Jesus Drives the Sellers from the TempleBible World
11:16Mark 11:16
And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.
Near the close of His ministry, just after His entry into Jerusalem and just before the withering of the fig tree, Jesus cleansed the temple a second time by stopping all carrying of vessels and goods through its courts, because the house dedicated to God's worship is sacred and was not to be made a common thoroughfare for business and traffic. At Passover its courts had again become a noisy market of sellers of sacrificial animals and produce and money changers, whose greed, extortion and exorbitant prices turned sacred service into gain and made the traffickers no better than thieves in God's sight. As He asserted His kingly authority, divinity flashed through humanity so that traffickers, priests and rulers felt their hypocrisy exposed and fled in terror. Joined to the blighting of the barren fig tree full of leaves but without fruit, the act displayed the true state and certain doom of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation for pride, apostasy and refusal to know their Redeemer, and warns professed Christians against fruitless outward show without good works. The unholy traffic in the courts represents hearts and the soul temple defiled by selfish desires, unholy thoughts and fraudulent dealing, which Christ came to cleanse so that truth enthroned within makes all powers and means sacred goods to be used for God unmingled with worldliness. The same cleansing is demanded today in physicians who charge exorbitantly, in schools defiled by false teaching, in churches desecrated by display and unholy trade, and in publishing houses turned to mere commercial work that sows doubt and infidelity.
Temple Cleansing Described
This verse belongs to Jesus' second cleansing of the temple, performed near the close of His public ministry just after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem and just before the blighting of the fig tree. It recalls an earlier cleansing near the beginning of His ministry, so that the cleansing took place near the beginning and again near the end.
The setting was Passover, when the temple court and outer court had again become crowded with sellers, animals, and money changers. It was like a common weekday market, full of noisy clamor and active buying and selling and exchange of produce, cattle, doves and sacrificial animals, with money changers and exchange and no regard for sacredness. The market's noise and traffic disturbed worship and worshippers inside the temple, turning the sacred place into a center of trade.
That traffic profaned the sacred temple through greed, dishonest dealing, extortion and robbery, with exorbitant prices exacted from those who desired beasts for sacrifice. Temple officials, dignitaries and priests participated in the buying, selling and money exchange, driven by greed and love of gain. The sacred precincts and the sacred Passover service had been turned into a source of profit and worship of wealth, and in God's sight the traffickers were no better than thieves.
By forbidding anyone to carry any vessel or goods through the temple, Jesus stopped its courts from being used for sacrilegious trade and ordinary traffic, business and commerce. He cleared the temple court because He regarded the building dedicated to God's worship as sacred. The courts were not to be treated as a common passageway, thoroughfare or passageway amid unholy traffic and confusion.
In this He asserted His kingly authority over the place set apart for worship. Divinity flashed through humanity in His countenance and soul-searching look. No trafficker or priest in gorgeous dress dared remain looking on Him, but priests and rulers fled in terror and haste, recognizing their hypocrisy and extortion. The disciples remembered this display of power as they hoped He would again overpower His enemies and deliver Himself.
Judgment and Inner Cleansing
The cleansing took place just after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and just before the blighting of the fig tree, and it reveals the true state of Jerusalem and her final doom. It displays the righteous anger of God in the coming destruction and dispersion of the Jewish nation for wickedness, pride, apostasy, separation from God, loss of discernment, and refusal to repent and know their Redeemer. Amid that judgment, tears over the city were a final plea of love and compassion.
The barren fig tree flaunting pretentious foliage yet bearing only leaves was a symbol of the Jewish nation. Together with the second cleansing that dispersed buyers and sellers for desecrating a place set apart for holy purpose, it symbolized the sentence and certain future punishment of the nation. The corrupt priests represented the nation, and their fate was as certain as the tree's withering. The same sentence warns professed Christians against fruitless hypocrisy of outward show without good works, revealing the difference between pretended devotion and genuine faith bearing fruit in unselfish deeds.
The cleansings at the beginning and close of ministry warn of judgment and illustrate two distinct calls in the final warning to the world. They are the second angel's message and the call from heaven for God's people to come out of Babylon. Those who reject heaven's messages will face solemn exposure of their sins.
