Participants: Deyvy Rodriguez & Jon Paulien
Series Code: JBOTB
Program Code: JBOTB00007A
|
00:21 Hello friends and welcome again
00:22 to this program "Books of the Book." 00:24 We are studying the Gospel of John 00:26 and today we are picking up on Chapter 2, 00:28 the last part of Chapter 2 and we are in verses 12-25. 00:34 And with us is Dr. Jon Paulien, 00:36 he is the Dean of Religion at Loma Linda University. 00:41 And welcome again, Dr. Paulien. 00:42 Thank you. It's good to be with you. 00:44 You, I can just imagine you must be very busy. 00:47 You are a scholar, you've written several books. 00:51 Tell me what do you do on your time off? 00:55 That's kind of a painful question 00:57 because I am probably a very boring person, really. 01:00 I really enjoy scholarship 01:03 and I really enjoy studying the Bible 01:05 and if I just have spare time on my own, 01:08 I happily go back there and enjoy the time that I spent. 01:14 But a couple of times a month I force myself 01:17 to go out and play around the golf 01:19 and I do enjoy that too. 01:21 But I just, it's important to be with people, 01:26 spend some time, exercise, fresh air, 01:29 sunshine all of that. 01:31 I do enjoy exercise, do a lot of walking 01:34 but often I am reading when I walk 01:36 because that's a good way to get in some more understanding 01:41 and I like spending time with my family. 01:43 I have two adult children living with me, 01:46 they are in their mid 20s and finishing up education, 01:50 getting ready for life things like that so. 01:53 Yeah, that's sort of my boring life. 01:55 I do like to travel though in this ministry 01:58 and to get a chance of seeing-- 01:59 So what I understand is your idea of fun is studying? 02:03 Well, you know, I guess there's a difference in fun and joy. 02:08 Fun is something that stops whenever the fun stops, 02:13 but joy is something you can have all the time 02:15 and study brings a lot of joy. 02:17 It may be just isn't so much fun, 02:18 but you can enjoy anything if you put time to it 02:21 and really get good added invest in it. 02:24 And if Bible study is a great need, 02:27 I would encourage people to really get into it 02:29 and you'll find it gets more and more-- 02:31 the kind of things I am talking about here 02:33 may seem right over the top to many people, 02:36 but they came one at a time through careful study 02:40 and the more you learn, it's like a computer game 02:43 that when you break a couple of lower levels 02:45 it brings you into higher levels 02:47 that are even more interesting. 02:48 So I do really enjoy what I am doing. 02:51 And it's not like you are studying the stock market, 02:54 you are studying the word of God. 02:56 And as an administrator I am not studying for my job 02:59 so much anymore, so the study is something 03:01 I turn to for that alone time since it's very special to me. 03:05 All right, Well, speaking of study 03:07 what are we studying today? 03:09 John 2:12-25, it's the story of Jesus cleansing the temple. 03:15 Okay. So where shall we start. 03:18 Why don't we read the passage? Verse 12. 03:20 May be up to verse 22. 03:22 Okay, So from verses 12 to 22. 03:26 "After this He went down to Capernaum, 03:28 He, His mother, His brothers, and His disciples 03:30 and they did not stay there many days. 03:33 Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, 03:35 and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 03:38 And He found in the temple those who sold 03:39 oxen and sheep and doves, 03:41 and the money changers doing business. 03:44 When He had made a whip of cords, 03:47 He drove them all out of the temple, 03:49 with the sheep and the oxen, poured out the changers' money 03:53 and overturned the tables. 03:55 And He said to those who sold doves, 03:57 'Take these things away. 03:59 Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise.' 04:03 Then His disciples remembered that it was written, 04:06 'Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.' 04:09 So when the Jews--so the Jews answered and said to Him, 04:12 'What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?' 04:17 Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, 04:20 and in three days I will raise it up." 04:22 Then the Jews said, 'It has taken forty six years 04:26 to build this temple, 04:27 and You will raise it up in three days?' 04:30 But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 04:33 Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, 04:35 His disciples remembered that He had said this to them 04:39 and they believed the Scriptures 04:41 and the word which Jesus had said." 04:44 Now, to read until the 25th verse? Little bit later. 