The Gospel of John 2:13-25

If you don't have a handout, make sure you grab one here. We'll be tracking our way through it. This is the time of the Passover, and while the chart from that earlier, is not something complete, or there's certainly a lot of things you could note. It at least gives you the general idea of the timing of Passover, which leads off the feast from the Law of Moses. So Passover was actually the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which went on for seven days. And Passover is one of those things that is prominent in the Gospels among the various feasts. Anyway, we'll see it here, we'll also see it in the chart on the next page here. This is the first Passover recorded in the time of Jesus' ministry. That is, in the time of Jesus, once he started his public ministry, this is the first one recorded.

He had previously gone every year to the Passovers in Jerusalem with his parents, Joseph and Mary. Unlike some Jews, we're quite regular in their attendance of the Jewish feasts and that sort of thing, and it actually mentions that that was their custom, to go every year. So this is the first one in Jesus' ministry time, not his first time going to a Passover in Jerusalem. Now, is that Luke 2, 41 through 50, is the account of Jesus going to Jerusalem and his parents taking off, thinking that he must be with some relatives that are all traveling together, and find out, no, he wasn't?

By the way, it turns out they were halfway home, if not most of the way home, when they discovered, hey, he's nowhere around. So anyway, it was quite a backtracking. Yes. Quick note. In that incident, Jesus was being chided by his parents. Mary saying, your father and your mother have been looking. Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This was out in public. They didn't want to blow Jesus' cover.

They already knew about him being a marked man as a maiden. Now, so this passage tells about the first Passover and the cleansing of the temple in Jesus' ministry. And by the way, why hadn't Jesus cleansed the temple, so far as we know, prior to this time? I mean, he'd been to the Passover every year, right? So why hadn't he done this previously, so far as we know?

Because this was the beginning of his ministry. Yes, the beginning of his ministry is to make this different, right? In other words, he was looking forward to this time to come, and this was the beginning of his ministry, the ministry being about three years in length. So you're right, that's why it's the beginning of his ministry, and by the way, is this the last cleansing of the temple? No, it's the first during his ministry. The last would happen just right before he would be crucified. Okay.

And the Passover begins when? When does the Passover begin? How do they mark the beginning of the day of Passover? Sundown, right? Because that's the way the Jews counted the days. Sundown to sundown was the way the day was marked. And we'll make note of that when we look at the chart for the next page.

The Passover was observed, and I'm looking at the paragraph from the bottom of page one, as a combination of those things that were spelled out in Exodus 12, and subsequent Old Testament passages, as well as centuries of accumulated Jewish tradition.

So, there were things about the first Passover that were not carried on, particularly because of the different nature of it. So the Jews modified some things from what was originally given as the birth of Passover requirements. And then they not only modified what was given, but added to it. One example was you're supposed to eat in what position in the first Passover?

Standing up, did they continue to do that? No, they didn't. As a matter of fact, you'll see depictions of, for example, Jesus at the Last Supper, which was a Passover, and they're not standing up. And it's in fact correct. That tradition went away after that first event. I'm not sure how long they continued to do the standing up thing, but by New Testament times, it was long since gone. So that was one tradition.

Another thing that comes up and plays a big part in the Last Supper is that they have four cups of wine as a part of the tradition, and that's not mentioned in the original account, in the original description of it in the Law of Moses. Okay, so we're going to examine that last Passover, what we call the Lord's Supper, the Lord's Table, the Last Supper, whatever. We're going to examine that one in great detail when we get there, and John reveals some unique things about that. Let's take a look at, there was a map on page 2 there, and the reason for having that is just, it says Jesus went up to Jerusalem. What we reveal here is, you got this map.

He started in the area around Galilee, right? So he started around 700 feet below sea level. And then he's going to go down because the river flows down from there, right? So the river's going downhill. So it's going farther and farther below sea level as the Jordan River heads south towards the Dead Sea. And so then it drops even further, so that it's around 1,200 feet below sea level by the time you get down to Jericho, and then it goes up to Jerusalem. So it was in fact up to Jerusalem, and in fact a very steep up. It's greater than two-thirds of a mile total elevation.

Oh yeah, it's quite enough, but let's take a look at it. Here's the map that you have. I have kind of a color version of it here. So here's the Sea of Galilee. They go down here and go up to Jericho, and then from there make the climb up to Jerusalem, roughly 3,500 feet climbing in this relatively short distance. Here's the Jordan River as it rolls down between Galilee and the Dead Sea.