The temple courts filled with unholy traffic represent hearts and the soul temple defiled by selfish desires, evil habits, unholy thoughts, moral pollution, injustice and fraudulent dealing. The cleansing announces the mission to cleanse the heart from sin and remove buyers and sellers from within. When Christ is entertained as an honored guest and truth occupies the citadel of the soul with God enthroned in the heart, no selfish traffic is found there. Then all that is possessed in means and physical and mental powers is recognized as sacred goods entrusted by God for wise investment and increase for results as far reaching as eternity, kept unmingled with worldly merchandise. Doing the Master's bidding becomes the one aim of life and brings upward growth and transformation of character by the Holy Spirit, whereas the leaven of worldliness causes loss of spiritual discernment and few even among church members realize their accountability as His servants.
Cleansing Demanded Today
The same rebuke that stopped exorbitant prices for beasts for sacrifice and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of them that sold doves applies to practicing physicians who call themselves Christians yet charge exorbitantly. The medical profession is no less under the Lord's jurisdiction and the rule of the standard of righteousness than the farmer, the merchant, or the minister of the gospel. The physician is as much under obligation to represent pure and undefiled religion in business transactions, to love and obey God, and to relieve the sick and afflicted for Christ's sake. Guarding the temple against common commercial use means searching the temple of the heart for buyers and sellers to condemn, so that when Christ is entertained as an honored guest and truth occupies the citadel of the soul, God is enthroned in the heart and no selfish traffic is found there. For the physician this requires being emptied of the root of selfishness, not making self a center absorbing everything and imparting nothing, not working as a mere businessman, but rendering service and taking no more than is honestly due with the eye single to the glory of God.
Applied to schools, the refusal to let the temple be used as an ordinary thoroughfare shows Christ would remove from places devoted to God what defiles them. This means expelling books and other influences that corrupt the mind and replacing them with substantial knowledge and teachings that guide conduct. More particularly it means removing books that promote falsehood and corrupt the minds of the young.
Applied to churches, the temple was dishonored when treated as a place for worldly display, and Jesus would drive out those who desecrated His Father's house. The same principle condemns churches where fashionable dress and attention to appearance displace worship of Christ. Stopping the temple from being used for ordinary traffic was part of His rebuke of merchandise and robbery, selfishness and love of gain, and Jerusalem's misuse of its sacred trust warns churches that reject God's counsel and light. His driving out of those who desecrated the temple is a model for rebuking religious practices that dishonor God, including feasting and unholy trade conducted in the name of religion.
As the temple needed to be cleared of buyers, sellers, and merchandise, the institution at Battle Creek needed cleansing from corrupt practices and principles that denied people their rights. Sacred places and work must not be turned into instruments of exploitation. The same cleansing opposes moral pollution, injustice, fraudulent dealings, and unjust schemes, and therefore requires removing unjust schemes from the publishing house. Christ's refusal to allow common traffic and defiling use through the temple in order to keep God's house holy requires cleansing His publishing work of all things that defile it.
Publishing houses were established to publish present truth and transact its proper business, and Christ would protect their sacredness as He protected God's house from common and commercial purposes. When managers devote these institutions principally to commercial work, enter contracts to publish questionable matter merely for gain, and take in a mass of outside work requiring increased facilities and workers who cannot be properly disciplined, the sacred purpose is lost sight of, the work is cheapened, and the institutions become like any other commercial enterprise. Christ would cleanse such commercialism from publishing houses as He cleansed the temple at Jerusalem. Bringing in commercial work that displeases God and matter containing principles that lead to false doctrine is the same desecration with the same corrupting influence, proving blindness and lack of spiritual discernment and poisoning the minds of the workers. Literature that must be refused, neither accepted, handled, nor printed, is that which unsettles faith, sows doubt and unbelief and seeds of infidelity, lowers dignity to cheap fiction, dishonors the Redeemer such as the claim that Christ was only a man, and gives a wrong tendency to youth. Taking such work brings Satan and his sophistry into the office and sends forth an army of educated infidels, so it is worse than wasted time and must be rejected even for business gain. The temple cleansing is the pattern for God's cleansing of a publishing house corrupted by injustice and selfishness, which God will not indefinitely tolerate but will rise to punish.
