Passion Week: Holy Monday

“And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be a house of prayer,” but you have made it a den of robbers.’

And He was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy Him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on His words.”—Luke 19:45-48

On Monday of Holy Week, Jesus cleansed the temple. The temple was the place of God’s manifest presence, the centerpiece of Judaism, and the heart of Jewish identity. Envisioned by King David and constructed by King Solomon, the original temple was meant to be a house of prayer for all nations. At the dedication of the temple, Solomon prayed that it would be the place where God’s name would dwell (1 Kings 8:29), where God’s people could pray (1 Kings 8:30) and receive judgments (1 Kings 8:31-32). But primarily it was for prayer. Solomon prophetically prayed that it would be a place where people could pray for forgiveness of sins (1 Kings 8:30). If the nation of Israel lost in battle due to sin and were removed from the land because of it, God would restore them if they came to the temple and prayed (1 Kings 8:33-34). If drought came over the land because of sin, it was the temple they were to go to and pray—confessing and repenting of their sin, trusting in the promise that God would bring rain (1 Kings 8:35-36). If there were some type of famine or pestilence that came upon the land, then individuals or the nation as a whole could come and pray for God’s intercession and He would act (1 Kings 8:37-40). If a foreigner came to the temple, praying in search of the one true God, He would hear so that  

“all the peoples of the earth may know Your name and fear You, as do Your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by Your name”—1 Kings 8:43. 

If the nation was going into battle and prayed to God for victory, He would grant it (1 Kings 8:44-45). And if the nation were to be removed from the land of Israel, and were to go into captivity to a foreign land, and while in that land expressed remorse and repented, then they were to pray toward their homeland where God manifestly dwelt in His temple, and then He would hear from heaven, forgive them of their sin, and grant them favor in the sight of their captors (1 Kings 8:46-55).

God had given the temple to be a place of pure, unhindered prayer. But the temple leaders of Jesus' day had forsaken the practice of prayer for money, and traded their integrity for a quick buck. Forsaking their roles as stewards of God's house, they were charging pilgrims exorbitant amounts as a currency exchange, substituting profiteering for religious devotion. Horrified at such a mockery of God, Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple.

Jesus' act infuriated the religious authorities, because they loved money (Luke 16:14) more than they cared about God or people. Jesus cleansed the temple and restored it to a house of prayer, a holy place where man could commune with God.

Jesus was not one to shy away from controversy, as his controversial cleansing of the temple proved. But it shed light for us on an important and often forgotten principle. Later on in the week, Jesus would predict the temple’s destruction (Matthew 24:1-2). He had already taught that something greater than the temple was there, namely He Himself (Matthew 12:6). The temple was the place where God dwelled, but Christ was the divine Son of God dwelling among us. As John wrote,  

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth”—John 1:14.

Jesus is greater than the temple, and He made the temple obsolete through His coming in the flesh. By dying for us, He removed the wall of hostility in His flesh (Ephesians 2:14). And by His resurrection and ascension into heaven, He now sits at the right hand of God, pouring out His Spirit to us, so that we can have access to God the Father through our faith in Him (Hebrews 1:13; Acts 2:33; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 2:18; 3:12). We don’t need to go to the earthly temple, because God, through Christ, has poured out His Spirit to us, making each of us a temple of His Holy Spirit where we can commune with Him at any time (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19).

As God’s temples, we must be careful to honor God with our bodies, because it is in this fleshly house that He seeks to commune with us. Prayer is a holy occupation to be done by bodies set apart for the Master’s use. It’s not that we will never sin, nor that we can’t pray when we do. It is that we cannot continue in a state of sin. Just as the temple-keepers of old should have done, we must understand that God desires holiness so that He might effectively communicate His presence to us as we commune with Him.

Take time today to lay out your requests before Him, asking Him to  

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”—Psalm 139:23-24.

Let your fleshly temple be a holy house of prayer. Amen.