Matthew 21:13, commentary and pictures

Christ spoke these words when He cleansed the temple a second time near the close of His ministry, finding the same desecration by the same traffickers as three years before. He cast out all who bought and sold, drove out the animals, poured out the changers' money and overthrew their tables and seats. His house is set apart for prayer and worship, but buying and selling for gain had profaned it and brought it down to the level of common things. To call it a den of thieves is to expose robbery, extortion and unjust gain, for priests and rulers bought offerings cheaply and resold them at exorbitant prices, oppressing worshipers and especially the poor. By cleansing the temple He announced His mission to cleanse the heart from sin, for the soul defiled by selfishness, love of money and unholy passion becomes the same unholy traffic that must be driven out so life becomes a temple for God's Spirit.

Historical Setting and Actions

Jesus spoke these words at the second cleansing of the temple near the close of His earthly ministry, three years after a first cleansing at the beginning of His ministry when He first drove out those who defiled it by unholy traffic. He came again to the temple and found it still desecrated by the same abominable practices and the same traffickers in buying and selling and exchange of money. This second driving of the traders was distinct from the cleansing at the commencement of His public ministry, and the temple dignitaries obeyed Him even more quickly than they had three years earlier. Afterward many hoped that this powerful man was the long-awaited Messiah.

He went into the temple of God and cast out all who sold and bought there, driving out the sellers and buyers and the sheep and cattle from its precincts. He poured out the changers' money, overthrew the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves. Taking a scourge of small cords used to drive cattle, He drove out buyers and sellers.

The traffic belonged to Passover season when Jerusalem was crowded with people from a distance and large crowds were already going to the temple early in the morning. The court of the temple had been arranged as a cattle market and place of general traffic, with stalls for beasts and tables for exchange. Each person attending the Passover brought money paid to the priests on entering, and foreign coins and different denominations had to be changed to accommodate strangers, while those who came from far and could not bring sacrificial offerings had to buy animals for offerings in Jerusalem. What began under the plea of accommodating strangers had grown into a disgraceful traffic and source of great profit, with cattle, sheep, doves and sparrows sold in the outer court at exorbitant prices, and the many beasts sacrificed yearly at Passover and Feast of Tabernacles making the sales immense. Though at every Passover and Feast of Tabernacles thousands of cattle were slain with their blood caught by the priests and poured upon the altar, the priests and rulers had become familiar with blood as a purifier from guilt and had almost lost sight that sin made necessary all this shedding of the blood of beasts, that it prefigured the blood of God's dear Son to be shed for the life of the world, and that the offering of sacrifices was to direct men toward a crucified Redeemer.

The court had become a noisy ordinary market rather than the sacred temple of God. There were sharp bargaining, buying and selling, lowing of cattle, bleating of sheep, cooing of doves, chinking of coin, angry disputation, and exchange of produce. The buying, selling and noise disturbed worshipers, drowned out their words to God, and seriously disturbed worship inside the temple. Busy trading treated a sacred place as an ordinary marketplace, contrary to its purpose as a place of prayer.

After entering and surveying the buying and selling with calm dignity and then stern judgment, He spoke with kingly authority as guardian of the temple and as the Majesty of Heaven standing like the Judge at the last day. His face lit with divine light and His form towered in commanding authority, reading every heart and hidden motive until the crowd felt arraigned before God and accountable as before the final Judge. His clear ringing voice echoing through the temple arches was like the voice that shook Mount Sinai, exposing guilt and hidden motives, and for the moment all acknowledged Him as Master.

Divinity flashed through His humanity, His eye flashed with indignation, and His majesty and power made the traffic stop. The priests and rulers fled before Him as if confronted by a flashing sword, as if pursued by armed soldiers or by the presence of an offended God. Their flight before a humble Galilean, even though no visible divine judgment fell on them afterward, stands as sufficient evidence of His divinity, and the priests and rulers were struck with the conviction that He was no common man. The priests' terror at His rebuke revealed His divine authority.