Near the close of His ministry, just after His entry into Jerusalem and just before the withering of the fig tree, Jesus cleansed the temple a second time by stopping all carrying of vessels and goods through its courts, because the house dedicated to God's worship is sacred and was not to be made a common thoroughfare for business and traffic. At Passover its courts had again become a noisy market of sellers of sacrificial animals and produce and money changers, whose greed, extortion and exorbitant prices turned sacred service into gain and made the traffickers no better than thieves in God's sight. As He asserted His kingly authority, divinity flashed through humanity so that traffickers, priests and rulers felt their hypocrisy exposed and fled in terror. Joined to the blighting of the barren fig tree full of leaves but without fruit, the act displayed the true state and certain doom of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation for pride, apostasy and refusal to know their Redeemer, and warns professed Christians against fruitless outward show without good works. The unholy traffic in the courts represents hearts and the soul temple defiled by selfish desires, unholy thoughts and fraudulent dealing, which Christ came to cleanse so that truth enthroned within makes all powers and means sacred goods to be used for God unmingled with worldliness. The same cleansing is demanded today in physicians who charge exorbitantly, in schools defiled by false teaching, in churches desecrated by display and unholy trade, and in publishing houses turned to mere commercial work that sows doubt and infidelity.
Temple Cleansing Described
This verse belongs to Jesus' second cleansing of the temple, performed near the close of His public ministry just after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem and just before the blighting of the fig tree. It recalls an earlier cleansing near the beginning of His ministry, so that the cleansing took place near the beginning and again near the end.
The setting was Passover, when the temple court and outer court had again become crowded with sellers, animals, and money changers. It was like a common weekday market, full of noisy clamor and active buying and selling and exchange of produce, cattle, doves and sacrificial animals, with money changers and exchange and no regard for sacredness. The market's noise and traffic disturbed worship and worshippers inside the temple, turning the sacred place into a center of trade.
That traffic profaned the sacred temple through greed, dishonest dealing, extortion and robbery, with exorbitant prices exacted from those who desired beasts for sacrifice. Temple officials, dignitaries and priests participated in the buying, selling and money exchange, driven by greed and love of gain. The sacred precincts and the sacred Passover service had been turned into a source of profit and worship of wealth, and in God's sight the traffickers were no better than thieves.
By forbidding anyone to carry any vessel or goods through the temple, Jesus stopped its courts from being used for sacrilegious trade and ordinary traffic, business and commerce. He cleared the temple court because He regarded the building dedicated to God's worship as sacred. The courts were not to be treated as a common passageway, thoroughfare or passageway amid unholy traffic and confusion.
In this He asserted His kingly authority over the place set apart for worship. Divinity flashed through humanity in His countenance and soul-searching look. No trafficker or priest in gorgeous dress dared remain looking on Him, but priests and rulers fled in terror and haste, recognizing their hypocrisy and extortion. The disciples remembered this display of power as they hoped He would again overpower His enemies and deliver Himself.
Judgment and Inner Cleansing
The cleansing took place just after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and just before the blighting of the fig tree, and it reveals the true state of Jerusalem and her final doom. It displays the righteous anger of God in the coming destruction and dispersion of the Jewish nation for wickedness, pride, apostasy, separation from God, loss of discernment, and refusal to repent and know their Redeemer. Amid that judgment, tears over the city were a final plea of love and compassion.
The barren fig tree flaunting pretentious foliage yet bearing only leaves was a symbol of the Jewish nation. Together with the second cleansing that dispersed buyers and sellers for desecrating a place set apart for holy purpose, it symbolized the sentence and certain future punishment of the nation. The corrupt priests represented the nation, and their fate was as certain as the tree's withering. The same sentence warns professed Christians against fruitless hypocrisy of outward show without good works, revealing the difference between pretended devotion and genuine faith bearing fruit in unselfish deeds.
The cleansings at the beginning and close of ministry warn of judgment and illustrate two distinct calls in the final warning to the world. They are the second angel's message and the call from heaven for God's people to come out of Babylon. Those who reject heaven's messages will face solemn exposure of their sins.