Do you happen to know how high it is at the Grand Canyon? I'm just curious. I don't know offhand. I've been to the top and down to the bottom. Not to the bottom. You're a real bit. Dead Sea on the donkey. Or did you hike? I hiked, started on the top at a blizzard, you could barely see the person in front of you, and at the bottom it wasn't even raining.

Here is a picture, if you look from the bottom here, you see Jericho, there's Herod's palaces down here. This road then winds its way up, it's called a wadi. all the way up to Jerusalem, up in here. So you've got that climb all the way up into that rough desert terrain, starting from a low elevation and ending up at a high elevation, 3,500 feet climb out there. This would be an old picture, here, during the pre-motorized vehicle days. Here's a shot of it, a real tortured, folded, wet rock layers there, and then some to kind of stabilize the road. This would be the last coming over the Mount of Olives.

This is very likely the path that they took, the ancient path, the one Jesus would have come over on what's called Palm Sunday. I call it Donkey Sunday, but people seem to object to that. Anyway, so let's take a look here. We'll head over to page 3. So it says there in John 2.13, the Passover of the Jews was near and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

So this is emphasizing the up. It was quite an up. So here you're doing the trip and you're going down and down and down and making your climb all the steeper by the time you get out there. The feasts of the Gospel of John are listed here on the table, so obviously there were more. These are the ones that were significant, and the Passover gets mentioned each time.

We have also some dates there which are not absolutely certain, but increasingly the evidence is more and more likely that these dates are correct. Just this last year, a geological study showed that April 3rd, 33 AD, The day of Jesus' crucifixion is, in fact, the date. So at any rate, I say not absolutely certain, but increasingly the evidence is leading that way. Evidence of an earthquake?

Yeah, the evidence of an earthquake was one the geologists picked up on and were able to date to that day, just within the last year. So a great many Jews from Galilee would travel along the Jordan River down to Jericho. Why would they go along the Jordan River?

Why not just kind of stay in the uplands? It's kind of easier. Forbidden zone. Yeah. It wasn't particularly easier, but you want to avoid Samaria, right? You want to avoid Samaria. And does Jesus always avoid Samaria? And we'll find that out in John chapter 4, so just a couple chapters away from there. We have in bullets the elevations of each location, Sea of Galilee, Jericho, Jerusalem, Mount of Olives, which is kind of the high point elevation-wise on the whole trip, just as you crest over that.

And I think, Craig, you're saying you went there not too long ago. There's something like a taxicab company at the top or something of that sort? Yeah, exactly. You get to the top and it's like convenience stores slash... That's very interesting how things have morphed. That's where the Lord's going to come. Yeah, there we go. The Lord's going to come to the taxicab places, convenience stores. Pretty much. So the climb from Jericho to Jerusalem is more than 3,500 feet in elevation. Topping out at the top of the Mount of Olives there.

John 2, 14-16 reads like this, and he found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. He made a scourge of cords and drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen, and he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And to those who were selling the doves, he said, Take these things away. Stop making my father's house a place of business. So, here would be the temple. There was, at the time, kind of a bridge that went across this ravine here, the Kidron Valley, and came into this, the western, or should I say eastern, or Golden Gate.

And then what you have is this temple courtyard here, and it's about six football fields, just to kind of give you an idea of what that area is, six football fields in size. And Gentiles were allowed to go in this, the court of the Gentiles. Obviously, lots of Jews were there. And the Jews would gather oftentimes in these porticos around the edge. The portico in this area here, right next to the eastern gate, is called the Portico of Solomon. But anyway, Gentiles were allowed to go in this area.

But much of it was crowded out by the money changers. All the animals and people coming and going, buying and selling, and all that sort of thing. Sacrifices for sale. Yes, that's right. And you've got everything from the doves, which were mentioned. That's a sacrifice that was allowable for those who couldn't afford something more expensive, and many could not. And then you have larger animals. And imagine, what other issues do you have besides just the animals being there? Pardon? Their waste. A constant cleaning up after these animals in the courtyard. And in order to have waste, you have to give the animals what? Food and water. So you've got a constant traffic of all these going in and out, cleaning up the waste, and then carrying in the food and the water.