His command carried divine authority and was obeyed without resistance. The guilty understood His words, feared His judgment, and felt that despite His love and mercy He could execute stern justice. His rebuke exposed hypocrisy and misuse of worship, and His searching look and soul-searching words exposed guilt.

After driving out the traders He made the court a place of mercy and teaching, and cleared the way for people to come to Him for healing. The temple courts were filled with sick and dying people seeking Jesus, and the blind, lame, sick and dying came to Him in the temple and He healed them in body and soul as their only hope, trusting His power to relieve suffering. Children praised Him in the temple courts as the Son of David, fulfilling God's word which attempts by religious leaders to silence could not prevent. Priests and elders found Him healing the sick and dying, yet their prejudice and jealousy remained despite these signs.

He and His disciples gave all possible dignity and sacredness to the temple and its services, which by God's appointment were to continue until type met antitype in the death of the Lamb of God, even though the temple would be destroyed a few years later. His zeal for the temple reflected His divine authority, and His presence made the temple sacred. The temple's beauty did not make its worshipers or services holy.

Meaning of Den Thieves

God's house was set apart for prayer and worship, yet buying, selling and money-changing for gain had profaned it and dragged sacred things down to the level of common things. The courts meant for prayer had become a place of dishonest gain and exploitation, and the declaration against it carried divine authority to drive out traders and their animals and to rebuke profanation with stern justice joined to love and mercy. The cleansing removed those engaged in unjust dealing because the Father's house was for prayer, though longing remained that the people might recover from the enemy's snare.

To be called a den of thieves meant robbery, extortion, fraudulent transactions and unjust gain, with men sitting counting money gotten by fraud while professing to obey truth and serve Passover worship. The trade dishonored God and oppressed worshipers by making access to sacrifice costly, and the words were decisive judgment on those who took part in it. The same condemnation exposes robbery and extortion wherever dishonest dealing appears, for God will not join Himself to any dishonest transaction.

Priests, rulers, Pharisees and doctors of the law led and shared in the traffic, buying sacrificial cattle, sheep, doves and sparrows cheaply by oppressing sellers and then reselling at exorbitant prices for immense profit. They acted themselves as money-brokers and exchangers, and what began under plea of accommodating strangers who brought money and foreign coins and could not bring offerings grew into disgraceful traffic and a source of great profit shared with the avaricious priesthood and men of authority. Under cover of holy profession these hypocritical speculators practiced extortion and made sacred office a source of personal revenue. The courts became a noisy cattle market of sharp bargaining, lowing cattle, bleating sheep, cooing doves, chinking coin and angry disputation rather than the sacred temple of God, and the sacrifices were corrupted by greed and false dealing.

That extortion oppressed worshipers, especially the poor and those coming from a distance who could not bring offerings and were forced to buy in Jerusalem, making sacrifice costly and profaning sacred things into robbery. Greed and avarice had overcome religious duty, so leaders driven by love of money were no better than thieves in God's sight and turned prayer into thievery and the worship of wealth. Their profitable arrangement of stalls made the service of God contemptible, and avarice as the besetting sin that also overcame Judas meant interference with commercial income threatened great profits and aroused bitter enmity that would not tolerate rebuke.

The hypocrisy stood exposed when leaders condemned children's joyful praise as polluting the sacred place while tolerating animals, angry disputes, buying and selling and merchandise within its precincts. They violated the spirit of the law against theft and hatred while claiming its letter and outward righteousness, showing outward religious appearance without true inner holiness. The many beasts slain at Passover and Tabernacles, whose blood priests caught and poured upon the altar, were meant to direct minds to the blood of God's Son to be shed for the life of the world. Yet familiarity with blood as purifier made them lose sight that sin made necessary all this shedding of beasts' blood, so they treated even sacrifice as profit and failed to value what it represented.

Prophetic Warning Fulfilled

The cleansing at the beginning of His public ministry and the second cleansing almost at the close, in almost the last act of His ministry, stand together as more than repeated reform. Together they foreshadow the last work for the warning of the world, in which two distinct calls are made to the churches. Those two calls are the second angel's message and the heavenly voice calling God's people to come out of Babylon.