The temple courts filled with unholy traffic represent hearts and the soul temple defiled by selfish desires, evil habits, unholy thoughts, moral pollution, injustice and fraudulent dealing. The cleansing announces the mission to cleanse the heart from sin and remove buyers and sellers from within. When Christ is entertained as an honored guest and truth occupies the citadel of the soul with God enthroned in the heart, no selfish traffic is found there. Then all that is possessed in means and physical and mental powers is recognized as sacred goods entrusted by God for wise investment and increase for results as far reaching as eternity, kept unmingled with worldly merchandise. Doing the Master's bidding becomes the one aim of life and brings upward growth and transformation of character by the Holy Spirit, whereas the leaven of worldliness causes loss of spiritual discernment and few even among church members realize their accountability as His servants.
Cleansing Demanded Today
The same rebuke that stopped exorbitant prices for beasts for sacrifice and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of them that sold doves applies to practicing physicians who call themselves Christians yet charge exorbitantly. The medical profession is no less under the Lord's jurisdiction and the rule of the standard of righteousness than the farmer, the merchant, or the minister of the gospel. The physician is as much under obligation to represent pure and undefiled religion in business transactions, to love and obey God, and to relieve the sick and afflicted for Christ's sake. Guarding the temple against common commercial use means searching the temple of the heart for buyers and sellers to condemn, so that when Christ is entertained as an honored guest and truth occupies the citadel of the soul, God is enthroned in the heart and no selfish traffic is found there. For the physician this requires being emptied of the root of selfishness, not making self a center absorbing everything and imparting nothing, not working as a mere businessman, but rendering service and taking no more than is honestly due with the eye single to the glory of God.
Applied to schools, the refusal to let the temple be used as an ordinary thoroughfare shows Christ would remove from places devoted to God what defiles them. This means expelling books and other influences that corrupt the mind and replacing them with substantial knowledge and teachings that guide conduct. More particularly it means removing books that promote falsehood and corrupt the minds of the young.
Applied to churches, the temple was dishonored when treated as a place for worldly display, and Jesus would drive out those who desecrated His Father's house. The same principle condemns churches where fashionable dress and attention to appearance displace worship of Christ. Stopping the temple from being used for ordinary traffic was part of His rebuke of merchandise and robbery, selfishness and love of gain, and Jerusalem's misuse of its sacred trust warns churches that reject God's counsel and light. His driving out of those who desecrated the temple is a model for rebuking religious practices that dishonor God, including feasting and unholy trade conducted in the name of religion.
As the temple needed to be cleared of buyers, sellers, and merchandise, the institution at Battle Creek needed cleansing from corrupt practices and principles that denied people their rights. Sacred places and work must not be turned into instruments of exploitation. The same cleansing opposes moral pollution, injustice, fraudulent dealings, and unjust schemes, and therefore requires removing unjust schemes from the publishing house. Christ's refusal to allow common traffic and defiling use through the temple in order to keep God's house holy requires cleansing His publishing work of all things that defile it.
Publishing houses were established to publish present truth and transact its proper business, and Christ would protect their sacredness as He protected God's house from common and commercial purposes. When managers devote these institutions principally to commercial work, enter contracts to publish questionable matter merely for gain, and take in a mass of outside work requiring increased facilities and workers who cannot be properly disciplined, the sacred purpose is lost sight of, the work is cheapened, and the institutions become like any other commercial enterprise. Christ would cleanse such commercialism from publishing houses as He cleansed the temple at Jerusalem. Bringing in commercial work that displeases God and matter containing principles that lead to false doctrine is the same desecration with the same corrupting influence, proving blindness and lack of spiritual discernment and poisoning the minds of the workers. Literature that must be refused, neither accepted, handled, nor printed, is that which unsettles faith, sows doubt and unbelief and seeds of infidelity, lowers dignity to cheap fiction, dishonors the Redeemer such as the claim that Christ was only a man, and gives a wrong tendency to youth. Taking such work brings Satan and his sophistry into the office and sends forth an army of educated infidels, so it is worse than wasted time and must be rejected even for business gain. The temple cleansing is the pattern for God's cleansing of a publishing house corrupted by injustice and selfishness, which God will not indefinitely tolerate but will rise to punish.