And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.
At Passover near the opening of His ministry Jesus commanded those selling doves to take them away and stop making His Father's house a house of merchandise. His Father's house is the temple dedicated to God for worship and prayer, which must not be turned into a place for buying, selling and common business. This was the first cleansing of the temple, three years before He repeated the command with still greater authority at the close of His mission. He spoke and acted with divine authority that drove buyers, sellers, priests and rulers from the courts in fear, then in pity He healed the sick and blessed children to restore the temple to worship and mercy. The crowded, noisy courts picture a heart and a church crowded by worldly business, selfish gain and outward form, which must be driven out daily so the heart becomes God's temple again and His church is purified for service.
Command and Temple Setting
Jesus told the sellers of doves to take their birds away and to stop turning His Father's house into a house of trade. His order condemned the sacrilegious use of the temple courts for buying and selling and cleared them of commerce by divine authority. The Father's house is the temple dedicated to God, consecrated for worship and prayer, and it must be honored as sacred rather than used for buying, selling, or common business. Its traffic defiled what was meant to be a house of prayer, and His command drove out dishonest trade that profaned it.
The act took place at Passover near the opening of His ministry as the first cleansing of the temple, three years before the second cleansing at the close of His mission. The first command was given by the youthful Jesus, and it was repeated at the close with still greater authority, in trumpet tones ringing through the whole temple, with indignation that quenched all opposition. At the last cleansing the leaders themselves were engaged in trade and money exchange, and their greed made them in God's sight no better than thieves.
The outer court had been turned into a noisy cattle market and exchange, holding stalls for oxen, sheep, doves and sparrows and tables for changing foreign coins and different denominations to accommodate strangers. Early in the morning, when Jerusalem was crowded with people from a distance for the festival, the court was filled with sharp bargaining, buying and selling, lowing of cattle, bleating of sheep, cooing of doves, clinking of coin, and angry disputation and altercation between traffickers. Changing money upon entering the temple had grown into disgraceful traffic, and priests themselves acted as money-brokers and exchangers. Such market activity on sacred ground treated it as having no sacredness, like open stores carrying on buying and selling on Sunday.
The traffic was extortionate, for priests, rulers, and traders bought offering animals cheaply and sold them at exorbitant prices to distant Passover visitors who were compelled to buy because without shedding of blood there would be no remission of sins. Under plea of accommodating those from afar who could not bring sacrificial offerings, dealers realized large profit from immense yearly sales, shared it with the avaricious priesthood and men of authority, and practiced extortion under cover of holy profession. The priests and officials thus robbed both the people they bought from and the worshipers who had to buy again at inflated prices, making sacred office a source of personal revenue and causing distress to the poor. Christ's command exposed this robbery and defended the temple's sacred purpose, whose services were to continue until the Lamb of God died.
The chief guilt lay on the priesthood and temple authorities who arranged the market, kept the business in their own hands, profited from it, and perverted and disgraced their sacred office, while the crowd using the outer court as a marketplace was comparatively innocent. The rich and beautiful appearance of the building did not make the worship there holy when men conducting sacred services used it for dishonest trade. He showed Himself a truer friend to the temple than the priests and rulers who violated its sacredness.
He ordered the doves removed but did not drive them out as He did the oxen and sheep, because they were the poor people's only offering and all they could afford. The poor and suffering were left in the courts to present their offering and to ask God to bless their fields, crops, children, and homes. The noise, crowding, and disorder of stalls, animals, and moneychangers had made the place unfit for worship. The uproar invaded the temple so that worshipers within were disturbed, words addressed to the Most High were drowned, and prayer was obscured by noisy business and profiteering.
Divine Authority and Response
He spoke and acted with divine authority, divinity flashing through humanity even in humble and weary appearance. His countenance expressed indignation, authority and power, with displeasure like a consuming fire and a clear ringing voice, the same voice that on Mount Sinai proclaimed the law the priests and rulers were transgressing. Slowly descending the stairs He raised a scourge of small cords gathered on entering the enclosure, bade the bargaining company depart, and with zeal and severity never before manifested overthrew the tables of the moneychangers so that coin rang sharply on the marble pavement. He did not smite men with the whip, but the simple scourge in His hand seemed terrible as a flaming sword.
None presumed to question His authority or stopped to gather ill-gotten gain. Buyers and sellers, priests, rulers, Pharisees and Gentiles, temple officers, speculating priests, brokers and cattle traders with sheep and oxen rushed away in haste to escape the condemnation of His presence, drawing back in strange fear before His majesty as Heaven's King. His command spoke powerfully to their consciences, and the guilty traders, terrified, obeyed without resistance until the courts were cleared of commerce. Even after they returned, they were hesitant to resume their trade.
