Two Temples - One Hope

Reflection Question:

What does sacrificial love look like and who do I love sacrificially?

TEXT:  John 2:13-22

¹³When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. ¹⁵So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” ¹⁷His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

¹⁸The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

¹⁹Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

²⁰They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” ²¹But the temple he had spoken of was his body. ²²After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

The miracles of Jesus were signs that pointed to a greater realty then anything we can observe within the material world. These miracles were spectacularly impossible events. They were not rationale, they were not scientific, but they really happened.  They were all signs that pointed to the advent of the Kingdom of God and Jesus as the sovereign Lord over this Kingdom – a Kingdom not of this world.  All these miracles except one happened directly and immediately in Jesus’ presence.  The one exception is the greatest miracle of them all, which happened after he died.  The miracle I am speaking about is his resurrection.

In our scripture today, John is describing an event early in Jesus’ ministry.  This event is generally referred to as Jesus’ cleansing of the temple – overturning tables and driving out the money changers and sellers and even the sacrificial livestock being sold with a corded whip. The stunned merchants and marketeers were aghast and as you might expect asked Jesus to show them by what authority he had to do this.  Imagine this scene if you were one of his disciples.  The Temple was the center and focal point for all the Jews.  It is where Heaven and Earth overlapped.  Its where the Spirit of God dwelled.  During the Passover festival, Jewish pilgrims from across the nations arrived wherein Jerusalem’s population grew from 30 to 50 thousand to over a million maybe two. All coming to make sacrifices at only the place that was allowed under the Old Covenant.  This was the only place where the atonement for your sins could be made through the blood sacrifice of an approved livestock. Because this was at the beginning of his public ministry, he was not well known – he did not have a massive following, just a handful of misfit disciples.  Imagine how they must have felt in the courtyard of this magnificent house of God.  What Jesus did was unthinkable, unimaginable. How would you have felt?  What I would have felt would have been way beyond uncomfortable; I would have been horrified, embarrassed and in absolute shock.  Then what does Jesus do when these offended merchants and marketeers demand a sign?  Shouldn’t the sign be commensurate with the disturbance created? I would have wanted Jesus to call down fire from heaven as a sign of his authority!  How about causing an earthquake or the sun to go dark!  I would have wanted something spectacular to validate his identity as the Messiah – the Son of God.   But he doesn’t do any of that.  Instead, he says “Destroy this temple and I will raise again in three days”.  Really Jesus?  How weak a sign is that and what does it even mean?  I can guarantee you this:  No one knew what he meant and yet this prophetic statement is a foretelling of the greatest miracle that humanity would ever experience.  His resurrection from death was the sign of his authority over death.  His resurrection was the proof that he is the sovereign King of this new Kingdom that is not of this world.  But at that time no one understood it.

From that point forward, Jesus preached the Kingdom of God and that he was the long-awaited Messiah, but they were expecting a king and kingdom of this world, so his arrival was not in the way the Jews understood or expected.  The Jews expected the Messiah to overthrow Roman rule and occupation and restore Israel as a sovereign nation state.  Moreover, all the gentile nations would bow down and submit to Israel and the son of David as King.  But Jesus did not come with force and violence.  He did not come establishing his Kingdom by military might nor by supernatural “acts of God” to force people into submission – that’s way someone of the world do it; power and forced subjugation.   But Jesus came in humility, weakness and the power of unconditional sacrificial love.  In the Kingdom of God, the least are the greatest.  Anyone who desires to be great in his Kingdom must become the humblest servant of all. The proof of his Lordship and Kingdom realty was demonstrated time and again, by his miraculous signs and wonders and definitively accentuated by his resurrection.  But the operating principle of how this Kingdom would run was demonstrated through his sacrificial love - Jesus’ voluntary sacrificial death on a Roman cross and his resurrection.  His Kingdom operates on the power of love, and not the love of power and money.  These two actions – his death and resurrection, were the defining proof of the advent of the New Covenant with humanity.  Just so that we all understand – a covenant is a relational agreement between God and humanity.  It is like a marriage vow, a pledge of faithfulness.  So, to be clear, this New Covenant was the establishment of the Kingdom of God under Jesus as the King, that is not of this world, operates through the power of sacrificial love, by and through people who have his Spirit dwelling within them.

But there was another sign, another prophetic statement he made at the end of his ministry just before the period known as the passion of Christ leading up to his crucifixion.

Let me provide a little context leading up to Jesus’ final entry in Jerusalem.  Now when Jesus enters Jerusalem for his last Passover, he is very well known, unlike the first time.  People come out to greet him with shouts of “Hosanna or Save Us” and laying their cloaks and palm branches on the road as he enters Jerusalem.  This is called the “triumphant entry” which in Roman times was how citizens of a city would go out to meet a conquering hero and escort them in.  The Jews were welcoming a conquering messiah who was the prophesied son of David here to overthrow Roman rule and re-establish Israel after which all the gentile nations would be under his rule and reign.

