10
The King Confronts Corruption
(Luke 19:45–48)
Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, saying to them, “It is written, ‘And My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a robbers’ den.” And He was teaching daily in the temple; but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said. (19:45–48)
The event described in this brief, but significant, section of Luke’s gospel took place on Tuesday of Passion Week, the final week of our Lord’s earthly life. The day before had seen the triumphal entry, Christ’s humble coronation when He presented Himself as Israel’s true king. The massive throng of people (perhaps as many as one hundred thousand) that had accompanied Jesus hailed Him as the Messiah, the heir to the throne of David’s kingdom. After entering Jerusalem through the eastern gate, the celebration ended at the temple, which was just inside the eastern gate. There, “after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late” (Mark 11:11).
Bethany, where Jesus most likely stayed in the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, was for Him a place of comfort, love, and much-needed rest. He had had a long, arduous day on Monday, dealing with the enormous crowd at the triumphal entry. Jesus had also had a long day on Sunday, ministering to those who visited Him in Bethany, all following that long, arduous walk from Jericho.
Lodging was a significant problem in Jerusalem and its environs during the Passover celebration. Some calculate that as many as two million Jews would be in and around Jerusalem during that time. There were inns, but they filled up very rapidly, probably mostly with people well-known to the innkeepers, if not their own friends and relatives. The Essenes, Zealots, Pharisees, Sadducees, and other religious groups would accommodate visitors who were a part of their groups. There were probably even a few true believers in Jesus, who housed other believers visiting from Galilee. Foreign synagogues (cf. Acts 6:9) ran hospices for their countrymen who were visiting Jerusalem on this important occasion. There were a number of Jews who were wealthy enough to live somewhere else in Israel, but also own a home in Jerusalem. They would stay in their homes in Jerusalem for Passover and provide housing for friends and guests. Wealthy families who owned great estates in and around Jerusalem could house a number of people.
But when all of that housing was exhausted, there were still masses of people who needed a place to stay. The solution was that Jerusalem became a tent city, with tents erected everywhere around the perimeter of the city, extending the two miles to Bethany, as well as south toward Bethlehem, and in every other direction. Some people pitched their tents near the temple. Although they were forbidden to stay inside the temple grounds, they stayed as close as they could. The temple also had adjacent buildings where places that people could stay were rented out. Jewish law required that those celebrating Passover had to spend at least the night before in Jerusalem. Since that had become impossible because the crowds were too large, during Passover the official boundaries of Jerusalem were extended to encompass the tent cities that surrounded it. In summary, the region was jammed with people beyond its capacity. It was good that Jesus and His disciples had friends in Bethany with a home large enough to accommodate them.
What Jesus saw in the temple grounds in the twilight of Monday evening set the stage for the dramatic confrontation that would take place on Tuesday in an amazing event that would display His kingly credentials. What He did and the response that it generated pointed unmistakably to Him as the Messiah, God’s true king and His eternal Son. Five realities in this passage show that Jesus is indeed God’s king: He was on a divine mission, He exercised divine authority, He demonstrated a commitment to divine Scripture, He manifested divine compassion, and He fulfilled divine purpose.
HE WAS ON A DIVINE MISSION
Jesus entered the temple (19:45a)
What Jesus did on that Tuesday of Passion Week was shocking. The crowds that accompanied Him on the triumphal entry fervently hoped that He would be the earthly messiah they were eagerly anticipating. Based on that, they might have expected Jesus to assault the Roman garrison at Fort Antonia, overlooking the temple, or to attack the house of Pilate, the pathetic Roman governor of Judea. To confront the Roman oppressors is what they had wanted Him to do throughout His ministry. John 6:14–15 records that “when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, ‘This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.’ So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.”
But instead of attacking the pagan, idolatrous, occupying Romans, Jesus assaulted the doings at temple—the heart of Judaism, the soul of the nation. By doing so, He attacked the respected, elevated, religious leaders of Israel, who claimed to represent God. The Lord was declaring that He was not concerned with Israel’s relationship to Rome, but with the nation’s relationship to God. The issue that moved Him to action was not Roman oppression, but Jewish religious corruption. That priority had led Him to make such an assault on the temple at the very outset of His ministry:
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house will consume me.” (John 2:13–17)
Again, on this occasion three years later, His earthly ministry ended with Him displaying holy fury on the corrupt temple and its apostate religion. Christ’s entire ministry focused on spiritual matters. His concern was always that the true God be worshiped in the true manner as prescribed in His Word. He said to a Samaritan woman, “An hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23–24). Jesus understood that all was not as it should be socially, economically, politically, and in terms of justice and equity. But He also knew that the only way to remedy those injustices was to exchange hypocrisy and works-righteousness for the true relationship with God. Therefore His ministry always focused on the kingdom of God and true worship of Him.