04:48 Okay. Yeah. 04:50 You notice it starts out in Capernaum. 04:53 Jesus is born and raised in Nazareth 04:55 which is up in the hill country of Galilee 04:58 and then Capernaum is a fishing village 05:01 right on the shore of the Sea of Galilee itself 05:03 and it's like 1700 feet, 600 meters between those two. 05:09 So Nazareth is like 400 meters high 05:14 and the Sea of Galilee is like 200 meters below sea level 05:18 so it's like a 600 meter difference between those. 05:21 So Jesus evidently and His family has moved 05:24 to Capernaum which is where Peter and John have lived 05:27 and exercised their life as fisherman. 05:31 So from Capernaum like most people would do in that day, 05:34 they went down to Jerusalem. 05:36 It's may be 150 kilometers for the Passover service. 05:41 Now tell us more about this temple? 05:45 This is what's called Herod's temple 05:47 and there's a little detail in the story 05:49 that mentions that it was 46 years under construction. 05:54 And we know when that construction began 05:56 it was Herod's, around 20 to 19 B.C. 06:03 was, I think it was Herod's 18th year 06:05 is when the construction started. 06:07 And you count 46 years from that you come to 28 A.D. 06:12 so this is Passover time around 28 A.D. 06:16 in our reckoning that this occurs. 06:20 There were a number of temples in Old Testament time, 06:22 you had the tent Tabernacle of Moses, 06:25 you had Solomon's temple, you had Ezekiel's temple 06:29 which he saw in vision and you had Zerubbabel's temple 06:33 that was built after return from Babylon 06:36 and that was a very poor copy of Solomon's. 06:39 Herod was trying to build a temple 06:41 just as magnificent as Solomon's temple. 06:45 Interestingly enough the construction wasn't finished 06:48 until 63 A.D., seven years before its destruction. 06:53 So it's 80 years to build this magnificent temple, 06:56 it must have been really something. 06:58 It wasn't completely finished then. 07:00 No, evidently it was not completely finished, 07:03 there may have been parts that weren't fully decorated 07:06 and still planned and so forth, 07:09 but the very platform for that temple 07:11 is some of the largest stones 07:13 anyone has ever found, that's amazing. 07:16 This is an interesting scene we read here 07:18 that, that in the temple there were animals in there. 07:23 We see that verse 14 says, 07:25 there were oxen and sheep and doves 07:28 but not only animals there, 07:29 but they were actually been sold, 07:31 so there seems to be some kind of business deal here, 07:34 some kind of money transactions. 07:36 And it says here, "The money changers doing business." 07:41 Jesus was not happy about that. 07:43 What's the deal here? 07:47 Why are they selling animals 07:50 and why does Jesus come in here and just drive them out? 07:54 Well, people are expected to bring animals 07:57 for sacrifices to the temple 07:59 and so that there would be some animals there as to be expected, 08:03 but what would often happen is, 08:06 the priest would reject the animals 08:08 that the people brought. 08:09 Maybe they would be injured in some way, 08:11 they weren't perfect, 08:12 they weren't the right color, etcetera 08:14 and they were making profit out of selling animals 08:18 to the people for their sacrifices. 08:21 And they might take a person's animal. 08:23 They might exchange it for a fee 08:24 and then sell that animal for fee later on. 08:27 And it was quite a financial racket. 08:30 The interesting thing about it is 08:32 you have two parts to the temple, 08:33 there's a temple building and the inner courts, 08:37 which is for the Jews only and there was a wall around those, 08:40 so that Gentiles couldn't go in. 08:42 Then there's the outer courts where the Gentiles could be, 08:45 the court of the Gentiles and so at least half of it 08:49 was for the Gentiles. 08:50 That's the only part of the temple complex 08:53 that Gentiles could go to, 08:54 that's the place where all this merchandising was going. 08:57 So if the Gentile want to come and pray they couldn't do it, 09:02 it was just crazy marketplace, you see. 09:05 So it was really, it was definitely hindering 09:08 the Gentiles from coming to the true God 09:10 and it was also distracting for the Jewish worshippers 09:14 as well to hear all these noises and chaos going on. 09:17 Was this part of their job 09:18 or was this more like corruption involved? 09:21 Definitely, corruption involved. 09:23 The priests were using this to make a lot of money. 