would bring eternal life to those
who ate of it. The other was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God
had not put that tree there so that we would partake of it, but rather so that
we would avoid it. By avoiding it, we would grow in holiness and be the perfect
people He wanted us to be.
But
we ruined it. We ignored the tree of life until it was too late and we ate of
the forbidden fruit. In so doing we desecrated the temple and made that holy
place into a hotbed of sin. We were transformed, to be sure, and so was the
whole world, but for evil and not for good. God’s plan of bringing the world
into perfection was ruined.
Since
then God has established temple after temple. He built the ark as a refuge for
Noah when his was the only godly family in all the world. That ark kept that
family of eight safe from an unbelieving world and God’s judgment of the Flood
against it. But what happened after the Flood? Noah got fall down drunk in his
tent, which led one of his sons to mock him. So much for the ark bringing
perfection to earth again. In fact, within a few generations the peoples of the
earth had gathered to build an anti-temple, the Tower of Babel, a place by
which they would bring their wickedness into heaven and transform it to be like
them. Well, God demolished that anti-temple and scattered people across the
earth. Centuries went by. At long last God called the Israelites out of Egypt
and spoke to them at Mount Sinai. That mountain blazed with His presence and
glory. He proclaimed His law and called the Israelites to be holy even as He
was holy. He consecrated priests and instituted sacrifices. And He had a
tabernacle built.
That
tabernacle was to be a place that brought God’s glory of Sinai into the midst
of the Israelites, no matter where they wandered. That tabernacle was the most
spectacular of all the places God had established up until that point. But
eventually it fell into disrepair and was sacked by the Philistines, for the
Israelites had grown neglectful of the LORD God and so God didn’t want His
tabernacle profaned by them anymore. Later God commissioned Solomon to build a
temple, which was even more glorious. But eventually idols were brought into
the temple precincts. Rather than permit such sacrilege, God would rather see
His beautiful temple destroyed. And so it was. The Babylonians carted off the
Jews to Babylon and destroyed their temple.
And
yet God was still in the temple business. Some seventy years later God had a
replacement temple rebuilt. That was the temple to which our Lord would
eventually come and where the events of today’s Gospel would take place. Herod
the Great had begun a remodeling process in that temple, which had lasted
forty-six years at that point. But it was essentially the same temple built
after the return from the exile. So God was very much still in the temple
business at the dawn of the New Testament era.
That
is why Christ did what He did in today’s Gospel. Note that Jesus didn’t call it
“Israel’s house for God,” but rather “My Father’s house.” If it
was the Israelites’ house, they could do what they wanted to with that space.
But it wasn’t. It was God’s space. In another of the gospels, Jesus quoted the
Old Testament and said, “This house shall be a house of prayer for all
nations.” It was a house whereby God would gather people from all
nations so that they could be transformed by His Word. Gentiles, too, were to
gather in its courtyard and worship the LORD God, the only true God, and turn
from their idols. But it was precisely the Court of the Gentiles that was being
desecrated. That is where the merchants had set up shop so that Jews could
offer their sacrifices. But in the process the Gentiles were being pushed out
of the temple.
That
is why Christ had to drive out the merchants from there. They were keeping it
from being a true house of prayer. Just as God had sent prophets in previous
days to warn those who were desecrating the temple to cease and to desist, so
Christ warned these people to stop their merchandising on holy ground. But just
as the previous prophets hadn’t been able to get through to the priests and the
common people, so too Christ wouldn’t get through to them. They would soon be
back to their old, evil ways. And just as the previous temples had all been
destroyed, so this temple would be destroyed in 70 A.D. In fact, there has been
no temple rebuilt by the Jews ever since.
So
are we Christians without temple, high priest, and sacrifice today? Did God
finally give up on His temple-building shtick and say, “Enough of that”? By no
means. Jesus said that there was yet another temple. Ungodly people would try
to destroy it, but it would be rebuilt in three days and be even more glorious.
And that temple was His body. The evangelist John had introduced His readers to
this concept in the previous chapter. There He wrote of the Son of God, whom He
called “the Word,” and of His incarnation. He wrote, “The
Word became flesh and templed among us.” Now I know that most of you
have heard it translated, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,”
but “tabernacled” or “templed” would be a better
translation. It’s not any old kind of dwelling that He has among us, but a
temple kind of dwelling. He is God’s final dwelling place among mankind.
Through Him we are at last transformed.
Why?
Because He is not just our temple, but our high priest and sacrifice. His death
made atonement between God and people. His death was the sacrifice that finally
undid the death we had brought into the world through our mishandling of Eden. His
high priestly prayers ever intercede for us. That is why at long last the
temple does its transforming work. For in Christ Jesus, God at last forgives
our sins, and there is nothing that transforms us like the forgiveness of sins.
You
see, the law can never change us. It isn’t because the law isn’t good or that it’s
wrong. No, the law can point out sin, but it cannot change sinners. It may make
us wear a smiley face and hypocritically cover over our sins and deny them. Or
it can make us hardened and defiant because of its demands. But the law cannot
truly transform us. What transforms us is when we hear that God loves us and
forgave our sins at a deep cost to Himself. When we hear that news and take it
to heart, we discover that not only have we been forgiven, but that we are new
people too. We don’t want to just rebel all the time as before. We want to love
the LORD God instead of all those idols. And though we will fail again and
again, we are encouraged by knowing that God forgives us more freely and
abundantly than we sin.
Jesus
is the place of transformation. Jesus is the true temple. Therefore, Christian
worship has to take place in the temple, that is, in the temple known as Jesus
Christ. If you do not worship in Christ, you are not worshipping at all.
But
what about these earthly buildings, such as these? They are places where we can
worship in Christ. They are not the true temples, but rather places where we
encounter the real temple, Jesus Christ. But because it is hard to hear the
Word of God when the arctic wind is howling in our ears or to receive the
Lord’s Supper when rain is making the hosts soggy, we have built these earthly
buildings that we call churches. But these churches exist for Christ’s sake,
not Christ for the sake of these buildings. We do well to remember that our
Lord cleansed more important buildings than this one when the people there
failed to listen to His Word. But if this is the place where Christ is present,
where His Word is read, proclaimed, and heard in faith, and His body and blood
given to sinners for forgiveness, then this is a true temple to the LORD. May
this building ever be such a place! In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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