This week’s children’s Bible lesson:
Jesus Cleanses God’s House, the Temple
John 2:13-25
Imagine you were in your home, and someone who didn’t like you came into your home. Imagine he brought animals you didn’t want right inside to sell. And imagine he set up his own business to make money, right inside your home without permission from you or your parents. Not only that, imagine his way of making money in your home was to tell lies about you to your friends when you invited them in, so that they would reject you. Then he would trick them, and steal money from them. If they complained, imagine he just lied, telling them it was your fault and you wanted them to do that to your friends.
How would that make you and your family feel?
Well, the temple in Jerusalem was God’s house for Israel. And when Jesus the Son of God arrived there one day in John 2, He found people God had not invited in, doing these very things in His house. His house was a place for prayer and for people coming to God. They were selling animals for sacrifices people were coming to make—trying to get rich from people’s need to have their sins covered. And they were exchanging money in a scam to get rich at God’s expense. When people brought their money offerings to God’s temple, these scammers would say, “No, you can’t give that money to God. You have to have our special money to give to God. Here, give us your money, and we will sell you our special money that you can then give in an offering to God. We will keep the money you brought for Him.” Liars and thieves, they were.
They had turned God’s house for prayer and fellowship between Him and His people into a place for lying and stealing from God’s people. God was rightly angry about that sinfulness. Jesus showed them God’s anger. He made a whip out of cords. He turned their business tables upside down forcefully. He used the whip to drive the animals and the dishonest people out of the temple. By Himself, He forced them all to leave. Jesus is no weakling; if something requires force, He can do it.
The Pharisees, who were the ones that should have already kept the temple clean from this sin, didn’t believe in Jesus. They demanded He give them a sign from heaven that He had authority to cleanse His Father’s house. He told them the sign they would be getting. “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.” They didn’t know what He meant, and they didn’t ask Him, because they didn’t really care. They just wanted to argue with Him. “It took 46 years to build this temple,” they said, thinking they were wisely disputing Him. “And you’re gonna build it back up in 3 days?” People who disagree with God’s word like to argue with Him. And they are proud, thinking they are actually smart enough to debate God. People with that attitude never really hear and understand God’s word. Always be humble, not prideful. Always believe that God’s word is true, even in those times when you are having trouble understanding what He says.
What Jesus was really saying was a prophecy of something that they would do a few years later and what He would do in response. The temple He was talking about as a sign from God was His own body. He told them that because they didn’t believe God, they would destroy the temple of His body, having Him killed on a cross. And then in response, three days later, Jesus said He would rise from the dead. These things later happened exactly as Jesus had said they would.
Now, today God doesn’t live in a building made by humans. Now He lives by His Spirit inside the people of His church—all those who believe on Him. Now people God wants to forgive and make His children don’t meet Him at a temple. They meet Him through us, as He lives in us. And He wants us, as His house, to be cleansed from sin. He doesn’t want us using or abusing people. He wants us serving them and teaching them the truth, not lies, about God. Then they can–for free, not for giving us money–come to Jesus and be saved. If we as His children don’t fulfill that purpose, He may have to punish us to cleanse us His temple, just like He did with the whip in Jerusalem that day.
Let us praise God for saving us and forgiving us, and helping us to trust and live for Him now.
Walk of Faith - Dave Bunnell 