Chapter 8:
Jesus Clears Out the Merchants from the Temple
Nicodemus comes to Jesus - born of the Spirit
The apostle John early records a Passover that Jesus attended in Jerusalem during His ministry. The Temple in Jerusalem did not only consist of the sanctuary of the "holy place" and "most holy place" (the Temple, as the original Tabernacle in the time of Moses, was divided into two sections), but also had different court-yards around it. It was a very elaborate building indeed. You may want to take time to read about it all in a good Bible Dictionary or Encyclopedia. It was in one of those court-yards of the Temple that Jesus found those who were selling oxen, sheep, pigeons, and such animals and birds, as well as money-changers (for people offering money to the Temple priests for the service and upkeep of the Temple, and who came from different parts of the Roman Empire, so needing to exchange Roman money into Jewish money) used by the people to fulfil the sacrifices that were prescribed by the laws of Moses (see the first chapters of the book of Leviticus) under the Old Covenant. The mindset and character of those selling and exchanging money Jesus knew was far from pure and honorable. They were out to line their own pockets, to rob the people, to cheat them, to simply do a business and take advantage of the pure hearts of the people coming to worship God at the Temple and fulfil the laws of God as given to Israel through Moses. This is a good illustration that shows God accepted the enlarged Temple structure, because the people as a whole accepted it in their minds, as being and belonging to God and as an extension of the holy Sanctuary proper. This shows that there is a "spirit" of the law that goes beyond the "letter" of the law, which God honors, sometimes even under the Old Covenant. The original Sanctuary and Temple under Moses and Solomon, only needed to be a tent or building of one structure divided into two parts, a "holy place" and a "most holy place" inside just one fenced area or court-yard. By the time of Christ, the Jews had extended this building to include a number of court-yards. The outer court-yard was where the merchants had set up their market place. To them, and so to God, this was part of the overall Temple of the Lord. Jesus could see that those merchants were making the very House of God into something it was never intended to become - a merchant market place for profit. His anger grew more and more as He saw what was going on. The Bible says, "Be angry, but sin not." There is a time to become righteously angry. Many passages show that God can and does get righteously angry at times. Yet, it is always righteous anger, without any sin. There are times we must get very upset at sin and wrong doing. This was one of those times for Jesus. He made a long whip from string cords that came from boxes and packages that were sent to those merchants or that were used to tie up the animals they were selling. Jesus whirling the whip around His head, much like an American cowboy whirls his lariat over his head when roping a steer, drove the animals out of the Temple, and threw over the tables of the money-exchangers, the coins rolling all over the place. As He was doing all this, He raised His voice and exclaimed to those thieving and wrong minded merchants, "Take these things away! You shall not make my Father's house into a house of merchandise and business trade." The disciples of Jesus, many of them knowing much of what was written in the word of God, remembered the verse where it was written, "Zeal for Your house will consume me" (Ps.69:9). But, most of the Jews and merchants there, were not so perceptive and so spiritually in tune with who the Messiah was or what were the true ways of the Lord. They just looked at Jesus and declared, "Who gave you this authority to do this thing, drive out the merchants from the Temple? What sign will you give us to demonstrate and prove what you have done has the authority of God Himself behind it?" Jesus answered them by saying, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Once more the Jews had no idea what He was really speaking about, and thought He was talking about the physical stone building of the Temple they were all standing within. They, laughing at Jesus said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you say that if it was destroyed you could build it back again in only three days. You must be out of your head, vain and mad, by saying such words." Jesus was not speaking about the physical Temple in Jerusalem, but was speaking about the temple of His body. The Holy Spirit dwelling in Jesus made His body as like a temple of holiness to God the Father. So it is with anyone who has God dwelling within them (see 2 Cor. 6:16-18). Jesus was indeed giving them a sign of His power and authority from God. He was foretelling them that one day though the Jews would kill Him, He would rise from the dead after three days. He was foretelling them of His resurrection to life and glory. His disciples at the time, did not understand fully what Jesus was referring to either. It was only after His resurrection that they remembered those words of His, and clearly understood then what He had told the Jews. All of this of course, after Jesus' resurrection, helped the disciples to believe in no uncertain way, all the Scriptures and all the words that Jesus had spoken during His ministry. Because of the miraculous signs He did in Jerusalem at this Passover celebration, many people were convinced that He was indeed the Messiah. Well, in an outward kind of manner they were convinced. But Jesus didn't trust them. He could see their deep inner heart and He knew what people were really like, who were not truly connected with God through humble repentance (John 2:13-25). No one for sure, needed to tell Him about human nature, what it could do and think on the outside surface, but not be that way in the depth of heart, especially when people would get offended by what He would say and teach, and the way He would live. And that is exactly what happened to many, even some of His disciples, later on. They got offended in Him, upset, bewildered, and