John 2:13-22

Luca Giordano

John 2:13-22 (NRSV)
¹³ The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. ¹⁵ Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” ¹⁸ The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” ¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰ The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” ²¹ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. ²² After 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.

John 2:13-22 is a story concerning the cleansing of the temple. Although all four canonical gospels tell this story, John places it at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus rather than the last week of his life. In the synoptics (Mark 11:15-17), the bold action of Jesus of taking on the religious establishment in Jerusalem serves as a fitting impetus for his impending arrest, trial, and crucifixion. The placement of this story at the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus thus seems odd, given that John has scarcely introduced the protagonist of his story before he takes this daring step to incite leading religious authorities.[1] Pannenberg thinks that John may have preserved the original context better than the synoptic gospels, which separated the cleansing of the temple in Mark 11:15-18 from the prediction of its destruction in Mark 13:2.  If one accepts the placement by John, the Fourth Gospel is the only one of the gospels to include three separate Passover celebrations (2:13, 6:4, 11:55), and from these distinct Passovers one typically calculates the dating of the public ministry Jesus to three years. The story shows the abrogation of the Jewish temple system. Jesus and his community will replace it. Through Jesus, the perfect, eschatological worship becomes possible, a worship that surpasses and abrogates even that of the Jews, which had been the legitimate one hitherto. 

¹³ The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Jesus travels to Jerusalem during the Passover festival to pay the annual "temple tax" and offer sacrifices. ¹⁴ In the temple (ἱερῷ) he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the moneychangers (κερματιστὰς, appearing only here in all the New Testament, seated at their tables. The scene that greets Jesus at the temple mount during this high holyday is what one would expect. Merchants offered sacrificial animals for sale to diaspora Jews who had traveled long distances to make their annual pilgrimage. Being able to purchase animals at the temple site instead of bringing them on a long trek was a convenience for the observant. Likewise, the moneychangers accepted coinage from any number of distant places and exchanged them for the Tyrian coin required to pay the temple tax.  The problem was that they had made the temple service a transaction rather than a meeting place for the holy and righteous God. The moneychangers were doing a necessary chore.  ¹⁵ Making a whip of cords, increasing our sense of the physicality of the moment, he drove all of them out of the temple hieron, both the sheep and the cattle, by opening the stables of the animals. Some grammatical imprecision makes it unclear whether Jesus uses this whip to drive out only the animals (the sheep and the cattle) or if he plies this whip against the backs of the sellers and moneychangers as well. He also poured out the coins of the moneychangers (κολλυβιστῶν, used in Matthew 21:12 and Mark 11:15), and overturned their tables.  While the Synoptics use only one word for "temple" (ἱερῷ) John switches from the use of this word in verses 14-15 to another (ναὸν) in verses 19-21 when Jesus enters into debate with his Jewish interlocutors. ¹⁶ He told those who were selling the doves “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house (οἶκον) a marketplace!” These words clearly identify the action of Jesus with the prophetic protest against the exploitation both of the Temple and of the people of Israel.  His first direct words in this drama may reveal the reason for placing this event so close to the beginning of Jesus' ministry. The command of Jesus to the dove sellers does not have its basis in any perceived dishonesty in their dealings, as the “den of robbers” references suggests in the Synoptic Gospels. In John, the basis of the command is their presence alone. What is it that has caused Jesus to become so angry that he becomes a holy terror? It may be injustice. The sacrificial system in the temple had evolved, over the centuries, into an efficient machine for fleecing rich and poor alike, earning a great deal of money for the insiders who ran it. If you went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, your goal was to sacrifice an animal, according to the Law of Moses. You could bring your own sacrificial animal, of course, but many who had journeyed from afar found it easier to purchase a beast locally, at a steep markup. The law said you had to present a perfect animal, without mark or blemish. Unless you purchased a pre-approved animal within the temple precincts, you had to bring your offering before an inspector, who would tell you whether it met the grade. The inspectors were conspiring with the animal-sellers, who knew how to grease their palms with silver. Rarely did they grant approval for a sacrificial animal brought in from the outside. There was something else. If you had journeyed from one of the lands of the Jewish diaspora -- Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, even distant Rome -- the coins jingling in your purse would have been imperial coins, engraved with the Emperor's likeness. Such graven images violated the Second Commandment, and so the religious established forbade them within the temple precincts. To buy yourself a sacrificial animal, you had to first exchange your Roman money for image-free Judean coins. The moneychangers, who had a monopoly, charged exorbitant commissions, but the poor pilgrims had no recourse. They got them coming and going, those temple merchants. The reason Jesus raged through the temple had nothing to do with the proximity of money to a place of worship, as some modern commentators have assumed. Thus, injustice sparked his anger. The injustice was that the religious establishment transformed the temple into a corrupt machine for cheating pilgrims out of their life savings. ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that we find it written in Psalm 68:10, “Zeal (ζῆλος) for your house (οἴκου) will consume me.” The disciples grasp the dangerous consequences of the action of Jesus. His zeal for the house of God will cost him his life. This is the meaning of the quotation because the psalm too speaks of something more than an inwardly consuming zeal. The psalmist suffers insolently and provokes many to hate him. The early church understood the psalm as Messianic. John describes the disciples as remembering this psalm in the actual situation, but John intends the reader to think also of the mortal hatred of the religious establishment that Jesus will soon arouse. Even more importantly, John uses Jesus' first words in this highly charged scenario to give us a glimpse into his unique divine relationship. The synoptic authors have Jesus declare the temple to be "my house." John reveals that temple to be "my Father's house."  From its opening prologue, John's gospel focuses on the unique relationship that exists between the Logos and God, Jesus and his Father. The power and intimacy of this relationship prompts John to change subtly the focus of the outrage of Jesus from the abuse of the temple building in verses 14-15 to the desecration of "his Father's house" in verses 16-17. As the house, the temple is not just a gathering place for people, or even the formal dwelling place of God. The relationship of Jesus to the house is unique because it is "his Father's house." He has special authority within it. The actions of Jesus are both motivationally mystifying and culturally threatening.  All rituals involve a kind of substitution.  It was clearly a way of establishing or re-establishing a right relationship with the divine within the community.  The Jews who witnessed them must have been shocked--finding his behavior incomprehensible.  He was questioning the validity of the entire sacrificial system itself.  He questioned the ability of Israel to atone for its sins, receive forgiveness and stand in right relationship with God. ¹⁸ The Jews, the overseers of the temple, who had charge of good order in the temple and controlled the Levitical police, then said to him, “What sign (σημεῖον, as Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 1:18-25, Jews demand signs) can you show us for doing this?” They call Jesus to account. While they want a sign, Jesus will give them a word. What comes to the foreground is as much the question of the identity of Jesus, and especially his authority, as the prophetic motif itself.  Questions about the identity and authority of Jesus invariably call for response.  In this scene, the assault of Jesus on the abuse of the Temple elicits from his disciples further insight about him. The words of Jesus come from his consciousness of being the Son, which the later course of the Gospel will express still more clearly. The writer is less interested in the objective implications of the action than in its significance and its consequences for the person of Jesus. ¹⁹Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple (ναὸν), and in three days I will raise it up.” Behind the statement is the likely historical reality that the intimation of the destruction of the temple was the immediate reason for his arrest by the Jewish authorities.^[2] Even when a writer depicts the resurrection as the act of the Son, as here, the writer does so recognizing the Father is the one who commands it, and is thus an act of power dependent upon another.^[3] Jesus apparently agrees to the demand of his interlocutors, but holds out a quite different type of sign. He answers with an enigmatic saying, which cannot but remain obscure to them. Formally, it resembles the procedure of the Old Testament prophets, who often used a cryptic mashal to give a sign. However, it is also in keeping with the procedure of the Johannine Christ, who often utters words of revelation that lead his hearers to misunderstand him. As often happens in John, they misunderstand what Jesus said. ²⁰ The Jews then said, “This temple (ναὸς) has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” The authorities reject the word of Jesus completely. They deny the role of Jesus in such a miracle. 