Hieros (temple) is the general term for the temple grounds as a whole, the vast complex that was able to accommodate thousands of worshipers. Within this area, surrounded by an outer wall, were several inner courts, progressively smaller, with the innermost being the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place, which were designated by a different word for temple (naos). The outer court was the Court of the Gentiles, so named because Gentiles were forbidden to go any further on pain of death. Inside the Court of the Gentiles was the Court of the Women, which was as far as women were permitted to go. That court was entered by a gate known as the Beautiful Gate, which was a popular place for beggars (Acts 3:10). Men could enter the next court, the Court of the Israelites, through Nicanor’s Gate, made of Corinthian bronze and so massive that it took twenty men to open and close it. From the Court of the Israelites the assembled worshipers could look through the doorway into the next courtyard, the Court of the Priests. Although they could not enter, they could watch the priests offering incense and sacrificing animals. In the rear of the Court of the Priests was the temple (naos) itself; that is, the Holy Place and then the Holy of Holies. The whole large complex, including all the courts, comprised the temple (hieros) of God.
What was happening in the Court of the Gentiles was emblematic of the corruption that made the Lord righteously angry. It had essentially been turned into a commerce center, where hundreds of thousands of animals and the other items needed for the sacrifices were sold. Theoretically, people could bring their own animals to be sacrificed. However, those animals had to first be approved by the priests. They had a vested interest in rejecting them, to boost the sales of animals from which the high priests Annas and Caiaphas profited (see below). Money changers had also set up shop there. They provided a needed service. The temple tax could only be paid using Jewish or Tyrian coins, so foreigners had to exchange their money for acceptable coinage. But because they had a monopoly, the money changers charged exorbitant fees for their services (as high as 12.5% [F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 74]).
The merchandising in the Court of the Gentiles had become known as the Bazaar of Annas, after the greedy high priest before whom Jesus would be tried first after His arrest in Gethsemane (John 18:13–23). Although he was no longer the actual high priest, Annas still retained the title and wielded tremendous power and influence behind the scenes. Along with his son-in-law Caiaphas, the current high priest, they ran the temple’s business operations, becoming extremely wealthy in the process. They sold franchises to the merchants for exorbitant prices and then skimmed off a huge percentage of the profits that the shop owners made.
All of this had combined to turn the temple of God into a noisy, smelly stockyard. The worshipful atmosphere that was appropriate for the temple, the symbol of God’s presence, was missing. Instead of being a place of sacred reverence and adoration, it had become a cacophony of abusive commerce and extortion. The sound of praise and prayers had been replaced by the bawling of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the cooing of doves, and the loud haggling of merchants and their customers.
Jesus, who was not only Lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6:5), but also Lord of the temple, was repulsed by the scene. It was to Israel’s hypocritical religion, so vividly portrayed by what He saw, smelled, and heard, that He turned His attention. His divine mission was to assault false worship of the true God; to defend God and His house against those who were blasphemously defiling it.
HE EXERCISED DIVINE AUTHORITY
and began to drive out those who were selling, (19:45b)
This first official act of the recognized king was a powerful display of Christ’s divine authority. He began to drive out those who were selling, singlehandedly shutting down the entire corrupt business operation polluting His Father’s house (cf. Luke 2:49; John 2:16). Pandemonium ensued as Jesus physically threw the merchants out, overturning the money changers’ tables and sending their coins rolling on the ground. He also yanked the seats out from under the dove sellers (Matt. 21:12) and sent them scrambling out of the temple. Mark 11:16 notes that He also halted the flow of goods being transported through the temple. This was an astonishing display of the force and strength of Jesus, considering the resistance that He must have encountered from the merchants. It reveals in stark clarity that the Lord hates those who pervert worship for their own greed.
HE DEMONSTRATED A COMMITMENT TO DIVINE SCRIPTURE
saying to them, “It is written, ‘And My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a robbers’ den.” (19:46)
As He evicted the polluting merchants, Jesus was saying to them, “It is written.” He vindicated His anger by showing its basis in two Old Testament passages. His first quote, My house shall be a house of prayer, comes from Isaiah 56:7, “Even those I will bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer … for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.” The temple was God’s house, where people came to commune with and worship Him. Prayer is the essence of worship.