Jesus enters the Temple and what does he do?  The same thing he did the first time; he “cleanses” it - again.  We are seeing here a parallel to his first Passover.  History repeating itself. After this the Pharisees again question his authority and this time he preaches the Kingdom of God in parables. The Pharisees recognizing their role in these parables become incensed.  They look for ways to kill him.  But Jesus confounds and amazes all who hear his words. Jesus then turns tables on the Pharisees and Scribes and pronounces a series of 7-Woes.  7 laments against the teachers of the law and Pharisees for the pending judgment that is coming upon them.  Near the end of the 7-Woes Jesus says this:

TEXT:  Matt 23:33-38

³³“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? ³⁴Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. ³⁵And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. ³⁶Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.

³⁷“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. ³⁸Look, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

The disciples on hearing Jesus but seeing the crowd, which during the Passover could be well over a million, festively celebrating within the confines of this magnificence Temple it was inconceivable to them that all this could become desolate within one generation.  At that point Jesus responds to them.

TEXT:  Matt 24:1-2

¹Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ²“Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

For the disciples this is truly a mind-blowing statement. The Temple was where heaven touched the earth – the overlap between heaven and earth. The Temple was the focal point for Jewish life.  Without the Temple, there is no sacrifice and no atonement for sin.  Without the Temple, God is no longer present, he has left the earth and abandoned his people.  If you want to know how devastating this would be for the Jew, imagine ifwe learned Jesus did not rise from the grave.  The apostle Paul tells us that if the resurrection did not happen, we would be without hope and the most pitiful of all people. That is exactly what the Jews were facing. But fortunately for us, the resurrection did happen and that is why we have hope.

The disciples were befuddled.  Life without the Temple was unimaginable – to them this must signify the catastrophic end of human history – the end of the age.

We know in hindsight based upon history that there was an end of an age that occurred within one generation of the time when Jesus made this prophetic statement.   But we also know that Jesus has not come back yet, and we are still waiting for that final event when we will all be resurrected and all humanity will face the final judgment.  So, the disciples thinking that the end was approaching within one generation asked Jesus questions regarding the signs that they should be looking for as to when all this would take place.  Jesus gave them a whole bunch of signs: The rise of false messiahs – remember that these were folks that were claiming to save Israel out from under Roman rule, they were insurrectionists; wars and rumor of wars; famines and earthquakes; persecution; the rising of false prophets; preaching of the gospel to all the “tribes of the land” and the last sign is the “abomination that causes desolation standing in the Holy Place” as prophesized by the prophet Daniel.

Then Jesus double downs on his statement of when this is happening when he says this:

TEXT: Matt 24:34-35

³⁴Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. ³⁵Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

The imminent judgement that came upon the scribes and the Pharisees occurred in 70 AD when the Roman army – the “abomination that causes desolation” completed destroyed the Temple, overturning every stone and then “rubbing insult to injury” offered sacrifices to their pagan gods within the Temple grounds.

All of the signs that Jesus described came to pass within the generation following Jesus’ death and resurrection as documented by Josephus a Jewish historian who was an eyewitness to the destruction of Temple and the Roman siege of Jerusalem. 

In order to understand this text clearly, we should realize that there are two events separate events that Jesus is talking about.  The first event is the judgement against the scribes and pharisees resulting in the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. The second event is his second coming. Now to the question of when Jesus is coming back, Jesus says that day and time no one knows except the Father. 

So, let’s go back and look at Jesus entries into the Temple the first- and last-time side-by-side.  Both times he cleanses the Temple.  Both time his authority is questioned.  Both times he talks about the sign of the destruction of the Temple, but here’s where there is a difference. The first time he is referring to himself. The last time he is referring to Herod’s Temple of stone. The first time he indicates that the sign of the destruction would be followed by a resurrection. The last time the sign of the destruction is final.  The first time the sign is for a future hope – a resurrection which we will participate in.  The last time the sign is only lament and hopelessness because there is no longer a place for atonement. The first time is the sign that there is a New Covenant that God is establishing with all of us – Jews and Gentiles.  The last time signifies the end of the age of the former covenant – the end of the Mosaic Covenant and the end of the Jewish age.

So, why is this important?  I believe that in order to embrace the New Covenant, Jesus undeniably shuts down and closes out the Old Covenant. Unfortunately, I know it’s really easy to bring an Old Covenant mindset into a New Covenant reality.  Jesus describes it as pouring new wine into old wineskins – not a good thing.  Indulge me a bit as I explain. 

Many of us had come to Jesus with shouts of “Hosanna!” – Jesus “save me!”  Perhaps it was due to difficult circumstances, or perhaps it was from a desire to be saved from hell.  But if that is the extent of our relationship with Jesus – a crying out to him only when we are in trouble or just to keep us from hell, then we are still living out of the Old Covenant.

The apostle Paul says that although outwardly we are decaying day by day, inwardly if Christ dwells within us, we are being renewed or transformed day by day – or from glory to glory depending upon your translation.  If you look back on your life over the past 10 or 20 years and inwardly you are the same person, then sadly you are still living under the Old Covenant even if you’ve been reading the bible diligently and attending “Church” the whole time.  In fact, if you been doing this without the Spirit indwelling, you are not on the path to becoming more like Jesus but rather becoming more like a Pharisee.

