“Then He went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house is a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”” Luke 19:45-46 NKJV
Reflection: what was the significance of Jesus having to “clean” the temple?
Jesus had arrived in Jerusalem, many days before Passover was to begin. Huge masses of people, from all over Israel and beyond, had come for the Passover celebration. As a reminder, Passover is based on the event that happened while the Israelites were held captive in Egypt. God commanded Moses to tell the Israelites to slaughter a perfect lamb and mark their doorframes with its blood, in addition to several other very specific instructions. For in that night, the Lord God would strike the Egyptians with the tenth plague, in which he would kill all the firstborns in Egypt, including firstborn of their animals. But when the Lord saw the blood on the Israelites’ doorframes, he would pass over their homes and spare them. God spared His people that night, through the blood of a perfect lamb.
This is, of course, a perfect depiction of what was about to happen with the perfect Lamb of God; Jesus Christ, who gave his life in exchange for ours. To spare His people. Now, what would happen if a family disobeyed the instructions given by God, and did not accept and put on the blood on their doorframe? The Lord would treat them as He did the Egyptians; to kill their firstborn. It was necessary for the Israelites to obey, to follow the instructions given to them by God.
As Jesus entered the temple in Jerusalem, he saw how it had been defiled. This house of prayer had been turned into a marketplace for making money, selling and buying animals for sacrifice. Since he described it as “a den of thieves”, we can only image the type of practices conducted there. There was not much that resembled the purity, the holiness of God, which the temple was supposed to represent. As Jesus called it’s purpose,
“A house of prayer”
The Israelites had lost their way, and the religious leaders were the worst as they had allowed, perhaps encouraged this defilement to happen. It was supposed to be a place of purity, honoring the purity and holiness of God, the connection with God through prayer. So in order to reestablish its purpose, the house had to be cleaned. All the filth, all the fraud and corruption, anything not belonging there had to be driven out.
To be pure before the Lord.
Notice that Jesus did not do any teaching in it before the temple had been purified. After that, it says “And He was teaching daily in the temple.” Luke 19:47a NKJV. However, for the religious leaders who had financially benefited from this setup, their money machine was now cut off. “And He was teaching daily in the temple. But the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people sought to destroy Him,”Luke 19:47b NKJV.
So how is this relevant for us today? I want to touch on the two structures for God – the Temple and the House.
Remember, if we have received Jesus sacrifice for our sins, the blood of the Lamb of God covers us, and we are a temple for the Holy Spirit. “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” I Corinthians 6:19 NKJV. Do we treat our bodies as God’s property (“you are not your own”), a temple for the Holy Spirit? How can we expect to be in communion with God, in prayer and being taught by the Spirit, if we defile our bodies? God has given us this temple to care for. This means we must evaluate everything we allow to enter and reside in our temples. And secondly, are we treating the physical buildings where we gather as believers, as Houses of prayer for God? Are they purified for worship of the Lord, or have they become a den of thieves?
Sometimes we just need to be reminded of the need for purity, in the presence of a Holy God.