After the expulsion He looked on the flying crowd with profound pity. Then the temple courts became a place where He healed the sick in body and soul, turned in compassion to the poor, sick, blind, lame and afflicted, blessed children, and taught with wisdom that silenced the rulers, showing the temple to be a place for worship and mercy, not for profane trade. Here was shown that with all His infinite love and mercy He can execute stern justice.
The display of commanding power led many to hope anxiously that He was the longed-for Messiah and promised Deliverer. His appearance, the tones of His voice, and the irresistible power He exercised over the multitude led many of the Pharisees, priests and elders who freely commented on it to believe He was indeed the Messiah they had so long expected and desired to see. The disciples later remembered the act as evidence that He could disperse His enemies, and it encouraged faith that He could heal the dying.
The act troubled Nicodemus, kept him from joining in derision, and drove him to search the prophecies of the Messiah with growing conviction. Having witnessed the cleansing, he was stirred by fear of opposing one with such remarkable power and was helped to prompt a private night visit to ask about Christ's mission and whether He was the promised One. The authority felt and realized by the Jews should have brought them as worshipers at His feet.
They rejected Him because they were determined to disbelieve and feared He would take their power over the people by greater works and superhuman authority. They looked for a king who would come with great pomp to subdue nations and exalt them, and they hated and scorned His teaching of humility and love.
Sacred Meaning and Doctrine
The animals sold in the courts were meant to point to Christ as the perfect Sacrifice and to teach that sin makes necessary the shedding of blood, directing minds to a crucified Redeemer and to His own blood soon to be shed for the life of the world. They were offered without understanding of their meaning while the One they symbolized stood among the offerers unrecognized, and outward sacrifice without obedience, repentance and a changed life did not honor God. The temple services thus obscured by greed and empty forms were to continue only until the Lamb of God died. His command exposed dishonest trade and defended the sacred purpose of His Father's house against corruption that harmed the poor and displaced spiritual worship.
His gaze as divine Judge exposed hidden motives, and His voice recalled the law proclaimed at Sinai which priests and rulers were breaking by hatred, theft, exploitation of the needy, obstruction of the gospel, and making merchandise of God's grace. That rebuke carries the force of coming judgment and looks ahead to later abuses of religion. It reproved hypocritical lives and a religion of forms and ceremonies, rigorous exaction joined with no reverence for the true requirements of God and daily trampling of them beneath the feet. The sellers claimed to be children of Abraham yet refused Abraham's example, being sticklers for the letter while grossly transgressing its spirit, zealous for external appearance of righteousness while neglecting internal holiness.
The contrast is seen at Sinai, where the mount was consecrated by God's presence, bounds were set by divine command so that to touch it brought death, and all the people were cleansed and sanctified for His presence. Against that reverence stands the temple's desecration, where love of money and power overruled scruple while pride in piety, tenacity for outward observances, rejoicing over the temple, and rigor in ceremonies remained until worship had wandered far from the original purity of the sacrifice instituted by God Himself. The temple was meant to teach Israel and the world that God desires to dwell in His creatures. Sin defiled humanity so the human heart was no longer a temple revealing His glory, but through the incarnation God dwells in humanity and by saving grace the heart becomes His temple again, and the crowded courts filled with unholy trade pictured hearts defiled by earthly desires, selfish lusts, evil habits and unholy thoughts. His act of driving out the desecrators announced Him as the Messiah who cleanses from sin and makes a holy temple for the Lord, marking the beginning of His work.
The purifying of the temple illustrates the work that must be accomplished in everyone who would secure eternal life, a new moral birth, a removal of the sins that pollute, with true knowledge and genuine holiness and renewal of heart. Not one who fled that day was fitted by grace to be connected with the sacred services, for zeal to preserve outward holiness could not replace holiness of heart. The display of divine power in cleansing the courts proclaimed Him the Son of the Eternal and gave evidence of His divine mission, which witnesses recognized as from God. Reforming the corrupt priesthood would fail, yet His action was necessary, and the people's acclaim of Him as King of Israel with His acceptance of the role of King and Priest fulfilled ancient prophecy.
Prophetic Foreshadowing and Judgment
The cleansing at the opening of the ministry foreshadowed the later cleansing at its close, and stands as a warning that sacred worship must never be corrupted for gain. The command to remove traffic from the courts also points forward to a future judgment, when sins will be solemnly declared against those who reject heaven's warnings.
The first and second cleansings together foreshadow the last work for the warning of the world. That final work makes two distinct calls to the churches: the second angel's message, and the voice from heaven calling God's people out of Babylon because her sins have reached unto heaven and God has remembered her iniquities. The pattern calls them to come out so they will not worship the beast or its image.
At the first advent the temple was cleansed because commercial work had been brought in, God had been forgotten, hurry and business left no time to think of heaven, and the principles of God's law were disobeyed. For the same reason He will again cleanse His temple in displeasure prior to His second advent, to cleanse and purify it while pressing the claims of the law and asking how much of it has been obeyed. Saying The temple of the Lord are we gives no authority to do things the Word of God forbids, and self-exalting leaders are warned that continued disobedience after warning judgments will bring severer judgment, while learning what it means to be temples of the Lord brings saving grace and removes dissension.
