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by Sandy Shaw
People say at times, “We must be tolerant. Live and let live.” Tolerance is not a Christian virtue, and nowhere do we see and understand that more clearly than in John Chapter 2, when Jesus Christ goes up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.
There are certain things Jesus Christ will not tolerate or permit, especially when they are disguised and paraded under a cloak of religion.
When Jesus sees the situation in the Temple, He takes time to make a whip of small cords. Jesus deliberately makes this, and uses this on all that was going on in the Temple, on animals and men.
Verse 16 – Get these out of here. When Jesus Christ is confronted with sin in His Father’s House, He deals with it.
Jesus is showing and demonstrating how angry He is. His Father had sent Him to deal with sin, and not just some sin, but with all sin. With some things Jesus is intolerant.
Jesus saw the place of worship in this mess. The church of the day had become like a market. The disciples remembered what was written in the Psalms - “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
We too need something of that zeal and fire, because Jesus spews out lukewarm people.
There is a very negative reaction from those whose interests Jesus had moved against.
By what authority do you do this? Who do you think you are? Why are you interfering? Here is the Son of the Father, and the Son has the right to tell the servants what to do. This is My Father’s House. How dare you treat it like this?
“Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Now, we know it took some 46 years and 18,000 workmen to build this second Temple, and it was only on the point of completion. This carpenter – this joiner – was going to destroy it and raise it up in three days – but Jesus was not referring to that physical building.
He was referring to the new Temple – to the Temple of the Holy Spirit – His Body. But they were unable to receive and accept such teaching.
The Temple was where God lived, and the day when Jesus Christ died the Temple became obsolete, and now the Temple of God is in the individual believer.
This is where God dwells. This is where God chooses to dwell – in us – in our hearts – and no longer in buildings.
We do need a physical place for prayer and praise and worship – but we also need to be reminded that we are a Temple of the Holy Spirit.
When Jesus rose from the dead, the disciples remembered that He had said all this. Even when you do not understand all that is happening and all that is being said at the time, keep following Jesus, and it will become clearer as time goes on.
Do you see the sort of thing that makes Jesus angry? It was convenient to sell animals and exchange money in the Temple, but that was not what God intended for that setting. It was not intended to be used in this way. It was being used for a wrong purpose. We must be careful that we do not allow the secular to swallow up the sacred.
These religious leaders were bleeding the people of money, and Jesus will not allow such exploitation to go unchallenged, no matter what form it might take.
When we gather for praise and worship, we come primarily to meet with God – to be reassured that we are forgiven and loved – and to hear what Jesus has to say or reveal – and perhaps receive that touch of healing and encouragement and renewal and being strengthened as we fellowship together. Anything other than that risks coming under the threat of His Holy Whip.
Three years later, Jesus had to do this again. He had to repeat this. It had all crept back in. Evil, like some pernicious weed, somehow creeps back in. Or, if a certain type of ministry moves on a church can revert to norm – back to what it once was. We need to be cleansed continually.
The distracting busyness and noise and sin of the world needs to be dealt with regularly. Let you life be the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. The whole of life has got to be holy to the Lord. Let the entire Temple be sacred – set apart for God – give over totally to the Living Christ.
Alexander 'Sandy' Shaw is pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship in Nairn, Scotland. Nairn is 17 miles east of Inverness - on the Moray Firth Coast - not far from the Loch Ness Monster!
Gifted as a Biblical teacher, Sandy is firmly committed to making sure that his teachings are firmly grounded in the Word.
Sandy has a weekly radio talk which can be heard via the Internet on Saturday at 11:40am, New Orleans time, at wsho.com.
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