So you've got all that activity going on. And then plus you've got these little temporary corrals that they have set up to hold the animals where they're at. And then for all the doves, you've got all these cages, right? And so you've got a lot going on. And then of course all those people have to have some kind of a table or something like that to work with in order to do their business. So this fairly large area ends up getting consumed with all this activity.

Yes? One other catch. Everybody that purchased from there had to buy officially in the coin of the temple. Yeah, we'll get there. You're right. We'll get there. Yep. Okay, so let's look at the top of page four. Pardon? This is the gate where they probably brought them in because the other gates had things like steps and that sort of thing. And this would be the one where they would bring them all in.

So here is the main eastern gate where all the people from Galilee and Jericho are coming in and out of, and then they're bringing the animals in there, and then they're bringing the food in there. Because this is the place where you go outside into the wild, so to speak, to dump things. And all these other gates go into fairly urban areas. So you ask, where are the animals coming in and out of? Most likely, most of them are coming in and out of here, as well as the food that goes in, and the water that goes in, and the waste that goes out. So good luck with that, right? Okay.

So here you have another kind of oblique shot here of the courtyard and the portico that they have there. The portico is about 45 feet wide, roughly in the perimeter area there. And this is kind of the top of that eastern gate, the golden gate as it's called, which is now, it's still there but sealed up. You have here a map of that, so you get an idea of what that looked like.

Other than the eastern gate, it was Solomon's Portico and was each side of that eastern gate. The other gates all involved different kinds of stairways and things of that sort, which is one of the reasons why it would be least desirable. Also, those other gates, all of them lead into more urban areas and you don't have easy access for food and waste and animals going in and out. It tends to force everything to go in and out of the eastern gate.

So anyway, that gives you an idea. What you have in the middle part there is the place that only Jews were allowed, and this shows the court of women. And by the way, the court of women is only Jewish women. It didn't mean that only women were there.

This is the place where the widow drops her mite. The widow's mite, if you hear that account. Or the publican and the Pharisee, where the Pharisee says, thank you God that I'm so great and holy. And the publican, the tax collector, is, you know, Lord have mercy on me.

That happens in that court of women. Then there's a doorway where the Jewish men, and by the way, there were certain qualifications. Just because you're Jewish didn't get you in there. You had various things that were exceptions. And then there was a doorway where the men could go through to deal with getting the sacrifice from the priest and that sort of thing. In that doorway was also where the Levites would gather and sing songs and play their harps several times during the day. So anyway, that's the environment, and in the midst of all that, you've got these sheep You know, and oxen mooing and all sorts of things, you know, and the doves making their softer noises, but noise nonetheless. So, in the midst of that situation, then what does the Lord do? Does He say, ah, boys will be boys, you know, and just kind of throw up His hands? What does He do?

Interesting, you know, you can almost kind of imagine it, all right? Then kind of glancing over, what's this guy doing making a whip, you know? I mean, because he didn't just come in with it. He made it. And it has the appearance that he made it. It's like, you know, what's this guy up to?

Was that his first time when he was in the area? His first trip when he was 81? It was the first. He had been there annually, the Bible says, prior to that. This is the first time, so far as we know, the first time that he drove out the money changers and all the animals and things. Pardon? What was his age at that time? Oh, the first time he drove out, this right here is probably around 30 years old.

So now, what we have here is the first incident where he's clearing out all the money changers and the animals and all that from the start of his ministry. So John's recording that, and we're going to find out that Jesus does it once more just in the week before he's crucified. So this is the first event of the cleaning out, and then there'll be a later.

It's interesting that this is such a huge area where they've got all this going on. Yes. I mean, how many? It must have been really. It wasn't just a little thing in a corner, it was a huge event. And yet nobody stops him or tries to. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. You bring up a very good point. We're going to talk about that.

Okay, so the oxen and sheep are in the middle of page 4 here. The oxen and sheep were needed for various kinds of sacrificial offerings, and so I give some references there in Exodus and Leviticus. The truth is, that's just the beginning. There are all kinds of under-ruled things. but some of them are listed there in the Exodus and Leviticus references.

Doves were required for purification of women for those who could not afford a larger and more expensive sacrificial animal. Mary and Joseph go up to the temple when Mary has gone through the allotted period of time, and they have to make the sacrifice and present Jesus there, and that's when Simeon and Emma meet them at that time. That is a fulfillment of this requirement. They would pick the dove, why?