The cleansing near the close pointed to Jerusalem's doom, dispersion and ruin for wickedness and impenitence. Like the fruitless fig tree, the nation made a show of devotion and privilege while lacking piety and good works and separated from God. Its withering under righteous anger represented God's righteous anger and Jerusalem's coming destruction and the ruin of its temple. That closing cleansing was Christ's final warning and exercise of authority as Israel's King, condemning greedy buying, selling and money-changing and commanding the traders to leave. It foreshadows the judgment, when those who reject heaven's messages and refuse pardon will have their hidden sins solemnly declared and, like the priests and rulers fleeing the temple, will stand powerless to respond.

The purification of the temple at both the beginning and the close shows that God purifies His church too. He does so through tests and trials for its present and eternal good, deepening piety and strengthening it to carry the gospel throughout the world. Before His second advent Christ will again cleanse His temple and purify it in displeasure, because commercial work was brought in and God was forgotten and the house devoted to God was given to commercial activity. That coming condition is a world made corrupt by love of money and display, where wealth is gained through fraud and oppression while poor laborers are deprived so the rich can indulge extravagance or hoard, and this greed and oppression will prevail just before His coming.

The disciples remembered this display of power, when the traffickers fled before Him as if pursued by armed soldiers. During His trial they hoped He would act with the same authority again, disperse the crowd, and prove Himself Israel's King. He did not.

Cleansing Institutions Today

What God establishes for sacred work must not be devoted principally to commercial work for gain, and Christ actively drives out such misuse to restore its sacred purpose. Turning a place meant for worship and prayer into a place of corrupt buying and selling and dishonest trade desecrates what belongs to God. Publishing houses established to publish present truth for the last days stand as God's house in this sense, and Christ would cleanse them when managers with perverted spiritual perception enter contracts to publish questionable matter merely for commercial gain and cause the sacred purpose for which the institutions were established to be lost sight of. Workers in religious institutions must honor their trust and avoid unfaithful conduct that will bring them to account, for heaven sees their transactions and such institutions need cleansing when their dealings violate justice and resemble the abuses in the temple courts.

God's publishing house fell under the same defilement as the temple, only with tenfold more disastrous result and worse in its consequences. This happened by the printing of matter which should never have been placed in the hands of the workers in God's institution, transgressing God's law and betraying His cause and making the institution a den of thieves. Christ's cleansing by overturning the tables of the money-changers and driving the sheep and cattle from the precincts because prayer had been replaced by thievery and commercial defilement is the pattern for understanding that defilement. The same defilement has fallen especially on the Review and Herald Office as fell on the temple.

Making God's institution a den of thieves means transgressing God's law and betraying His cause by putting commercial work first and neglecting the printing and circulating of stirring appeals for truth. It means letting commercial work, some of it of a most objectionable character, gradually assume supremacy and absorb time and talent and energies that should have been devoted to publishing truth and literature of the purest quality and most elevating character. It means wasting time, misapplying talent, misappropriating money, leaving undone the work that ought to have been done, exalting Satan's sentiments and printing his theories by presses that should have been used to prepare the truth of God for circulation, and coveting promotion while under the ban of God's displeasure. Loss is infinitely better than dishonorable gain, so the pernicious matter must no longer be printed, those who brought it in must repent before God whose wrath is kindled against them, that class of work must be forever excluded, and more time must be given to publishing and circulating books containing present truth unto perfection to diffuse the light of heaven and warn the world that the end of all things is at hand.

