Immediately after the Lord Jesus had changed water into wine, we read, “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him” (John 2:11). The very next story is of Jesus “cleansing the temple.”1
“Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, ‘Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!’ Then His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.’ So the Jews answered and said to Him, ‘What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ Then the Jews said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?’ But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said” (John 2:13-21).
There are two main views regarding when this story took place. One view is that Jesus “cleansed the temple” twice: once at the start of His public ministry recorded here by John, and again shortly before the cross as recorded in the other Gospels. The other view states that Jesus only “cleansed the temple” once at the end of His public ministry and John records that event out of sequence for literary reasons.
Whether John records an earlier “cleansing” than that of the other Gospel writers or is recording the same “cleansing” but positions it out of sequence at the start of his Gospel, the important question is really the same: “Why does John record the event at this point?” A hint is found at the end of the previous story, in John 2:11, where we read that Jesus “manifested His glory.”
In the Old Testament, when Israel first came out of Egypt, the Lord told Moses, “Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle …” (Ex. 25:8-9). And then concerning the ark and mercy seat which would be placed inside the most holy place of the tabernacle, God told Moses, “And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat …” (Ex. 25:22). When the tabernacle was completed we read, “…the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle…” (Ex. 40:34-35). Much later, when Solomon built the first temple we see a very similar occurrence, “…the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God” (2 Chron. 5:13-14).
God manifested His presence, and His glory filled the temple as it had the tabernacle before it. The temple mentioned in the New Testament Gospels was built much later than Solomon’s temple. When it was dedicated, according to Ezra 6:13-22 we do not read of a visual manifestation of God’s glory. However, the prophet Haggai, speaking of this second temple says, “…I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the Lord of hosts.‘… The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former’…” (Hag. 2:7-9). Despite there being no recorded visual manifestation of God’s presence or glory associated with the second temple, there is no question that God intended to fill it with His glory in a way greater than anything He had done before.
John records one instance of Haggai’s words being fulfilled when he tells of Jesus, the true manifestation of God’s glory (John 1:14), entering this second temple to “cleanse” it.2 After His resurrection the disciples will remember this episode and believe “the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said” (John 2:22). In other words they will connect the dots. They will see that He was fulfilling Psalm 69:9, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up” (quoted in John 2:17) and they will remember Jesus speaking of His own body when on this occasion He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).
Without question this second temple had the manifestation of God’s presence and glory enter it in a way far superior to that of the previous temple and tabernacle; in this temple the Son of God – God Himself manifest in the flesh – would walk through its precincts on a regular basis. Despite this fact, this is not John’s intended message in recording Jesus “cleansing” this temple. Rather, John is presenting to us a contrast between Jesus, Himself, and the entire Old Testament system of worship and of how man relates to God.
John opens his Gospel, teaching us of “the Word” being with God and, in fact, being God Himself (John 1:1) and that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). It is no coincidence that John uses the verb form of the Greek word for “tabernacle” in this verse. John writes, “the Word … tabernacled among us.” Jesus came to fulfill exactly the function of the Old Testament tabernacle and temple. No longer would God manifest His glory in a tent in the wilderness or in a building in Jerusalem. Jesus is Himself now “the place” where God manifests His glory. Jesus, Himself, is where men must go if they desire to find forgiveness and approach God. Everything the Old Testament taught about the tabernacle and temple is now fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ.
At the wedding at Cana, John records the first sign by which Jesus “manifested His glory” (John 2:11). From that point on, His own body was the true temple (John 2:21) where God would manifest His glory and meet with men. The temple in Jerusalem had become a “house of merchandise,” a place of commerce and no longer a place of worship and prayer. In a few decades it would become undeniably obsolete when in AD 70 the Romans destroyed it (see also John 4:21-26).
And very soon Jesus would give the sign the Jews had demanded of Him. It would be the sign of His own resurrection (John 2:18-19), to declare beyond all doubt that He is the Son of God and has been glorified by the Father (Rom. 1:4; John 17:1-5). And this sign would be the last of the signs recorded in the Gospel of John, given that we may “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31).
Whenever this “cleansing the temple” event occurred chronologically, it was necessary for John to record it near the beginning of his Gospel. At the wedding, Jesus first manifested His glory to men. When Jesus “cleansed the temple,” exposing how man had corrupted it, He made a clear contrast between it and His incorruptible body, God’s true temple, which would rise from the dead (John 2:19, 22). “For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption” (Ps. 16:10; see Acts 2:25-31).
This contrast between the Lord Jesus and the temple in Jerusalem forms the basis of much teaching that follows. Keeping these details in mind as one reads through John’s Gospel will help to illuminate some of the bigger themes presented in the book.
Endnotes
1“Cleansing the temple” is in quotes to indicate this is not a scriptural description of what Jesus was doing but has become the commonly accepted way to speak of this event.
2Chronologically, the first time Haggai’s words were fulfilled are found in Luke 2:22-38 when Jesus was taken as a baby into the temple.