It was allowed, but it was the least expensive option. If you were more well off, you'd pick something larger, but many people could not. Many people were poor. That was all they could afford, but they did fulfill that part of the law. Yeah. So was it culturally looked down upon to use a less expensive sacrifice? I mean... No, no, because it was allowed.

It was just, if you were more well off, I mean, even think of it, if you're a Pharisee and you want to say, hey, I really put a big, big bunch of money down on a big animal, and you might want to let everybody know about that. Hey, look what I got. I got a really big one. So it's more of a status thing that Pharisees would actually, hey, if I got a larger one than the minimum, then that's what's better. So it would be that kind of prestige factor among the Jews. Yes, exactly that.

I don't know if they could do it for this offering, but some, they couldn't even afford the burger, they could take a meal offering, which would be even lesser. The meal offering was for different things, so you had... Was it, did it have anything to do with their ability to afford? Yeah, that's a different one because the dove was like the minimum allowed was in a range of different animals that you could have sacrificed for that purpose, but the meal offering was for a different purpose altogether. So, what you have is those selling the animals provided a convenience for those traveling a great distance, in that they could not have to bring the animals as they, or would not have to bring the animals as they traveled.

Or as you imagine, you're coming from Galilee, you're going to bring a big ox all the way from Galilee? That's kind of a pain. So it was a convenience to come there. But let's think about something else. If you were saying, you know, I'm not going to buy an animal you know, until I get real close to Jerusalem. Suppose you tried to buy an animal real close to Jerusalem. What would you find? But not there at the temple, but try to get one nearby. What would you find out?

Higher cost, if you could get one, and why would it be hard to get one real close to Jerusalem? Because they all bought them. They bought them all out, right? So that when you got there, your choices were very limited and difficult except for buying them there. So they would buy up the ones closest and make it harder for people to get something that was near Jerusalem.

Yes? Did all those animals have to meet those specific qualifications of being the first born animal and pure and no injuries or illness or all that? Yeah. It had to meet the requirements for each sacrifice, including you couldn't This thing is lame, it's got a big mark on it, it's got a big injury.

So it has to meet all the requirements or you're not bringing it in. What's going to happen is if you try to bring some animal in that's B-grade, the priest is going to say, you know, pick it up. You're not going to sacrifice that here. It's not going to meet the requirement. So you just don't even try, because they're just going to turn you away.

Yeah. There must have been an awful lot of negotiating going on inside. Yes. Oh, yeah. When you think about that, there's somebody coming in and saying, man, this is expensive. I'm going to go see that guy over there, see if he can help. if they get everything rigged, you know, and nobody's going to do any better, and you can't go, you have to go miles outside to get all the sacrificial animals, because they bought them all up and pulled them into the temple, right? So yeah, this is a real racket. Okay, so, now here's one other thing. This is the court of the Gentiles. If you are a God-fearing Gentile, how close can you get to the temple? You're going to come into the courtyard. Are you going to go into the inner temple there? You're not. Why? Death penalty. Yeah, it's death penalty. Okay?

So, this, for the Gentiles who are God-fearing, this court of the Gentiles is as close as you're going to get to holy. You're going to be able to see the wall and see the upper part of the building. See the upper part of the building in here. You can see that. You can see the smoke coming up. And that's it. That's as close as you get. This is the Fortress of Antonia over here. That's what you're talking about?

Fortress of Antonia, that's where Jesus was prosecuted by Pilate. That is where Jesus was beaten before he was taken onto the cross, Fortress Antonia. The Romans built it, it was built under Pontius Pilate. And then the other thing about that was also the place where Paul was taken before he was taken to Caesarea. So it figures prominently in those two circumstances. So you have this thing here. So now, what's the problem with all these animals, and all the traffic in and out, and taking the waste away, and taking the food and water in, and people going in to buy their animals there, and all this ruckus?

And that's all for the Jews, right? Because the Gentiles aren't going to be able to do anything with that. So if you are a God-fearing Gentile, this courtyard is as close as you're going to get to holiness. physically speaking. And yet, what's going on there? And that's not even close to holiness, because that business is probably a rip-off from the very beginning. Everything they, just about everything they did and said was far from the truth. Yep, this is rigged, and yeah.

Well, I was going to say, anybody going in there, if you go there for the purpose that you want to worship, in a group or by yourself, or you want to pray, all of ruckus and disturbance and noise. Yeah, craziness. So the God-fearing Gentiles, who, if they want to come to the Lord, have to come through Israel, right? And they have to come through this temple, and here is the place where Gentiles can come, and this is as holy as they can ever see it. And the whole thing is made into a racket, and a business, and a noise, and a stench, and a crowd. A great place to see holiness, right?