The defilement includes accepting, handling, and sending out literature that dishonors the Redeemer, unsettles faith in Christianity, sows seeds of doubt and unbelief about Scripture, argues Christ was only a man, and educates infidels. It includes works of a worldly character that charm the senses and fill the mind but give no spiritual nourishment, no true idea of Christian life, and no instruction in common duties, breathing an atmosphere detrimental to solid Christian experience. Such material brings in Satan and his sophistry and poisons workers' minds, with an influence like the desecration of the temple, including material promoting false doctrines. Christ's command to take defiling things away applies now as a demand to discard all degrading and doubt-sowing matter and to publish only what honors God and serves prayer and truth, using presses only for present truth that warns the world, as applied to the Echo publishing office where publishing material that dishonors Christ or sows doubt makes the office a place that defiles rather than serves God. Making the house made for prayer and sacred work into a den of thieves is mingling the sacred and the common until the sacredness of God's work is lost, which calls every worker to cleanse his own soul-temple and thus cooperate with Christ in purifying the office.

The cleansing must remove injustice and fraudulent dealings, including schemes that deprive people of their rights, for such practices are not Christ's order but Satan's. It must remove harsh, domineering treatment of the ignorant and helpless, and practices that keep the office from being an educating place where young people are led to give their hearts to the Lord. It must remove selfish schemes and anything resembling fraud and pollution, for the Lord will cleanse the publishing house of its defilement, God will not indefinitely tolerate such wrongdoing, and continued wrongdoing hardens the hearts of those who practice it. The cleansing of the Review office is compared to the Lord's cleansing of the temple courts of defilement and moral pollution.

An institution established by sacrifice for God can become a den of thieves when men in positions of trust depart from veracity and act contrary to Christ's plan. This is fulfilled when overbearing men by specious reasoning and arguments urge and induce brethren to agree to their terms and sell their rights and publications, misrepresenting God's character and grieving Him. Such conduct greatly injures office workers and still more injures the wrongdoers themselves by clouding discernment and losing spiritual eyesight, and God does not acknowledge such wrongdoers as workers together with Him. God weighs every motive and every action, angels attend every council and board meeting to impart wisdom, and every motion is traced in His books, because men dealing with brethren or worldlings act as God's representatives according to the Word and the law of Jehovah, and no increase of light will cure the condition because they choose darkness rather than the light that discovers darkness.

The same need for purification applies to the institutions in Battle Creek, which are called temples needing purification when corruption and the pursuit of control displace evangelical religion. It applies to the institution at Battle Creek when its servants must be made pious and devoted to holy purposes, to the Board which the Lord will cleanse of unfit members whose dishonest, unchristian conduct and wrong spirit in management make the work an offense to God, and to institutions cleansed from selfishness, arrogance, and people's domination of others' consciences. It applies to sanitariums, which are likewise to be cleansed of commercial enterprises. It applies to the church, where a cleansing of the temple and its courts must be done starting with the work begun at the General Conference that was to be carried to every Seventh-day Adventist church in America. As far as that work went it was genuine and done with earnestness, fervor and true zeal, and God's blessing was given, but it failed of completion because Satan interposed with prepared deception, the faith of many was dead being alone, and especially those in responsible positions in institutions quenched the work of the Spirit and reaped what had been sown, and the life and power of God cannot be manifested until there is seen that faith which works by love and sanctifies the soul.

Applied to schools, the cleansing would banish corrupting influences, including books that mislead students, promote false principles and misrepresent God. In their place would come sound knowledge and teachings and principles fit to guide heart and conduct.

The rebuke falls on those who introduce merchandise in the course of a series of meetings, whether ministers or people, whom Christ would drive out with a scourge of small cords as He cast out all them that sold and bought and overthrew the tables of the money changers and the seats of them that sold doves. Even selling publications on present truth in connection with preaching diverts minds from the object of the meetings, diverts hearers from impressions received from solemn discourse, and destroys the fruit of the labor, and the plea that articles sold were for sacrificial offerings did not excuse the traffickers, because their object was to get gain, to obtain means, to accumulate, and buying and selling there turns sacred things down upon a level with common things. The rebuke likewise falls on turning churches into places of feasting and unholy trade conducted in religion's name and using religion to encourage appetite, greed, or pleasure and replenish the church treasury. It falls on churches where fashionable dress distracts from Christ and the sermon, dishonors the house of God, and makes the poor reluctant to enter, for Jesus regarded the temple as a place for worship, not display or worldly business. It falls on building a temple for worship with the proceeds of wrongdoing, as in the sale of indulgences by church authority to raise money for St. Peter's church, which treats the grace of salvation as something to sell and turns a place meant for worship and prayer into a marketplace for religious gain.