The cleansing displayed divine authority and righteous anger for God's honor against dishonest dealings, unlawful gain, extortion, and commerce that made the Father's house a marketplace instead of a house of prayer, exposing priests and rulers as hypocrites and robbers. The misuse of the temple and rejection of Christ foreshadowed the destruction of Jerusalem, as pride and apostasy left the nation unable to recognize its Redeemer, like the barren fig tree with show of leaves but no fruit. The hasty flight of the traders symbolized the dispersion of the Jewish nation for wickedness and impenitence.
He once claimed the temple as His Father's house because it was dedicated to God's worship and not to commerce. Near the close of His ministry, when Israel had turned from God, He withdrew that name at His final departure and called it your house left desolate. As the Son of God passed out from its walls God's presence was withdrawn forever from the temple built to His glory, Jerusalem's probation ended, and its ceremonies and services became a mockery and lost their meaning.
The sale of indulgences in churches to raise money for St. Peter's was a comparable profanation of God's house. It made sacred worship a means of selling grace and enriching the church.
Cleansing Heart and Life
The crowded courts stand as a picture of a heart desecrated and crowded by worldly business, cares, pride, desire, vanity, selfish lusts, evil habits and unholy thoughts, leaving no room for Christ. The temple was meant to witness to the high destiny open to every soul as a dwelling for God's Spirit, but like the courts occupied by buyers and sellers the heart becomes defiled by earthly desires. The command to remove what did not belong there is a call to drive these things out so that truth can take possession of the heart and renew and transform it. This cleansing must occupy the soul every day, with the heart as well as the understanding enlarged beyond mere intellectual knowledge of truth, until the Spirit of God takes possession of heart and mind.
Mere profession of religion has no value before God, for He values a pure, holy character maintained with strict integrity. No one is exempt from need of a personal Saviour, the Lord cannot use a worker without true conversion, and character must be formed after the divine pattern. The rebuke falls on those who profess to serve God while giving their minds to worldly pursuits and putting temporal advantage before God. Preserving an outward form of piety does not excuse injustice, greed and oppression that pollute sacred service, and Jerusalem's rebuke serves as a type of the world: those in every age who profess godliness while oppressing others desecrate God's temple and, unless they repent, will face God's judgment.
Continuous business without a living connection with God dries up spirituality and leaves the soul Christless. Goods entrusted by God are sacred and must be used in His service, not mingled with worldly merchandise, and the call to remove the buyers and sellers applies to cleansing the soul temple from worldliness. The driving out of the money-changers rebukes the desecration of worship for gain, condemning the use of even religious activity as a means of gain. This includes selling during sacred meetings when it diverts people from their purpose and diminishes the effect of preaching, encouraging appetite, profit-seeking or pleasure to raise money instead of being moved by love for Christ, and holding fairs, theatrical plays or other commercial activities in churches, which display an impiety like that found during Christ's ministry.
Fashionable dress and display of ornaments in worship dishonor and desecrate God's house, turning a place for worship of God and hearing of Christ into a theater for displaying styles and studying fashions. Those who bring such extravagance into church are desecrators of God's house, and were Christ on earth visiting such churches He would drive them out. The command to take these things away also calls for removing displayed photographs from homes and schools because they consume money, time and thought that should be devoted to God and His work. They divert attention from Scripture and become idols by turning attention from God's Word toward human faces, so Christ's likeness, not human faces, should occupy the mind. The Father's house must not be made common but kept pure and fit for His service, which means preserving physical powers in the best possible condition in order to render acceptable service. God has placed knowledge of the laws of health within reach as a means to promote spiritual as well as physical life, and refusing to improve that light rejects His provision.
Cleansing Church and Institutions
The church today needs the same cleansing the temple received, for selfishness, wronging others, and conduct that harms fellow workers have no place in God's service. When inner corruption is covered with a show of righteousness and guided by worldly policy, the church becomes a house of merchandise, the faithful city becomes as a harlot, and the divine Presence and glory depart, leaving weakness and lack of strength. The outer garments of so-called righteousness are then stripped away to lay bare spotted and defiled garments beneath in unbearable corruption.
As He removed what profaned the temple and restored its sacred purpose at the beginning of His ministry, so He purifies His church. The tests, trials, and afflictions He permits serve that purification for present and eternal good. He allows no affliction except what is essential, using trial as education in the school of Christ to purge the dross of earthliness, reveal hidden defects, give opportunity to overcome them, fit souls for service, and impart deeper piety and greater strength to carry forward the triumphs of the cross.