A stock show, yes. And by the way, these must be the prime animals, right? So it is a stock show. Good point. Good point. Can the Gentiles sell the products there? Here's the other thing. Who's going to sell their stuff? The Jews, right? And the Jews are going to be the ones buying, because the Gentiles, you know, they've got no reason to buy sacrifices. They can't do it. A Gentile can bring his animal in.

Possibly, but that's as far as you're going to go. And if it's business, it's not holiness. So what do you do? You're not only squeezing out space-wise, but you're squeezing out in terms of the mayhem and the din and all the activity It's just, you know, they say the food and water coming in, the excrement going out. Yes.

Yeah, it seems like, you know, people look at us and they say, well, I don't want anything to do with that because you're doing this or that or you act in such and you think such way. Wouldn't that do the same thing, possibly, to God-seeking, God-fearing Gentiles coming in? And all they see is this corruption and the bickering and whatever. Wouldn't that turn the voices of the Lord?

Yeah, yeah. We imagine, we suppose, we say, well, that's no longer the coffee room. That's the room you go into, and we've got business deals going on there. You can buy insurance in there, you can get hamburgers. And, uh, you know, we got a special two-for-one deal going on this Sunday. And you got people out in the lobby, you know, holding placards and, you know, spitting at them.

So did this go on all the time or just at the time of Passover? It went on actually all the time and the reason it went on all the time is because you had certain peaks of sacrifice which would take place because of Passover and all that, but you had other things like, here's the women supposed to come in after having a baby and doing the sacrifice, well you just do it the number of days after you have a baby and that's when it happens. You would have other things happening, aside from the Feast, that would make sure that it happened all the time. The peak of that would be at Passover and some of the other Feasts. Here's the strange thing, that whatever day things happen to land on, that's when you've got to do it.

And so it wouldn't necessarily be quiet on the Sabbath at all. Let's take it for instance, here I've got the Sabbath. What if the Sabbath is also a Passover? I'm going to take my animal in to get sacrificed there, and then take it home to have the Passover. And if that happens to be on the Sabbath, guess what you're going to do?

You're going to do it on that day. That's when it's going to happen. They circumcise babies there too, so you get screaming kisses. Yeah, circumcision happens on each day, and if each day is a Sabbath, that's when you do it, right? And that's one of the points that Jesus made with them.

Look, you guys do other things on the Sabbath. If that's the day it falls on, what's wrong with my healing on the Sabbath? But they always picked on him on that, and it began to be more and more of a problem. He said, look, you guys do all sorts of things on the Sabbath. There's no problem with my healing on the Sabbath. So, you got this.

Now, in addition, and this brings up Tom's point, bottom of page 4, additionally the Jews were required to pay a half shekel per person per year as a temple tax, and during the beginning of the Jewish year was the time that they would start the clock on OKW to temple tax pay. So, this Passover time would often be a peak time of people paying the temple tax. which was required to be a half-shekel. Problem, there was no half-shekel coin. So the law required it to be a half-shekel, there was no half-shekel coin in issuance, and so what you had to do was do a shekel coin and pay for two people.

Which is why in Matthew 17, 24 through 27, Jesus has Peter go out and catch a fish that had a coin in its mouth, And by the way, there's a particular kind of fish that actually likes to bite at shiny things. Here's a fish that had a coin in its mouth, and Jesus says, you get that coin and pay for you and for me.

Two people. That's the reason why. You pay for two people. Now, the thing to work out is, suppose I'm a single guy. and I've got to figure out how to pay for me and get somebody else I can team up with to make this payment, and then work it out between us when there's no half shekel to split things. So anyway, it was a strange situation. But, take a look at the top of page 5.

Here we have a picture of the coin that was allowed. So, no matter what coins anyone had from any place Unless they had a Turian shekel, the one on the left, they were going to need to get their money changed in order to pay the temple tax. So you're coming from all over the Roman Empire, as well as all over Jerusalem, and you'd come up with all kinds of coinage, and that was fine, but the only allowable coin was this shekel. So you're going to have not only people selling the oxen and the doves and the But anyway, they have all these different things going on, and then you have the money changers, because everybody had to change whatever money they had into the Shekel coin.

