2:12-25 The new basis of worship

February 16, 2021

Read John 2:12-25

In the Synoptic gospels the story of the cleansing of the temple comes in the final week of Jesus’s ministry and is the reason why the chief priests decided to kill him (Matt.21:12-13; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-47). But in John this incident takes place at the beginning of the ministry. John may have placed it there to fit his theological emphasis, but it could well have been a separate incident. Either way, in John the cleansing of the temple makes the same point as the sign at Cana in the previous verses (2:1-11).

Celebrating Passover in the temple at Jerusalem was the highest expression of the Jewish religion (13-14), but here the inadequacy of it is again clearly seen (15-16). The emphasis is not on the dishonesty of the traders (as in the Synoptics) but on the inappropriateness of such activity for God’s place of worship. By cleansing the temple Jesus not only pointed to the failure of the old worship, but he declared himself to be the one who would replace it with something new based on his resurrection.

This is indicated by the answer which Jesus gave to their request for a sign (18-19). As in the Synoptics the only sign that he would give them was his death and resurrection (21-22; Matt.12:38-40), the supreme vindication of all his claims. But it was more than that. For by his death, he would offer the sacrifice that would make obsolete all the sacrifices of the temple worship. Through his death and resurrection Jesus became the new temple, the new basis of worship in spirit and in truth (4:23-24). It is belief in that which is the basis of Christian faith (22), not the superficial faith and popular support shown here by those who saw his miracles but failed to understand them as signs (23-24).