2:15-17
Jesus reacted with anger. Our picture of “gentle Jesus meek and mild” is quite frankly a load of rubbish. He reacted angrily to His Father's house not be allowed to serve its proper purpose. Jesus made a whip and drove the moneychangers out and overturned the tables.
The Lord’s temple is to be a place of prayer and devotion to the Lord. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and we need to remember the prime purpose of our lives, service to God.
The quote in v17 is from Psalm 69:9.
2:18
The religious leaders demanded a sign from Jesus on several occasions. They did this because they were looking for the authority that Jesus had. Jesus was acting in a most unusual way. No normal person would dream of doing what He had just done in the temple.
2:19-21
Jesus’ reply was surprising. “Destroy this temple and I will raise it in three days”. The Jews thought He was talking about the physical temple, when in fact it was His own body He was talking about. As an aside, this demonstrates that the resurrection was not in the least expected. The notion that people were gullible and would easily have expected a resurrection is totally without foundation. No one expected a man to die and be raised from the dead, not the disciples and not the Jewish leaders.
The temple building had taken some forty six years to build, having started in 20 BC. In fact it was not completed until 64 AD, and, of course, was then going to be shortly destroyed.
No comments:
Post a Comment