Churches need the reproof when corrupt practice dishonors God, for conduct which corrupts or abuses the church can make God's house, meant to be a house of prayer, into a den of thieves. This includes retaining on their books the names of those who sin and refuse to repent and failing to separate them from church fellowship, lest the saints be held accountable for the evil deeds of the unrepentant, and includes being filled with sacrilegious things and failing to honor the purpose of God's house. Calling God's organized, commandment-keeping church a den of thieves is an erroneous use of Scripture.

Unjust gain in work done for God brings Christ's rebuke as it did upon the priests and rulers, who exacted exorbitant prices for beasts for sacrifice amid fraudulent transactions, robbery and extortion, while men sat counting unjust gain. The same words condemn practicing physicians called Christians who charge exorbitant prices for their services, since the medical profession is under the Lord's jurisdiction and the standard of righteousness no less than the farmer, the merchant, or the minister. Medicine governed by selfishness, fraud, extortion and overcharge for simple service becomes a den of thieves that Christ must cleanse with the scourge of small cords used to drive cattle, driving extortioners from His courts to cleanse unlawful practice from sacred work. God will not be a party to any dishonest transaction, so cleansing and purifying is required of marketplaces, merchandise stores, courts of justice, lawyers' offices, the medical fraternity, and medical missionary work, with Sabbathkeepers stamped with the sign of God's government required to honor that sign by honest dealing and by following Christ's compassionate methods. When truth holds the citadel of the soul and God is enthroned in the heart, selfishness is emptied out, Christ fills the heart with unselfish love for souls, and the Christian physician will not charge exorbitant prices or take more than is honestly due.

By expelling the worldly traffickers who robbed the people through extortionate traffic that profaned sacred things and turned God's house into a place of robbery, Christ teaches those who will compose His church on earth that name and position weigh as nothing against virtue and purity of character and honesty and righteous dealing. When the office is made a house of prayer God will be present in religious exercises and in work.