09:26 Now I tell you when Jesus broke up that trade 09:29 it was a knife right into 09:31 the heart of their financial base. 09:34 So it was--in this case was actually a political act 09:37 that was threatening the very foundation of the system 09:41 that they had put into place. 09:43 Jesus' goal was never political. 09:47 Jesus didn't believe that political change was going 09:51 to change people's hearts but there were times 09:54 when political change was needed to open the way 09:57 for people to worship and to have freedom of worship 10:01 and Jesus seems to have acted in that way here. 10:05 So Herod builds this temple, it's a magnificent building, 10:10 but it's not serving its true purpose, 10:12 it's serving political purposes and financial purposes 10:16 and Jesus doesn't hesitate to speak out. 10:20 This helps us understand something special 10:23 about the Gospel of John. 10:25 This incident actually occurred, it's a real story. 10:29 So what was going on when Jesus did this? 10:33 It was a prophetic protest. 10:35 As a prophet He comes into the temple and He says, 10:38 "This is a house of prayer. 10:40 It should not be used for merchandise." 10:43 And so He is protesting 10:44 that the religious leaders of His day have undermined 10:48 the core of their faith by their actions 10:50 and He's seeking to change that. 10:52 But John, remember? Yeah. 10:55 The stories are never just stories. 11:00 It's not just well, this happened in Jesus' life 11:02 and then that happened. 11:03 For John, these are always parables. 11:05 They always have a deeper spiritual meaning. 11:08 So in Jesus' day there's a prophetic protest 11:12 against the corruption of the temple, 11:16 but for John, it has a deeper meaning. 11:20 Jesus is driving out the animals, 11:22 the sacrificial animals. 11:24 He's driving them out of the temple 11:26 and what's left in the temple to sacrifice 11:30 when He drives the animals out, His body. 11:35 Verse 19 to 21. 11:37 I am assuming because Jesus is the Lamb of God. 11:40 Exactly. That's already been told us in Chapter 1. Right. 11:44 But here it says, the temple is His body. 11:48 We'll see verses 19-21, Jesus answered them, 11:51 "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." 11:55 It's another one of His misunderstanding text. 11:58 They think destroying these buildings 12:00 that took 46 years so far 12:03 and I will raise them up in three days. 12:05 The Jews replied, 12:06 "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple 12:08 and you are going to raise it in three days?" 12:11 Misunderstanding, they didn't get His point. 12:14 But the temple here, the narrator breaks in, 12:16 "The temple He had spoken of was His body." 12:21 And after He was raised from the dead 12:23 the disciples recalled what He had said 12:25 then they believed the scripture 12:27 and the words that Jesus had spoken. 12:29 So Jesus signals by His words 12:31 what John is going to make of the story. 12:34 Jesus is replacing the temple and its services with Himself. 12:38 His sacrifice on the cross would overturn all other sacrifices. 12:43 In other words, what the temple 12:44 was pointing to was actually Him. 12:47 The glory of the temple 12:49 was the presence of God inside a building. 12:52 The glory of Jesus 12:53 was the presence of God inside of Himself. 12:57 The coming of Jesus is all about God 13:00 and it's about the character of God. 13:02 He has come to show us what God is really like. 13:05 The temple was intended to do that, but it failed. 13:10 If all the people saw was this buying and selling, 13:13 then clearly temple is not achieving its purpose. 13:17 And so Jesus replaces that system 13:20 with a clearer system, His own body. 13:24 His own self. 13:25 He came to show us what God is like 13:27 and it's at the cross where the body of Jesus, 13:31 and the blood of Jesus is shed. 13:32 That's the place where it most clearly happens. 13:35 And the pride too was in the temple, 13:38 the material, temple, 13:39 rather than the spiritual focus on the Son of God. 13:44 That's right. That's the way religion works. 13:47 Human beings put together a religion to honor God 13:52 who has done something special in their lives, 13:54 but then overtime they forget the reason that it started 13:56 and they start preserving the structure and the system 14:00 and so religion often has a tendency 14:02 to wander away from its original purpose. 14:05 Okay, well, friends, we want to continue 14:08 to study this gospel after this break. 14:10 So stay with us. |
Revised 2014-12-17