And it was this coin. And look at it. What's the problem with the Mosaic Law and this coin? There's an image on it, and the image is on both sides. And what else? The image is considered a god if it's looking at the human. The image was not only considered a god, it was a god.

So they had a pagan graven image as the only acceptable coin, and they were changing that pagan image for everybody who came there, right there in the temple area. Now isn't that wonderful? It's holiness to the max, right? So here in the temple, the only coin you were allowed was the one that had the pagan engraving in the chart. This was wonderful.

Later on, it became the question, during Jesus' crucifixion week, became the question of, you know, should we pay taxes to Caesar, or, you know, pay things to God, and Jesus makes them come up with the coin. Show me the coin. So here's Jews pulling out this pagan coin out of their pocket, right? Oh, good. And the coin he made them pull out was the bigger one than this. A nice big one. Whose image is on it? What makes it more interesting is the bigger coin had room for all these Roman abbreviations.

This is God. This is divine, this coin that you're carrying in your pocket, Mr. Jew. So anyway, this was showing up here. So Jesus, not only did you have this horrifically distracting business of all the animals, but you have this business here of the pagan coin, and everybody's making change in order to make sure you get this pagan coin, because that's the only thing that's allowed, because it's a shekel. So this is wonderful. Whatever was expedient.

And think of it, who are the guys in charge of all of Judaism in the land of Israel? The Sadducees and Pharisees and their group was called the Sanhedrin, right? Sanhedrin met over here. when they met at the temple, over on the south side of the temple. The records of things like genealogies were kept over on this side. So here's the Sanhedrin, well aware of all the stuff that's going on, and essentially, by allowing it, putting their approval on this.

And this brings up the question, now Jesus goes in and he tells them, you know, you get this stuff out of here, and he starts, you know, and what's interesting is if Jesus had been severely violent, you ask the question of this building, here's the Roman looking from the towers over this whole courtyard. If Jesus had been severely violent and disruptive, the Roman soldiers would have come in because they have a stairway that comes right here. into that courtyard. They would have been there in a flash and dealt with it. So Jesus' action is not violent, it is simply forceful. And notice with the doves, that he doesn't go and let all the doves out. What does he say? Get these things out of here. So, very interesting, Jesus is kind of right on the brink of the sort of thing that would get the Jews' attention, but it would not get the Roman soldiers' attention. were burnt on this one altar, right?

I mean, they did the sacrifices. Yeah, and in fact, you see it on your map of the courtyard there? So my question is, this is the time when all the Jews were supposed to come to Jerusalem for atonement and sacrifice. How could that one altar sacrifice probably thousands of animals. How did that happen? Seven different things. One thing is that not all the sacrifices were burnt. So, for example, the Passover lamb, was that burnt? No, it was not.

What they did was, you would take your animal, which had to be qualified, you can't just take in any old mangy, scarred, injured animal, but it had to be a prime animal. You take it into the courtyard, so you have to go through this court of women, through those gates, and then the priests are slaughtering animals by the thousands, right there. Not on the altar, they're not burning them, but slaughtering them. So what you have is some of the offerings were burnt, some were not. The fire on the altar was never allowed to go out, always had to be burning, which is, by the way, that's the symbol the Apostle Paul has, the Holy Spirit, always be burning, essentially, it's based on this this image of the fire on the altar. So this altar is a place of certainly lots of activity, but not all of the animals that were sacrificed were burnt, and that's the only reason that you'd have sufficient capacity.

Nonetheless, there's a lot of animals going in and out. Yes? They couldn't eat the animals with the blood in it, so they had to do the bloodletting there. The bloodletting had to be all the way out to the priest's satisfaction, and so they had various standards about, here's how we get this done. So how did they, what did they do with all the blood? I know some of them, they...

That by itself is, yes, and that also added to the traffic in and out, right? There was also a large vat of water in cisterns underneath. The temple mount, and there still is, huge cistern underneath, great capacity. I'll see if I can dig up a picture. There's a drawing from earlier eras that shows that. That was for keeping water, for washing the stuff down. But yes, that by itself was huge.

The priests were the ones that handled the animals. The Levites, both priests and Levites were all of the tribe of Levi, but the Levites handled things that the priests didn't. One of those was the cleanup. One of those was the cleanup. Yeah, you think of it, there's a lot of stuff to clean up because you've got all this sacrifice going on for thousands and thousands of Jews.