confused, by things He said, and they walked away from Him. Though many believed on Him at that Passover, they did not continue to believe on and in Him later on, as we shall see. NICODEMUS COMES TO JESUS IN THE NIGHT There was a man by the name of Nicodemus, one of the leaders in the Jewish Sanhedrin (a court of the Jews that decided certain civil and religious matters, made up of leaders from the Pharisee and Sadducee denominations, and respected Elders among the Jewish people), and of the Pharisee religious party. He came to Jesus secretly, by night, and confessed, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him." You will notice, Nicodemus did not say that they, leaders of the Jews and leaders from his religious party, knew and admitted that Jesus was the very Son of God. What he said was that they knew He was a true teacher of the word of the Lord, that God was with Him. Yes, secretly, many of the Jewish leaders admitted this among themselves, but would not openly declare it, for they feared loosing their followers, who would then follow Jesus, who like John the baptist, made it clear to them that He would not become a member of one of their sects. They knew He was very independent, hence a threat and to them, a competition for the support of the people. Nicodemus at this point in his life, would not come openly, in the day time, to admit this to Jesus, no doubt fearing what the other leaders of the Jews would try to do to him, certainly in a spiritual position way, and maybe even in a physical way. So he came at night, but did admit to Jesus that they knew God was with Him. Jesus got right down to the foundation and goal of why mankind was put on this earth, and what it would involve for Nicodemus to attain it. "I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God." Nicodemus was taken a back by what Jesus said, "What do you mean? How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?" You will notice that Nicodemus clearly understood that Jesus was talking about a "birth" - thinking Jesus was meaning that to enter and see the Kingdom of God, a grown person somehow had to re-enter the womb of his mother and be literally born once more. Jesus was not talking about that kind of physical birth, but it was a birth that He was talking about. He went on to explain with a physical comparison, exactly what you must become like in order to see and be in the Kingdom of God. "The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans give birth to that which is physical but the Spirit gives birth to that which is spirit. Do not get all wide eyed and amazed and try to make what I'm telling you into some theological doctrine of the heart. For being born again is like this: The wind blows and does things, you can see the effect if may have, even hear it at times as it works among physical objects, but you cannot see the wind, it is invisible to the human eye. So then likewise is everyone who is born of the Spirit." The words of Jesus are pretty plain and quite simple. Jesus was telling Nicodemus that to enter the Kingdom of God, you do have to be born in this physical world as a physical flesh and blood person. You have to be conceived and grow in a sack of water in your mother's womb, and after being nourished and growing to a certain physical stage, then the water in the sack brakes and you are born into the world of air breathing flesh and blood creatures. That which is flesh is flesh. Everyone must first be flesh before they can be later born of the Spirit and become like the wind, invisible to the human eye. Jesus said that which is born of the Spirit IS spirit, and He likened this Spirit to the wind - invisible but having evidence that humans can relate to as indeed having effects on the physical world around us. In John 4:24 Jesus said that God IS Spirit. Many passages in the Bible show that God does have form and shape, that He does have a "body." The last chapters of the book of Revelation tell us that one day God's children will actually see His "face." His body is made of Spirit, not physical flesh, blood, and bone. God lives in a different world, a world of a different dimension. He lives in a "spirit" world that is, unless He chooses to reveal it to the human eye, an invisible world to our vision of our physical eyes. We know the Bible teaches there are good spirit creatures called "angels" and there are bad and evil spirit creatures called "demons." A few of the chief angels are mentioned by name in the pages of God's word, such as Gabriel, whom we have seen came to Mary to tell her she had been chosen to bear God's Son. Then the chief fallen and sinful spirit creature is mentioned by name also. We know him as being mainly called Satan, or the Devil. We cannot see these spirit creatures unless they either manifest themselves to us as if looking like humans, or if God works a miracle with our eye sight, enabling us to see them, which was granted to a few in the Old Testament (read 2 Kings 6 to see this truth). The book of Daniel is an interesting book in places. It tells us a little about this basically unseen spirit world that lies all around us. It mentions a few specifics as to what is happening among the "good" spirit creatures and the "bad" spirit creatures that oppose each other. God is composed of Spirit in His invisible glory form. And those who are to be His literal children, born of Him, who will enter the Kingdom of God, will also be spirit, for as the apostle Paul was inspired to write, "...Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God..." (1 Cor.15: 50). A large part of Paul's fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, is devoted to explaining the "change" that is to come, that must come, to those in whom God dwells (His sons and daughters, see 2 Cor.6:16) in order to IN-herit, see and enter the Kingdom of God, at the resurrection when the last trumpet sounds (see Matthew 24: 30-31). Jesus was saying the same thing to Nicodemus but in a shorter, nut-shell way. Of course being born of God, born of THE Spirit, means He must come and beget you first, making you in this life time His child through the indwelling of His nature, or Holy Spirit as the New Testament often calls it. All this means you are converted to His mind and way of thinking and wanting to live by His every word, as Jesus said we should (Mat.4:4). It means you remain His child to the end of your life. It means no matter what the trials, tests, hardships, problems, no matter what difficulties physically, mentally, or emotionally, that life may bring, you endure and remain His child, loving Him and doing His will to the end, until death. Then just as a child in its mother's womb has endured, been nourished, grown, and is finally born, so it will be for the child of God. He/she will one day be born of God, born of THE God Spirit, and enter His Kingdom. Jesus was telling Nicodemus that that was the very purpose as to why mankind was created upon this earth, to be born of the Spirit, to become part of the invisible spirit world. This is far greater than anything that science-fiction movies have ever thought up. But old Nicodemus was befuddled by what Christ was telling him. He just could not comprehend it and exclaimed in bewilderment, "How can these things be at all possible?" "Are you a teacher in Israel " Jesus answered him, "Is it not your job to read the Scriptures of the Lord, and to come to understand what it says, and you know not these things that I speak about? " Jesus was telling him that by reading and understanding and believing the Scriptures, he should have already known what He was expounding. Furthermore, Jesus told him, "But if you don't even believe me when I tell you about earthly things such as the wind and what I represented by it, then how can you possibly believe the things going on in heaven? For I know what heaven is truly like, as only I, the Son of Man, have come from heaven to earth, and will return to heaven again." This last part of Jesus' statement here is very revealing if we will but believe it for what it says. The King James translation of the Bible in 1611 put it this way: "No man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man." Jesus, of all human beings to ever live and walk this earth, is the only one to have been in heaven. The reality that death is a sleep, and that we do not continue to think and act after death, either in a heaven or a hell, is vividly brought out in a later chapter of the Gospel of John, when we see how Jesus raised a man called Lazarus back to life after being dead for four days. Jesus continued to tell Nicodemus, "And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake (Num.21:9) on a pole in the wilderness, so I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a pole, so that everyone who believes in me can have eternal life in the Kingdom of God." Here Jesus is telling Nicodemus and all who read this, that He, the Son of Man, was the Messiah, the Anointed One from God, the one who would come from God, live a perfect live, never do any wrong, take all sins of mankind upon Himself, die on a cross, thus forgiving the sins of all those who would believe and accept Him as the Saving Messiah. And in so doing they could have eternal life. Jesus added yet more, to show and to amplify, the one main purpose that God the Father had when He decided to create the physical human kind: "For God so loved the world (the people in it) that He gave His only Son, so that all who believe in Him do not have to perish but can have eternal life. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it, to give people a chance for eternal life. There is no condemning those who trust and have faith in Him. But those who do not have trust in Him are condemning themselves for not believing in the only Son of God. Their condemnation is based on this fact: That light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness of sin and wrong-doing more than the light of righteousness, for their actions were evil. They do not like the light because they desire to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light because they fear that the light will expose their sins, and then they would have to make a choice to either live in the light or to live in darkness. But, those who want to do what is right come to the light gladly, so all people can see that they are doing the will of God " (John 3:1-21). Nicodemus, a religious leader of the Jews, came to Jesus by night, secretly, and to be unseen. He admitted to Jesus that he and others like him, knew He was from God, that God was with Him, but stopped short of saying He was the Son of God, and the saving Messiah to come. Jesus, got right down to business, hit the nail on the head, pulled no punches, and not only told Nicodemus that He was the Son of God, sent to save and give eternal life to those who would believe on Him, but told him that the main purpose of God, because He had so much love, was to save people to eternal life, not to condemn them to death. Jesus said it was the purpose of God to have people born of Him, born of the Spirit, and so be like Himself, to live in a dimension that was mighty and powerful like the wind was at times, and also invisible to the human eye, as also was the wind. Jesus told Nicodemus that to be born of the Spirit, would mean you were willing to come to the light of truth and righteousness, to be willing to have your wrongs and sins clearly revealed to you by the light, and to walk in the ways of the Lord God. Such people would then acknowledge that He Jesus, the Christ, was the very Son of God, and would gladly come to the light, so the light could lead and guide them into doing the will of God. Jesus was teaching Nicodemus the purpose for human existence, and the true and only way to salvation or eternal life. This was also a kind but corrective rebuke to Nicodemus as he had at this point in his life not yet come to acknowledge that Jesus was the very Son of God, and so was still not yet in the mindset of loving all the light. It is a lesson everyone of us need to take to our heart and mind. To walk in the light as He (God) is light. Then one day we can be born of the Spirit, and see the Kingdom of God. .................................. Written February 2001 |
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