Jerusalem was favored as depositary of sacred trusts, yet its courts were polluted with merchandise and robbery, where selfishness and love of mammon, envy, strife, and every man seeking gain from his quarter were cherished, while truth was perverted and all entreaties and warnings despised until Christ turned away in sorrow. Jerusalem thus represents what the church will become if it refuses to receive and walk in the light given, and the same sin is repeated when churches and schools of learning fail to meet God's demand. The publishing house at Battle Creek was turned into desecrated shrines, places of unholy merchandise and traffic where injustice, fraud, selfishness, malice, envy, and passion bore sway, and Christ comes to investigate Battle Creek moving in the same track as Jerusalem, seeing this state existing in every church and sorrowing and weeping over it. By rejecting warnings today and departing long from just and righteous principles, men repeat Jerusalem's sin and place themselves where light and truth, justice and mercy are not discerned.
The command to remove commercial traffic from the Father's house applies to publishing institutions when they engage in unholy traffic and unrighteous barter, for such business has no place in work devoted to God. It applies to the Review and Herald Office when printing harmful, deceptive, and objectionable material, which defiled a sacred institution as commerce defiled the temple, and with even more disastrous results. As He cleansed the temple courts, He would now cleanse the publishing office of all that defiles it, ordering removal of literature that unsettles faith, sows doubt, unbelief and infidelity, dishonors the Redeemer, denies the authority and purity of Scripture, and presents Him as only a man, for the office is to be kept holy like the temple and not used to accept, print, and endorse with God's work matter God condemns that educates workers and youth in error. The rebuke reaches buyers and sellers who despoil the human soul where Christ should dwell while disregarding God's counsels.
The same cleansing belongs in schools for youth: if Christ entered institutions for education He would cleanse them as He cleansed the temple, banishing many defiling influences to elevate righteousness and give instruction after God's order. Many books studied would be expelled for promoting false principles and misrepresenting God, and their places filled with books inculcating substantial knowledge, sentiments to be treasured in the heart, and precepts that can safely govern conduct. The same kind of cleansing is needed at the Battle Creek institution, where buyers, sellers, and corrupt practices must be removed so sacred work is not ruled or damaged by worldly interests.
Christ will surely cleanse His temple, which is His institutions with their representative workers standing in high places, of selfish gain. That merchandise is grasping for higher wages, greater authority and power to do as they please, planning and scheming after the precepts of men, manipulating lines of work and appropriating their own estimate of their labor, while ministers and missionaries are cut down in wages and workers are refused for fields where truth has never entered. Such grasping is a branch of selfishness devised by Satan to ruin souls, with which God will not work and into which judgment and equity cannot enter, and it must be cut off by practicing truth in the life through sanctification or the whole plant will be uprooted and destroyed.
The cleansing means opposing injustice by those in responsibility as He opposed buyers and sellers, cleansing institutions and offices from fraud, injustice, and mingling of sacred things with selfish, unholy practices, and removing unfit persons from responsibility when dishonest, unjust, or unchristian spirit makes their work an offense to God. The temple devoted to sacred use called for reproof when made merchandise, and God will overthrow selfish practices and remove those persisting in them. Offices must likewise be cleansed and purified where workers lack converting power, removing selfishness through transforming grace, restoring self-sacrificing service in place of greedy, money-making practices, since apparent success cannot substitute for inward consecration and right spirit.
When leaders become absorbed in business and financial affairs, sacred work loses its elevated character and is brought down to ordinary business, treating God's house as merchandise and displacing its spiritual work. Those concerns hinder the spiritual discernment and care their work requires, and sacred things must never be put on the same level as common or commercial interests. God will cleanse corrupted institutions as Christ cleansed the temple, and the judgments upon the two largest institutions speak to workers there and in all others declaring there must be reformation, giving cause to tremble for the future unless ideas of right and wrong are entirely changed.
The cleansing at His first advent exemplifies how truth entering new fields confronts and purifies the course of clergy and rulers. The temple-cleansing scene also stands as comparison for the sudden quiet that fell over the crowd when Paul addressed them. The command condemned the sale of sacrificial animals and ordered their removal because trading dishonored God, oppressed worshipers, and turned the courts into a vast exchange where unfair dealings harmed the poor and sacred worship gave way to empty forms. Priests and officials used the offerings to rob both those they bought from and worshipers forced to buy again at inflated prices, profaning sacred things, making God's house a den of thieves, and mingling buying and selling with worship, which He sternly rebuked with authority at the opening of His ministry by driving out buyers, sellers, priests and rulers, pouring out changers' money, overthrowing tables, and ordering dove sellers to take goods away and stop worldly trade. His cleansing exposed failure to honor God, taught that name and position weigh as nothing against virtue, purity, honesty and righteous dealing for those who would compose His church, warned workers in divinely established institutions holding sacred trust to examine conduct and stewardship, and showed Him a truer friend to the temple than violating priests, defending its sacred purpose with righteous anger for God's honor against obstruction, dishonest trade, and unlawful gain.