So did they have drains? Pardon? Did they have drains? That I don't know the detail on. I know they did have huge amounts of water in the cisterns. Exactly how they handled it, that would be a very good question. I don't know if I'm aware of how that was It seems like there should be another container down where the cisterns were. I'm sure they have some kind of a system, but no hoses.

So tell you about a lot of buckets. So you can imagine this situation. You've got on top of all the activity that you have that has to do with the sacrifices, here's all these animals for the sacrifices, which have to be prime animals. No second grade animal. The priest is just going to turn you away. So there's no sense even bothering with something that's got a blemish. It's not going to work.

And then you've got all the money changes in there, making sure that you've got a coin to pay your temple tax that has a pagan image on it. This is madness. Madness. And guess what? If you're going to bring some other coin in, what's that likely to have on it? Same thing. Same thing. Pagan images all over the place in order to make sure that you have this one with a pagan image that's shown there in your hand. Right? So this is madness. This is what Jesus, that he goes and goes to the table and just dumps it. Get it out of here. Yeah.

Can we let them off the hook at all by saying the Romans were the ones minting the coins? Yeah, the bottom line is they get forced by the Romans into these kinds of things. Here is the only shekel coin we got. We don't have any half shekel coin in existence now. This is the only shekel coin we have, so we're going to use this one with the pagan image on it, which they've been doing for decades. Because the Tyrian shekel had been in production for decades, so that's what they landed on.

And, yeah, you've got that. It's a convenience for people. I mean, one thing you can look at is people don't have to haul the animals from any distance at all. It's right there. This is the 7-Eleven of animal sacrifices, right? Yes? The animals that were sacrificed that weren't put on the altar, on land, once they were slaughtered, can that meat be sold? Was it eaten?

Yeah, in other words, what you're supposed to do is take the one for your household. And then you'd take the carcass out of there, and you'd take it home and do the rest of your preparation. The priest's job was to do the slaughtering there and make sure that all the blood was let out. And then they'd get that and hand the animal back to you, and you'd have to take care of the rest of it. And then next, next, next, and they just got a Sunday line kind of thing going on with slaughtering these animals. And then the Levite's job was then to clean all the stuff up. So what do we got here?

Let's take a look here in John 2.17 in the middle of page 5.

His disciples remember that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me. This verse is from Psalm 69.9a. It is a psalm of David. And then 2.18.19, the Jews then said to him, What sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things? Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Now, earlier a question was answered. Think about this.

The Jews did not come up to him and say, What you're doing is wrong! Right? They didn't question the rightness or the wrongness. What did they question? His authority was the only point in question. It's as much of an admission as, we know this is wrong, but we do it anyway, right? So the only thing they objected to was his authority to do this, not, are you doing the right thing or the wrong thing? Very interesting.

It's like, this whole thing is foul, and we know it, but by what authority do you do this? So what are they asking for to show his authority? Tell us a sign, and what's a sign going to do? A sign is going to show them that what? You have authority from who? God. And so why would you need an authority from God to do this? It would be fulfillment. You're right. Why else though? To authenticate who you are, why else? It's God's house. It's God's house, why else? You're all saying the truth.

By the time we're off for him to show anything at this point in time, they'd have to be patient for three days. Had the Jewish leaders authorized what was going on? Had they? They had not said no to what was going on and they may have even authorized it directly. And so to show that you can go above their heads, you need to show us a sign that you're doing this by God's authority because that's over and above the Sanhedrin.

So, we know this is wrong. We know this isn't right. Nothing about this is right. We're not asking you whether that's the case, because we know it's wrong. We just know that since the Sanhedrin, composed of Sadducees and Pharisees, I mean, guys on both sides agree, that this is one foul operation. So why are you doing this? You need to show us a sign that you have authority higher than them that must come from God. That's the only allowable authority for you doing this. Yeah, well that's another big point.

Yeah. Yeah, if you think about it, it's certainly not accepting who he was, and so at best you might be a prophet, and if you show us a sign, it shows that in fact you are some kind of a prophet, and you've got a basis for doing this, yeah. It was certainly not assuming, it wasn't assuming he's the messiah or a prophet or anything of that sort, unless he can show us on it. Yeah, great. Just backing up to a question earlier, the cistern that they found for Washington. Yes. It held 66,000 gallons. Yeah, yes. A huge cistern. I have a drawing of that cistern, which I'll try to frame so we can take a look at it.