In the final two verses, John turns to offer an informed aside to the reader. ²¹ However, he was speaking of the temple (ναοῦ) of his body. Jesus freely surrenders his body to destruction. However, within three days he will deliver it again from death. This saying of the body of Jesus as the temple in which the Father abides raises questions regarding the Trinity, which seeks to resolve the tension between the transcendence and immanence of God.^[4] 22 After the Father raisedhim from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. The cleansing of the temple becomes a revelation of his glory that God discloses to those who believe. For the readers of this gospel, written long after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, this story would take on new significance. The focus of so much attention during the life of Jesus, the entire system of sacrifices, temple worship, and political power would be gone. So many people had placed so much stress on it as a means of growing close to God. The temple was gone. Yet, God had provided a new holy place in Jesus. In Jesus, God provides a new way to grow close to God. 

We tend to like this portrait of Jesus.  Most people instinctively cheer when the cheek-turning good person in the movies finally hauls off and punches the loathsome bad person in the mouth.  From the comfortable distance of 20 centuries, it is easy to look disdainfully at the presence of the moneychangers. Yet, it also provides a challenge. Do we really want to follow Jesus this far? The story raises some significant questions for us. What is the reason the risen Lord is getting angry with the people of God today? Yes, we like to picture God angry with the children of darkness. However, what about the glaring silence of the children of light?[5] Our world gives us plenty about which to get angry. The church gives us plenty of reasons to get angry. Yet, we need to ponder whether we are so accustomed to sinful behavior that it no longer shocks or angers us. To offer one example from the political arena, we have come to expect political tribes (progressive or conservative) to paint the other as evil. Thus, the progressive regularly lobs the bomb of racist, bigot, and homophobic at the conservative. The problem with labeling opponents this way is that when a truly evil person comes along, we have already used up the language that describes such a person. In such a climate, a courageous progressive would speak “truth to power” to his or her ideological tribe with its abuse of the language. The political opponent is an opponent in terms of their vision for the role of government, but they we do not need to paint them as evil. The point is, do we get angry at the degrading of political discourse? Do we get angry when people with whom we agree use extremist language? Sadly, the Christian in the progressive political movement is strangely silent. Now, everything I have said could also refer to those within the conservative political perspective.

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[1] Solutions to the problem of John's placement of this incident have centered around three possibilities. 1) that the cleansing occurred at the end of Jesus' ministry (as in the synoptics), 2) that the cleansing occurred at the beginning of Jesus' ministry (as here in John), and 3) that there were two such temple-cleansing events, one at the beginning and one at the end of Jesus' public ministry. While scholars question the third option as a valid one, commentators remain divided between the first two possibilities.

[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 339, referring to Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 61-9i0, 301-5, 334-5. 

[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 346.

[4] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 415.

[5] Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.