At Passover near the opening of His ministry Jesus commanded those selling doves to take them away and stop making His Father's house a house of merchandise. His Father's house is the temple dedicated to God for worship and prayer, which must not be turned into a place for buying, selling and common business. This was the first cleansing of the temple, three years before He repeated the command with still greater authority at the close of His mission. He spoke and acted with divine authority that drove buyers, sellers, priests and rulers from the courts in fear, then in pity He healed the sick and blessed children to restore the temple to worship and mercy. The crowded, noisy courts picture a heart and a church crowded by worldly business, selfish gain and outward form, which must be driven out daily so the heart becomes God's temple again and His church is purified for service.
Command and Temple Setting
Jesus told the sellers of doves to take their birds away and to stop turning His Father's house into a house of trade. His order condemned the sacrilegious use of the temple courts for buying and selling and cleared them of commerce by divine authority. The Father's house is the temple dedicated to God, consecrated for worship and prayer, and it must be honored as sacred rather than used for buying, selling, or common business. Its traffic defiled what was meant to be a house of prayer, and His command drove out dishonest trade that profaned it.
The act took place at Passover near the opening of His ministry as the first cleansing of the temple, three years before the second cleansing at the close of His mission. The first command was given by the youthful Jesus, and it was repeated at the close with still greater authority, in trumpet tones ringing through the whole temple, with indignation that quenched all opposition. At the last cleansing the leaders themselves were engaged in trade and money exchange, and their greed made them in God's sight no better than thieves.
The outer court had been turned into a noisy cattle market and exchange, holding stalls for oxen, sheep, doves and sparrows and tables for changing foreign coins and different denominations to accommodate strangers. Early in the morning, when Jerusalem was crowded with people from a distance for the festival, the court was filled with sharp bargaining, buying and selling, lowing of cattle, bleating of sheep, cooing of doves, clinking of coin, and angry disputation and altercation between traffickers. Changing money upon entering the temple had grown into disgraceful traffic, and priests themselves acted as money-brokers and exchangers. Such market activity on sacred ground treated it as having no sacredness, like open stores carrying on buying and selling on Sunday.
The traffic was extortionate, for priests, rulers, and traders bought offering animals cheaply and sold them at exorbitant prices to distant Passover visitors who were compelled to buy because without shedding of blood there would be no remission of sins. Under plea of accommodating those from afar who could not bring sacrificial offerings, dealers realized large profit from immense yearly sales, shared it with the avaricious priesthood and men of authority, and practiced extortion under cover of holy profession. The priests and officials thus robbed both the people they bought from and the worshipers who had to buy again at inflated prices, making sacred office a source of personal revenue and causing distress to the poor. Christ's command exposed this robbery and defended the temple's sacred purpose, whose services were to continue until the Lamb of God died.
The chief guilt lay on the priesthood and temple authorities who arranged the market, kept the business in their own hands, profited from it, and perverted and disgraced their sacred office, while the crowd using the outer court as a marketplace was comparatively innocent. The rich and beautiful appearance of the building did not make the worship there holy when men conducting sacred services used it for dishonest trade. He showed Himself a truer friend to the temple than the priests and rulers who violated its sacredness.
He ordered the doves removed but did not drive them out as He did the oxen and sheep, because they were the poor people's only offering and all they could afford. The poor and suffering were left in the courts to present their offering and to ask God to bless their fields, crops, children, and homes. The noise, crowding, and disorder of stalls, animals, and moneychangers had made the place unfit for worship. The uproar invaded the temple so that worshipers within were disturbed, words addressed to the Most High were drowned, and prayer was obscured by noisy business and profiteering.
Divine Authority and Response
He spoke and acted with divine authority, divinity flashing through humanity even in humble and weary appearance. His countenance expressed indignation, authority and power, with displeasure like a consuming fire and a clear ringing voice, the same voice that on Mount Sinai proclaimed the law the priests and rulers were transgressing. Slowly descending the stairs He raised a scourge of small cords gathered on entering the enclosure, bade the bargaining company depart, and with zeal and severity never before manifested overthrew the tables of the moneychangers so that coin rang sharply on the marble pavement. He did not smite men with the whip, but the simple scourge in His hand seemed terrible as a flaming sword.
None presumed to question His authority or stopped to gather ill-gotten gain. Buyers and sellers, priests, rulers, Pharisees and Gentiles, temple officers, speculating priests, brokers and cattle traders with sheep and oxen rushed away in haste to escape the condemnation of His presence, drawing back in strange fear before His majesty as Heaven's King. His command spoke powerfully to their consciences, and the guilty traders, terrified, obeyed without resistance until the courts were cleared of commerce. Even after they returned, they were hesitant to resume their trade.