But he did have a certain amount of respect, it looks like, because, you know, when you go to the marketplace or any place else over there, I mean, it's not unusual for a bunch of people just to grab somebody and throw them out. I mean, and Paul was always concerned about riots because that's what happened to him. So, I mean, obviously he had something. I mean, obviously God was protecting him as well. Yeah, but this thing could have gotten way out of hand. Absolutely. Something could have grabbed him. Four or five people could have just thrown him out. By the way, was there a temple guard? Absolutely. Yes, there was a temple guard right there and the Roman soldiers. This was militarily risky. Absolutely.

And what do the Jesus and the disciples have? Maybe a fishing line, right? Good luck with that, right? So yeah, this was a very risky behavior from the standpoint, you've got plenty of military power right there. So yeah, this is big time risky behavior. Now, so Jesus... I'm sorry, what's that?

Looking at it, all the other stuff was urban area, all the other exits and entrances, this one on the eastern side is the one that gets you out into something that's sort of wild. Now, let's look at this. Does Jesus show him a sign? No. Could he have shown him a sign? Sure. Okay, so why doesn't he? Yeah, it's not his time. What else might he have said? They're not going to believe anyway.

And for them, there's something else about a sign. For them, they're looking at a show. Do me a magic show. A lot of them would be just looking for that. Do me a magic show. We'd like a magic show. Yes? 6 football fields in the area. This is going to get their attention and the fact that they didn't challenge the rightness or wrongness of it, but rather asked them for a sign is really telling. It's really telling. Here's the other thing.

Instead of being violent, Jesus was forceful, but much of the force is not physical force, it's moral force. It is spiritual rightness and wrongness. What you guys are doing here is spiritually wrong. And so rather than challenging and getting all upset and calling out the temple guard and cutting them in two, what do they do? They say, well, yeah, we know this is wrong. his side, and so what he says is listened to, and his challenge is minimal. By what authority do you do these things? His challenge is minimal, as opposed to, here's some temple guard or Roman guard or both coming after him, right?

He has moral force behind him and spiritual rightness behind him. Yeah? had somehow converted to Judaism and happened to be in the Roman service as soldiers. They could have been summoned from the men's part of the temple if they hadn't been there for the sacrifice anyway. Yeah, there was plenty of opportunity to take this on militarily. Right there. Immediately doable.

Let's take a look at something else here in verse 19 in the middle of page 5. Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. This was the beginning of Jesus' ministry. And he comes and says, you know, destroy this temple. Is he talking about this physical temple here that we're looking at?

No. What's he talking about? He's talking about himself, right? Why would he give that as, hey, that's the sign you're going to get? Why would he point to that? One reason is because they would remember later what he said. And it's the most important sign of all. That's significant. If I showed you a little show here, that would pale in significance compared to the one that's coming up. That would pale in significance compared to the one that's coming up.

Something else, remember in chapter 2 we looked at, you know, Jesus said, it's not my time, it's not my time, and keeps saying into the chapters ahead, it's not my time, it's not my time, and finally we see there like in chapter 12, chapter 13, it is my time. Notice that he is looking ahead to that time when he will be sacrificed. when he will pay the price, but then be buried and then resurrected.

He's looking ahead to that again and again and again. We saw it here, chapter 1, behold the Lamb of God. Chapter 2, it's not my time yet. Chapter 3, we'll see it continue on. Jesus is looking ahead and looking ahead and looking ahead to this time when he would die for the sins of the world and be buried in the eyes of God.

And this is no exception. He says, that is far more significant than anything I could show you right now. Besides that, with what I could do, it's a sign you wouldn't want to see. It is a sign you would not want to see. You don't know what you're asking. They could all be licked up and burnt to a crisp on one order from his mouth. And he's not doing that. Why?

The time is not yet. There will come a time. There will come a time. And He will land with His feet on the valley, right across the valley at the Mount of Olives when that's going to happen. Okay? Let's pray. Lord, we do thank You as we see this amazing and really rather dramatic and intense passage.

We thank You for the truth that is in it. We thank You for what You've revealed because You love us and care for us. spiritual perspective, and not look at things superficially, as this certainly looks at things deeply. It's the Jews who didn't believe in Christ who look at things superficially. And we just thank you for the insights that we have here, and just give you praise for you. Teach our hearts, in Jesus' name. Amen.