Before we go on in the study of John’s Gospel narrative, we need to ask ourselves: “Does John have it correctly, or does he misplace the Temple Cleansing, as is presumed by some critics?” The Synoptics have Jesus cleansing the Temple late in his ministry. In fact, they put it during the final week of Jesus’ ministry, but John puts it during the first year of Jesus’ three-and-a-half-year public ministry. Who is correct, and how do we know? The facts, according to the Bible are that Jesus cleansed the Temple at least four times during his public ministry. If there were others, they are not recorded. However, each of the Gospel narrators record a different Temple cleansing, but the critics like to keep things neatly in a package without getting too complicated, but life isn’t always neat and readily understandable. Things get complicated and easily misunderstood, much to the critics’ chagrin.
Was Jesus able to say the same thing more than once? Was he able to do the same thing more than once? We do, don’t we? We repeat ourselves in words and deeds, especially when we are teaching someone who needs to learn about what was said or done. Jesus was no different, or, more precisely, Jesus’ audience was no different. They were ignorant and needed to learn by repetition. Therefore, Jesus said things and did things more than once.
It was the Passover season (John 2:13), the first in Jesus’ public ministry, and he needed to be singled out, chosen, if you will, by the leaders of the Jews. He needed to be marked out by them as the Lamb for the slaughter, who would die for the nation (cp. John 11:49-52). So, about six months into his public ministry, Jesus came to Jerusalem, and at the time of the Passover, he declared the Temple was unclean, in that the Jewish authorities had made it a marketplace, where animals were bought and sold, and international coins were exchanged for accepted currency, and all these things were done within the Temple compound. Moreover, this uncleanness was practiced in the court of the gentiles, and, in doing so, the name of God was polluted by the Jewish hierarchy before the whole world, because they permitted these unclean deeds to be done in the House of God (Isaiah 56:7; John 2:13-16; cp. Matthew 21:13).
Jesus would later tell these authorities that he could do nothing of himself (John 5:19). In other words, his life was not his own to live as he pleased. He must fulfill what was foretold of him (cp. Matthew 26:52-54). When the first Temple was destroyed, and because it was a type of Jesus flesh (cp. John 1:14), it became necessary for Jesus, the Temple of God (John 2:19, 21) to be destroyed as well:
Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me. Therefore, I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches (Isaiah 43:27-28).
Here Isaiah refers to the Jews first father and their teachers who had transgressed against God. Moreover, because of what they had done, God cursed Jacob and Israel. That is, the destruction of Jerusalem was due to the works and teachings of the Temple officials. Likewise, Jesus is saying that the first father, meaning the high priest (in the context of the first century AD he would be Annas, who was the power behind Caiaphas, his son-in-law) and the teachers (rulers) of the people have made the Temple unclean with their practices. Thus, since the physical Temple, the type, was unclean and become a curse (Isaiah 43:27028), it would become necessary for Jesus, the antitype, to become a curse (Galatians 3:13) in our stead and be destroyed (John 2:19, 21) in order to rise again and destroy the curse over mankind (Galatians 3:13)
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