The temple had originally been designed by God to be a place of prayer, a sanctuary of worship, and a place of communion with God (Ps. 65:4), meditation (cf. Ps. 27:4), penitence, confession, and praise, along with the offering of sacrifices. Solomon’s prayer at the temple’s dedication in 1 Kings 8 expresses that intent, as the following excerpts indicate:
[Let] … Your eyes … be open toward this house night and day, toward the place of which You have said, “My name shall be there,” to listen to the prayer which Your servant shall pray toward this place. (v. 29)
Listen to the supplication of Your servant and of Your people Israel, when they pray toward this place; hear in heaven Your dwelling place; hear and forgive. (v. 30)
When Your people Israel are defeated before an enemy, because they have sinned against You, if they turn to You again and confess Your name and pray and make supplication to You in this house, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your people Israel, and bring them back to the land which You gave to their fathers. (vv. 33–34)
When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain, because they have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name and turn from their sin when You afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of Your servants and of Your people Israel, indeed, teach them the good way in which they should walk. And send rain on Your land, which You have given Your people for an inheritance. (vv. 35–36)
Whatever prayer or supplication is made by any man or by all Your people Israel, each knowing the affliction of his own heart, and spreading his hands toward this house; then hear in heaven. (vv. 38–39a)
For they will hear of Your great name and Your mighty hand, and of Your outstretched arm; when he comes and prays toward this house. (v. 42)
“Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments, as at this day.” Now the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifice before the Lord. (vv. 61–62)
Even while making the sacrifices, the greedy priests and merchants had turned it into a circus of blasphemy and made it a robbers’ den. The Lord was alluding to Jeremiah 7:11, where God rebuked Israel for profaning the temple: “‘Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight?’” He asked them. “‘Behold, I, even I, have seen it,’ declares the Lord.” Like the caves where thieves hid, the temple had become a refuge for robbers, not a sanctuary for worshipers. Although Jesus’ eviction of the robbers was only temporary, the Romans would completely destroy the temple in A.D. 70. It has never been rebuilt.
HE MANIFESTED DIVINE COMPASSION
And He was teaching daily in the temple; (19:47a)
After the opening dramatic demonstration of Christ’s holy wrath, He displayed His compassionate care for souls by teaching daily in the temple. Luke details the content of that teaching in chapters 20 and 21. Jesus was preaching the gospel, the good news of salvation, forgiveness, heaven, and eternal life. The desecration of the temple stopped for a few days, and for a while the Son of God dominated the house of God, teaching there on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. For one last time the seeking Savior proclaimed the gospel of salvation to a recalcitrant, lost people.
It is compassionate to preach the gospel; to preach the truth of God, warn against false leaders, heretics, hypocrites, and coming judgment, and call people to salvation in light of that judgment. But in addition to proclaiming the saving truth to lost sinners, Jesus also demonstrated His divine compassion by healing the sick. Matthew notes that “the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them” (Matt. 21:14). The blind and the lame were often present around the temple because that is where people went to worship. These beggars received more than just a few coins, however; they received sight and motion. The miracles that Jesus performed offer further proof of His deity.
but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said. (19:47b–48)
One might have thought that this glorious display of miracles would seal in the minds of the people that Jesus was truly the Messiah. But the response of the leaders was increased anger, and eventually they turned the crowd against Him. A few days later the people would cry, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” (Luke 23:21).
The leaders, despite seeing Jesus’ miraculous display of compassion, were unmoved in their hatred of Him. Seeing “the children who were shouting in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ they became indignant” (Matt. 21:15). In desperation and fear (Mark 11:18), realizing they were losing control of the situation, the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Jesus.
But that proved, for the moment at least, to be impossible, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said. The Greek text literally says that they were hanging on to His lips, a graphic metaphor indicating that they were listening closely to His every word. David Gooding writes concerning their dilemma,
The temple authorities would have liked to destroy their ‘rival’ forthwith; but his immense popularity with the people made any immediate attempt at arrest and execution impossible and tactically unwise. To upset the people would have put at risk the very thing for which the battle was to be fought (see 19:47–48). Subtler and more sophisticated tactics would have to be used. (According to Luke [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987], 314–15)
Sadly, in a few days the crowd would turn on Jesus and scream for His blood. After His resurrection, only 120 believers would gather in Judea, with 500 more in Galilee. Jesus was rejected by the nation, and its leaders. But that too fulfilled God’s purpose; as Isaiah wrote, “He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him” (Isa. 53:3). The Lord Jesus Christ would fulfill God’s purpose by dying on Friday as God’s chosen sacrificial lamb. As Peter would later proclaim to the Jewish people, “This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (Acts 2:23).