The Sign and the Two Cleansings of the Temple

Twice did Jesus cleanse the temple, first at the beginning of His ministry (John 2:13-22) and the last towards the end of His ministry (Matt. 21:12-16; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-48). In each of the events, He drove away the cattle and birds and overturned the moneychanger tables driving away both the sellers and the buyers. The table below compares the events:

Episode	Act	Explanation	Result
1st Cleansing (Jn.2:13-22)	Made a scourge to drive away	“Take these things away from here! Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace!”	Jews ask for a sign and Jesus tells them to destroy the temple and that He would raise it up in 3 days (speaking of His body)
2nd Cleansing	Drove off all	““Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have turned it into a den of robbers!””	The Jews conspire to kill Him

The second event in the Synoptics does not mention “Father’s house” but cites a Scripture where God speaks of “My house”. Like any other, this episode is intensely profound, raising quite a lot of questions: Why was He so zealous about a physical temple, especially when this was a temple “built” by the Herod who wanted to kill Him when He was an infant, who ordered the massacre of infants towards the same? Why does He say “marketplace” in the first cleansing and “den of robbers” in the second? Was the second just about citing scriptures? Why was He so violent, using a scourge? Was His fury addressed towards the merchants and buyers or towards the temple authorities or towards both? Why were both the episodes situated close to Passover? What made people follow His orders? Didn’t He cause loss to the sellers? and so on…

It is Luke who alone tells us of Jesus’ first announcement as a twelve-year-old to His parents at the temple: “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Or as the NET puts it “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). In John 4, Jesus declares to the Samaritan woman that the Jews, contrary to the Samaritans, knew what they worship and that salvation is of the Jews; however, the true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and truth (Jn.4:20-24). He affirmed the meaning of true worship apart from the physical temple without disregarding the significance of the latter. To His disciples He foretold: “Do you not see all these things? [i.e. the things of the temple] Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matt 24:2). So earlier on when the Jews had asked about a sign (the Jews required sign, 1Cor.1:22), He told them to destroy the temple and that He would raise it up in 3 days. They hardly could believe; they argued that it was 46 years since the construction began and how could He raise it up in 3 days. However, He had offered a challenge. If they really wanted a sign, they should be daring enough to destroy the temple-which actually meant that they should have faith in Him before they could have the sign. They could only dare destroy the temple if they were sure He could raise it up. Did they? In fact, even if a dead man rose from the dead, they would not believe if the Word (Law and Prophets) was not sufficient enough (Luke 16:31). Or at least they should be willing to take the risk of bearing the cost of the test. Could they? Were they really serious about knowing the truth? Later, He declared: “This generation is a wicked generation; it looks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be a sign to this generation.” (Luke 11:29,30). “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here” (Matt.12:40,41). Jesus did rise again, but they still didn’t believe it. The problem is not lack of evidence but a stubborn heart bent on unbelief for which no evidence is evidence enough.

Acts 7:51 ” You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.
Acts 7:52 “Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers,
Acts 7:53 “who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.”

His first cleansing in John 2 did not really have any lasting effect. When He returned after three and half years, the situation was the same or worse, it was a “den of robbers” rather than a mere marketplace (cf. Jer.7:11). There was looting and exploiting going on in the very temple premise that typified Christ, the abode of the fullness of Godhead (Col.2:9). After the second episode, the conspiracy to murder Him rapidly grows intense. The emotion is well captured in the Parable of the Tenants which He tells them later:

The Parable of the Tenants

³³ “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. ³⁴ When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

³⁵ “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. ³⁶ Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. ³⁷ Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.

³⁸ “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ ³⁹ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

⁴⁰ “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

⁴¹ “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

⁴² Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

⁴³ “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. ⁴⁴ Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”

⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. ⁴⁶ They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.