Jesus Cleanses The Temple
At Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-46; and John 2:14-16 we read of Jesus cleansing the Temple by driving out the moneychangers and the animals being sold for sacrifice. Some unbelievers have claimed that John’s account is a contradiction to the other three, but the truth of the matter is that we have TWO separate cleansings of the Temple taking place. John does not contradict the other accounts, but recorded a separate incident of the Temple being cleansed by Jesus. In John’s account Jesus makes a scourge or whip and uses it to drive out the moneychangers, those buying and selling in the Temple and their animals that were being bought and sold for sacrifice. There is no mention of a whip in the other three accounts. The timing of John’s account is different than that of the account in the other three Gospels, so this is considered a second cleansing of the Temple by Bible scholars and theologians. It appears that the moneychangers and those buying and selling in the Temple did not learn their lesson from their first encounter with Jesus, because they were back and doing it again, obviously with the consent of the Temple priests who would get a portion of the money made. This time, Jesus makes a whip to use to drive them out, and apparently whips the moneychangers. Many take objection to this in the belief that Jesus was a mild-mannered wimp of a man and would not engage in violence. In the first place, Jesus was no wimp. He was a carpenter by trade, and in those days, that trade required muscles. He was also God in human form and as God, He exhibited righteous anger at His Temple being profaned and it certainly would not be out of character for God to smite the moneychangers this time around with the whip! At the first cleansing, Jesus chased them out, but with the second cleansing, He drove home the point further with the whip! Now, some argue that since John does not say that Jesus struck anyone with the whip, then He must not have. However, the Greek text would seem to suggest otherwise, and noted Pastor and Bible scholar John MacArthur has stated that in this account Jesus whipped the moneychangers. (See note for John 2:15 in the MacArthur Study Bible MacArthur’s own statement at
http://www.biblebb.com/files/mac/sg1923.htm).
It makes sense that He would, else why make the whip? He didn’t use a whip in the first cleansing, so it makes sense that after making one in this setting, that He would indeed use it. Now, some argue that Jesus would never strike anyone, but they forget that He is God in human form, and God has smote man in the past. Remember the Flood? Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? Let’s not forget that God will also smite man with bowl and trumpet judgments during the Tribulation Period, so it would not be out of character for Jesus as God to smite the moneychangers with His whip out of anger at what they were doing to His Temple!
Looking at many churches today, it would seem that they forgot that Jesus cleansed the Temple, for many are engaged in making their house of worship into a house of merchandise.
Rev. Jack Howell
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God to salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Romans 1:16)