After the expulsion He looked on the flying crowd with profound pity. Then the temple courts became a place where He healed the sick in body and soul, turned in compassion to the poor, sick, blind, lame and afflicted, blessed children, and taught with wisdom that silenced the rulers, showing the temple to be a place for worship and mercy, not for profane trade. Here was shown that with all His infinite love and mercy He can execute stern justice.
The display of commanding power led many to hope anxiously that He was the longed-for Messiah and promised Deliverer. His appearance, the tones of His voice, and the irresistible power He exercised over the multitude led many of the Pharisees, priests and elders who freely commented on it to believe He was indeed the Messiah they had so long expected and desired to see. The disciples later remembered the act as evidence that He could disperse His enemies, and it encouraged faith that He could heal the dying.
The act troubled Nicodemus, kept him from joining in derision, and drove him to search the prophecies of the Messiah with growing conviction. Having witnessed the cleansing, he was stirred by fear of opposing one with such remarkable power and was helped to prompt a private night visit to ask about Christ's mission and whether He was the promised One. The authority felt and realized by the Jews should have brought them as worshipers at His feet.
They rejected Him because they were determined to disbelieve and feared He would take their power over the people by greater works and superhuman authority. They looked for a king who would come with great pomp to subdue nations and exalt them, and they hated and scorned His teaching of humility and love.
Sacred Meaning and Doctrine
The animals sold in the courts were meant to point to Christ as the perfect Sacrifice and to teach that sin makes necessary the shedding of blood, directing minds to a crucified Redeemer and to His own blood soon to be shed for the life of the world. They were offered without understanding of their meaning while the One they symbolized stood among the offerers unrecognized, and outward sacrifice without obedience, repentance and a changed life did not honor God. The temple services thus obscured by greed and empty forms were to continue only until the Lamb of God died. His command exposed dishonest trade and defended the sacred purpose of His Father's house against corruption that harmed the poor and displaced spiritual worship.
His gaze as divine Judge exposed hidden motives, and His voice recalled the law proclaimed at Sinai which priests and rulers were breaking by hatred, theft, exploitation of the needy, obstruction of the gospel, and making merchandise of God's grace. That rebuke carries the force of coming judgment and looks ahead to later abuses of religion. It reproved hypocritical lives and a religion of forms and ceremonies, rigorous exaction joined with no reverence for the true requirements of God and daily trampling of them beneath the feet. The sellers claimed to be children of Abraham yet refused Abraham's example, being sticklers for the letter while grossly transgressing its spirit, zealous for external appearance of righteousness while neglecting internal holiness.
The contrast is seen at Sinai, where the mount was consecrated by God's presence, bounds were set by divine command so that to touch it brought death, and all the people were cleansed and sanctified for His presence. Against that reverence stands the temple's desecration, where love of money and power overruled scruple while pride in piety, tenacity for outward observances, rejoicing over the temple, and rigor in ceremonies remained until worship had wandered far from the original purity of the sacrifice instituted by God Himself. The temple was meant to teach Israel and the world that God desires to dwell in His creatures. Sin defiled humanity so the human heart was no longer a temple revealing His glory, but through the incarnation God dwells in humanity and by saving grace the heart becomes His temple again, and the crowded courts filled with unholy trade pictured hearts defiled by earthly desires, selfish lusts, evil habits and unholy thoughts. His act of driving out the desecrators announced Him as the Messiah who cleanses from sin and makes a holy temple for the Lord, marking the beginning of His work.
The purifying of the temple illustrates the work that must be accomplished in everyone who would secure eternal life, a new moral birth, a removal of the sins that pollute, with true knowledge and genuine holiness and renewal of heart. Not one who fled that day was fitted by grace to be connected with the sacred services, for zeal to preserve outward holiness could not replace holiness of heart. The display of divine power in cleansing the courts proclaimed Him the Son of the Eternal and gave evidence of His divine mission, which witnesses recognized as from God. Reforming the corrupt priesthood would fail, yet His action was necessary, and the people's acclaim of Him as King of Israel with His acceptance of the role of King and Priest fulfilled ancient prophecy.
Prophetic Foreshadowing and Judgment
The cleansing at the opening of the ministry foreshadowed the later cleansing at its close, and stands as a warning that sacred worship must never be corrupted for gain. The command to remove traffic from the courts also points forward to a future judgment, when sins will be solemnly declared against those who reject heaven's warnings.
The first and second cleansings together foreshadow the last work for the warning of the world. That final work makes two distinct calls to the churches: the second angel's message, and the voice from heaven calling God's people out of Babylon because her sins have reached unto heaven and God has remembered her iniquities. The pattern calls them to come out so they will not worship the beast or its image.
At the first advent the temple was cleansed because commercial work had been brought in, God had been forgotten, hurry and business left no time to think of heaven, and the principles of God's law were disobeyed. For the same reason He will again cleanse His temple in displeasure prior to His second advent, to cleanse and purify it while pressing the claims of the law and asking how much of it has been obeyed. Saying The temple of the Lord are we gives no authority to do things the Word of God forbids, and self-exalting leaders are warned that continued disobedience after warning judgments will bring severer judgment, while learning what it means to be temples of the Lord brings saving grace and removes dissension.