As long as we are in Christ, there is a transformative work in us that the Mosaic Law, that is the Old Covenant had no power to accomplish.  Under the Old Covenant you could live a good a moral life, but without transformation to Christlikeness. And that is the key to understanding the difference between the two covenants.  If we are in Christ, we are being transformed.  Transformed means changing – changing into Christlikeness in thought and behavior. Change can be very uncomfortable but let me be very clear on this point, that change is absolutely critical, absolutely necessary and it is a change for the better.  If we are in Christ, he cleanses the Temple – and you are a Temple of the Holy Spirit.  Day by day, albeit very slowly we should become more loving - kinder, more forgiving, more at peace and less irritable, less judgmental and humbler – these are characteristics of love that we read about in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 13) and that was exemplified in Jesus.  That inward change, albeit slow, is proof that we are living under the New Covenant.  Paul calls that the fruit of the Spirit.

So then, why do we stay living or abiding in the Old Covenant?  I think the reason that we do is because it is more comfortable and familiar.  All of us here live under civil authority, therefore we live under the rule of law.  We have lived under the rule of law all of our lives.  It is part of our culture, heritage and upbringing.  The rule of law is good, and it is rational.  It is tangible and doesn’t require faith, but it does not have the power to transform you.  In the Old Covenant, we live or abide under the rule of Law.  In the New Covenant we live in relationship to Jesus and we abide under the rule of Love.

So, when we look at the events of Jesus' death and resurrection, there are two things that we need to firmly grasp.  The first is his death.  His death on the cross symbolizes the fulfillment of the Old Covenant.  His death is the "just" fulfillment of the rule of law - it is justice, penal substitution, his death in our place.  But his death is not what our hope is based upon.  Our hope is what happened 3 days later.  Our hope is based upon his resurrection.  In order for us to embrace the fullness of life that Jesus promises we must believe in both his death as a penal substitution on our behalf, and in his resurrection because it is by his indwelling Spirit in us that assures us of our eternal inheritance.  After his resurrection he spent 40 days with his disciples assuring them that he was dead but now is alive.  After he ascended into heaven, he sent his Holy Spirit to dwell within all who willingly become his disciples.  Then within one generation or approximately 40 years, he destroyed the Temple, a symbolic closing of the Old Covenant. A belief in his death and penal substitution is necessary but insufficient.  We must also believe in his resurrection.  By way of analogy, the Old Covenant would be like when the Israelites being released from Egypt.  The New Covenant would be like entering the promise land. In between is the wilderness and we don’t want to stay in the wilderness.

So then, how does this work? How do we move out from under the Old Covenant into the New Covenant?  I had mentioned that the New Covenant is like a marriage vow.  When we say “Yes or I do or I will” to Jesus we are in essence surrendering our will to him. When we a surrender our life, our rights our will and say not my will but your will be done he supernaturally deposits his Holy Spirit into us.  It’s not something you feel but you must have faith that it really happens, because it does.  As assured as I am that Christ was raised from the dead, I am confident that he deposits the Holy Spirit into all who yield their will to Jesus.  Now that is just the start. 

Let me give you an analogy of a marriage.  A marriage is not the merger of two sets of rules – it is not a business transaction. There is only one rule you have to follow – it is to love your spouse, sacrificially for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.  This is the new arrangement, the New Covenant. A merger or adoption of rules may affect your outward behavior, but it doesn’t change your heart.  Marriage based upon sacrificially love will change you because the “two” are becoming “one”. When each spouse mutually sacrifices their rights, desires and privileges for one another in love there is a merger of souls.  The two become one.  When we submit to Jesus, like in a marriage we become “one” with him – spiritually. That is the hope for our eternal resurrection, because we are in Christ – in unity with him.  Apart for unity with Christ, apart from his spirit dwelling within us there is no hope.  Apart from Christ we are an empty Temple headed to destruction and desolation.

If we are abiding in the New Covenant there are two things that Jesus compels us to do.  The first thing is to become like him – that is what a disciple does; to become like their master.  The second thing is to do what Jesus did.  To put the second thing in very basic terms it is to love the way Jesus loved.  Jesus love for us was sacrificial and so we are compelled to respond in a like manner. 

I would like to close our time together with this thought.  A friend once said, “When you treat people like family, they become family”.  When she made that statement it felt like a bell was going off in my head.  I believe that was a prophetic word for the Church.  In Christ, we are God’s family, all of us here and corporately with others who dwell in Christ.  And we sacrifice for family do we not?  It will be uncomfortable treating people like family who look different, or don’t share in our history or culture – but God’s new covenant says treat people like family, because once we were not a member of God’s family, but now we are thanks to Jesus’ loving sacrifice on our behalf.  It will not be comfortable; we need to let Jesus clean out the temple of our biases and judgmental attitudes and arrogance – we will make mistakes.  But if we are willing, we will truly experience God’s love in the fullest.

Closing Prayer

¹Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ²then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.  Phil 2: 1-4