Cleansing Heart and Life

The crowded courts filled with unholy trade stand for a heart defiled by sinful desires, selfish lusts and evil habits, and in cleansing the temple Jesus announced His mission to cleanse the heart from sin so that life becomes a temple for God's Spirit. Sin and rebelliousness desecrate the soul-temple just as traffic desecrated Jerusalem's courts, and worldly interests and selfish use of what God has entrusted must be driven out so life is kept sacred for His service. The cleansing illustrates the inward cleansing needed for eternal life, the removal of sin and renewal in genuine holiness, while Christ's warning and call to repentance still reach people today though many reject truth when it conflicts with their practices and natural inclinations.
The soul is Christ's temple bought with the price of His own blood, with Godlike chambers meant for holy use, and it belongs to Christ who alone can cleanse and keep it. When those chambers are degraded, desecrated and defiled with deeds of darkness and sin under a cloak of godliness, they are converted into a robber's haunt and a den of thieves. That hypocritical pretence bears briers and thorns and leaves less hope than for the open sinner, and the soul long wept over and entreated but continuing in iniquity becomes doomed, blighted, and a monument of avenging wrath like the fruitless fig tree under God's curse. The courts of the soul-temple are converted to places of unholy traffic when selfishness, love of money and mammon, malice, envy, pride, passion and unholy passions are cherished in the heart, mingling the sacred and the common until the sacredness of God's work is lost. Love of display and money expressed through fraud and exploitation turns what should be devoted to God into a den of thieves, and Christians must reject these motives and live to do others good.
The buyers and sellers to be driven from the soul temple are worldly merchandise and commercial burdens mingled with God's sacred entrusted goods of means and physical and mental powers. Those goods are to be kept unmingled and invested wisely in the Master's service to increase the talents and accomplish results as far reaching as eternity, with doing the Master's bidding and promoting His work as the one aim and purpose of life. The leaven of worldliness permeates the mind and destroys accountability as God's servants and spiritual discernment, while cleansing brings upward growth as the Holy Spirit works on the heart to transform the character, giving a mind not stagnant or reproached for doing nothing, a generous spirit shown in kindness and tender regard for others, and self hid with Christ in God through beholding Christ's character unto His likeness. When truth does not abide in the heart and sanctify the whole person, the soul becomes like the temple defiled by buyers and sellers, and truth as it is in Christ must have a lasting place within and through the Holy Spirit shape everything a person does and says. When truth holds the citadel of the soul and God is enthroned in the heart, there is no selfish buying and selling to condemn, but selfishness is emptied out and Christ fills the heart, shown in unselfish love for souls that will not charge exorbitant prices or take more than is honestly due.
Professed service to God is false when people disregard His express commands in spirit and in letter to advantage themselves, sacrifice religion for worldly gain, preserve a form of piety while giving all the mind to temporal pursuits, and really serve mammon, thereby making the temple a place of merchandise and heaping future woe upon themselves under coming judgment. Turning the temple courts into a place for dishonest trade violated their purpose as a house of prayer, condemning dishonest business dealings and warning that transgression brings its consequences and calls the church to examine whether it repeats the Jews' misuse. The cleansing condemns robbery and oppression even when practiced by people engaged in sacred work, and applies to every age those who profess godliness while acting unjustly, greedily seeking gain and oppressing others, who unless they repent will face God's judgment. Managing sacred work never justifies scheming, false representation, sharp dealing or dishonest business, which dishonor God's character and the sacred character of truth and turn what is devoted to God into a place of wrongdoing, calling for full repentance, restitution, and cleansing of the soul-temple from this grasping spirit.
Rejecting Christ's mercy, warnings, entreaties and offered pardon leaves the soul's temple defiled and open to robbers, bringing ruin and terrible judgment with the force of judgment as when priests and rulers saw Him as an avenging angel. In that condition His love is despised, His speaking by mercies is unacknowledged, His solemn warnings are rejected and ridiculed, His ambassadors are treated with indifference as if their words were idle tales, and over such impenitence and ingratitude to the close of time fall the tears He shed on the crest of Olivet. By long departure from just and righteous principles men no longer discern light and truth, justice and mercy, until sins reach the boundary where repentance cannot be felt. Each worker and believer must therefore cleanse his own soul-temple and thus cooperate with Christ in purifying His work, driving out cherished sins and whatever tarnishes or corrupts it. The soul can be defiled when thoughts or feelings are yielded to Satan, so a person should promptly confess sin, seek cleansing through Christ alone, and commit the soul to His care.
Attractive presentations and pleasing words devised under Satan's influence can, when God's warnings are ignored, turn sacred work away from its true purpose and conceal error. Driving out such invaders like the money-changers is open battle with satanic foes requiring vigor and courage and physical strength, not mere writing of a moral tract or singing of a pious song while defilers go on unchecked. The cleansing was followed at once by true medical missionary work when the blind, lame and sick were brought to Him in the temple and He laid His hands upon them and healed them all, revealing true godliness and true righteousness and the true practical use of the temple that brings no defilement. That healing cleansing must come before the after-work can be done, and in institutions it has not yet been done as it must be, requiring purifying of marketplaces, stores, courts, lawyers' offices, the medical fraternity and medical missionary work from every dishonest transaction. Jerusalem favored as depositary of sacred trusts yet perverting truth, despising entreaties and warnings, and polluting the courts with merchandise and robbery through cherished selfishness and love of money, envy and strife, with everyone seeking gain for himself, stands as representation and warning of what every church and school of learning becomes by refusing to receive and walk in the light God has given. Christ comes to investigate and sorrows and weeps over churches and schools that fail to meet God's demand, flashing light to keep sins from passing beyond repentance, while those leading in wrong principles are unconscious of their wrong course and treat warnings and reproof as idle tales.