The cleansing displayed divine authority and righteous anger for God's honor against dishonest dealings, unlawful gain, extortion, and commerce that made the Father's house a marketplace instead of a house of prayer, exposing priests and rulers as hypocrites and robbers. The misuse of the temple and rejection of Christ foreshadowed the destruction of Jerusalem, as pride and apostasy left the nation unable to recognize its Redeemer, like the barren fig tree with show of leaves but no fruit. The hasty flight of the traders symbolized the dispersion of the Jewish nation for wickedness and impenitence.
He once claimed the temple as His Father's house because it was dedicated to God's worship and not to commerce. Near the close of His ministry, when Israel had turned from God, He withdrew that name at His final departure and called it your house left desolate. As the Son of God passed out from its walls God's presence was withdrawn forever from the temple built to His glory, Jerusalem's probation ended, and its ceremonies and services became a mockery and lost their meaning.
The sale of indulgences in churches to raise money for St. Peter's was a comparable profanation of God's house. It made sacred worship a means of selling grace and enriching the church.
Cleansing Heart and Life
The crowded courts stand as a picture of a heart desecrated and crowded by worldly business, cares, pride, desire, vanity, selfish lusts, evil habits and unholy thoughts, leaving no room for Christ. The temple was meant to witness to the high destiny open to every soul as a dwelling for God's Spirit, but like the courts occupied by buyers and sellers the heart becomes defiled by earthly desires. The command to remove what did not belong there is a call to drive these things out so that truth can take possession of the heart and renew and transform it. This cleansing must occupy the soul every day, with the heart as well as the understanding enlarged beyond mere intellectual knowledge of truth, until the Spirit of God takes possession of heart and mind.
Mere profession of religion has no value before God, for He values a pure, holy character maintained with strict integrity. No one is exempt from need of a personal Saviour, the Lord cannot use a worker without true conversion, and character must be formed after the divine pattern. The rebuke falls on those who profess to serve God while giving their minds to worldly pursuits and putting temporal advantage before God. Preserving an outward form of piety does not excuse injustice, greed and oppression that pollute sacred service, and Jerusalem's rebuke serves as a type of the world: those in every age who profess godliness while oppressing others desecrate God's temple and, unless they repent, will face God's judgment.
Continuous business without a living connection with God dries up spirituality and leaves the soul Christless. Goods entrusted by God are sacred and must be used in His service, not mingled with worldly merchandise, and the call to remove the buyers and sellers applies to cleansing the soul temple from worldliness. The driving out of the money-changers rebukes the desecration of worship for gain, condemning the use of even religious activity as a means of gain. This includes selling during sacred meetings when it diverts people from their purpose and diminishes the effect of preaching, encouraging appetite, profit-seeking or pleasure to raise money instead of being moved by love for Christ, and holding fairs, theatrical plays or other commercial activities in churches, which display an impiety like that found during Christ's ministry.
Fashionable dress and display of ornaments in worship dishonor and desecrate God's house, turning a place for worship of God and hearing of Christ into a theater for displaying styles and studying fashions. Those who bring such extravagance into church are desecrators of God's house, and were Christ on earth visiting such churches He would drive them out. The command to take these things away also calls for removing displayed photographs from homes and schools because they consume money, time and thought that should be devoted to God and His work. They divert attention from Scripture and become idols by turning attention from God's Word toward human faces, so Christ's likeness, not human faces, should occupy the mind. The Father's house must not be made common but kept pure and fit for His service, which means preserving physical powers in the best possible condition in order to render acceptable service. God has placed knowledge of the laws of health within reach as a means to promote spiritual as well as physical life, and refusing to improve that light rejects His provision.
Cleansing Church and Institutions
The church today needs the same cleansing the temple received, for selfishness, wronging others, and conduct that harms fellow workers have no place in God's service. When inner corruption is covered with a show of righteousness and guided by worldly policy, the church becomes a house of merchandise, the faithful city becomes as a harlot, and the divine Presence and glory depart, leaving weakness and lack of strength. The outer garments of so-called righteousness are then stripped away to lay bare spotted and defiled garments beneath in unbearable corruption.
As He removed what profaned the temple and restored its sacred purpose at the beginning of His ministry, so He purifies His church. The tests, trials, and afflictions He permits serve that purification for present and eternal good. He allows no affliction except what is essential, using trial as education in the school of Christ to purge the dross of earthliness, reveal hidden defects, give opportunity to overcome them, fit souls for service, and impart deeper piety and greater strength to carry forward the triumphs of the cross.
Jerusalem was favored as depositary of sacred trusts, yet its courts were polluted with merchandise and robbery, where selfishness and love of mammon, envy, strife, and every man seeking gain from his quarter were cherished, while truth was perverted and all entreaties and warnings despised until Christ turned away in sorrow. Jerusalem thus represents what the church will become if it refuses to receive and walk in the light given, and the same sin is repeated when churches and schools of learning fail to meet God's demand. The publishing house at Battle Creek was turned into desecrated shrines, places of unholy merchandise and traffic where injustice, fraud, selfishness, malice, envy, and passion bore sway, and Christ comes to investigate Battle Creek moving in the same track as Jerusalem, seeing this state existing in every church and sorrowing and weeping over it. By rejecting warnings today and departing long from just and righteous principles, men repeat Jerusalem's sin and place themselves where light and truth, justice and mercy are not discerned.
The command to remove commercial traffic from the Father's house applies to publishing institutions when they engage in unholy traffic and unrighteous barter, for such business has no place in work devoted to God. It applies to the Review and Herald Office when printing harmful, deceptive, and objectionable material, which defiled a sacred institution as commerce defiled the temple, and with even more disastrous results. As He cleansed the temple courts, He would now cleanse the publishing office of all that defiles it, ordering removal of literature that unsettles faith, sows doubt, unbelief and infidelity, dishonors the Redeemer, denies the authority and purity of Scripture, and presents Him as only a man, for the office is to be kept holy like the temple and not used to accept, print, and endorse with God's work matter God condemns that educates workers and youth in error. The rebuke reaches buyers and sellers who despoil the human soul where Christ should dwell while disregarding God's counsels.
The same cleansing belongs in schools for youth: if Christ entered institutions for education He would cleanse them as He cleansed the temple, banishing many defiling influences to elevate righteousness and give instruction after God's order. Many books studied would be expelled for promoting false principles and misrepresenting God, and their places filled with books inculcating substantial knowledge, sentiments to be treasured in the heart, and precepts that can safely govern conduct. The same kind of cleansing is needed at the Battle Creek institution, where buyers, sellers, and corrupt practices must be removed so sacred work is not ruled or damaged by worldly interests.
Christ will surely cleanse His temple, which is His institutions with their representative workers standing in high places, of selfish gain. That merchandise is grasping for higher wages, greater authority and power to do as they please, planning and scheming after the precepts of men, manipulating lines of work and appropriating their own estimate of their labor, while ministers and missionaries are cut down in wages and workers are refused for fields where truth has never entered. Such grasping is a branch of selfishness devised by Satan to ruin souls, with which God will not work and into which judgment and equity cannot enter, and it must be cut off by practicing truth in the life through sanctification or the whole plant will be uprooted and destroyed.
The cleansing means opposing injustice by those in responsibility as He opposed buyers and sellers, cleansing institutions and offices from fraud, injustice, and mingling of sacred things with selfish, unholy practices, and removing unfit persons from responsibility when dishonest, unjust, or unchristian spirit makes their work an offense to God. The temple devoted to sacred use called for reproof when made merchandise, and God will overthrow selfish practices and remove those persisting in them. Offices must likewise be cleansed and purified where workers lack converting power, removing selfishness through transforming grace, restoring self-sacrificing service in place of greedy, money-making practices, since apparent success cannot substitute for inward consecration and right spirit.
When leaders become absorbed in business and financial affairs, sacred work loses its elevated character and is brought down to ordinary business, treating God's house as merchandise and displacing its spiritual work. Those concerns hinder the spiritual discernment and care their work requires, and sacred things must never be put on the same level as common or commercial interests. God will cleanse corrupted institutions as Christ cleansed the temple, and the judgments upon the two largest institutions speak to workers there and in all others declaring there must be reformation, giving cause to tremble for the future unless ideas of right and wrong are entirely changed.
The cleansing at His first advent exemplifies how truth entering new fields confronts and purifies the course of clergy and rulers. The temple-cleansing scene also stands as comparison for the sudden quiet that fell over the crowd when Paul addressed them. The command condemned the sale of sacrificial animals and ordered their removal because trading dishonored God, oppressed worshipers, and turned the courts into a vast exchange where unfair dealings harmed the poor and sacred worship gave way to empty forms. Priests and officials used the offerings to rob both those they bought from and worshipers forced to buy again at inflated prices, profaning sacred things, making God's house a den of thieves, and mingling buying and selling with worship, which He sternly rebuked with authority at the opening of His ministry by driving out buyers, sellers, priests and rulers, pouring out changers' money, overthrowing tables, and ordering dove sellers to take goods away and stop worldly trade. His cleansing exposed failure to honor God, taught that name and position weigh as nothing against virtue, purity, honesty and righteous dealing for those who would compose His church, warned workers in divinely established institutions holding sacred trust to examine conduct and stewardship, and showed Him a truer friend to the temple than violating priests, defending its sacred purpose with righteous anger for God's honor against obstruction, dishonest trade, and unlawful gain.