Reflections on John 2 and Jesus prophesying about “this temple.”
Borders define. Who is in? Who is out? Who belongs? Who does not belong? Who has power? Who does not have power? Whose authority are you under? Whose authority has reached its limit?
Borders easily become zones of violence. The authority to enforce and establish borders is usually external to a person. Border enforcement has to be granted. At a border it can feel like some bodies are worth less than other bodies.
Watch Jesus at The Temple.
13When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
18The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
20They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
23Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.
24But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. 25He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.
John 2:13-25, NIV
Jesus walked right into the domain of the Temple border patrol. That’s why the authorities who observed Jesus clearing the temple courts were questioning him. He had run some bodies out of the Temple. He had made room for other bodies in the Court of the Gentiles. To progress through the thresholds of the Temple was to move across several border zones. The further in one went towards the Holy of Holies, the smaller the crowd. The Temple had clear borders: The Court of the Gentiles, The Court of the Women, The Court of Israel. The Court of Priests. Jesus had cleared the Court of the Gentiles, so they ask him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
Throughout his ministry Jesus entered the border zones of Israel and disrupted their standard operating procedures. When he entered the Temple as a thirty year old he did not come with the questions and explorations of a twelve year old boy seeking to be about “His Father’s business.” Jesus entered and took up what appeared to his disciples to be a zealot’s reformation enthusiasm. They recalled, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
It was a busy day just before Passover when Jesus ran the sellers of sacrificial animals and the money changers for the temple tax out of the temple courts. He had cleared the Court of the Gentiles and was saying to them, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” Perhaps Jesus had come there because the cry of the nations had risen up to the ears of the LORD. Now the persons of power were asking for signs, just as Pharaoh had asked.
What sign will you show us?
Jesus offered them one sign.
“Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
His answer must of been shocking. The splendour of Herod’s temple was great. Even the disciples later sought to engage Jesus in consideration of its awesomeness. Those listening to Jesus blurt out, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?”
Only when they could look back from the Resurrection and the Cross did the disciples begin to get Jesus.
“But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”
Jesus treated His body as The Temple. Jesus treated bodies as temples. Yes, zeal for His Father’s house consumed Him. Jesus ached to see people become gloriously occupied as temples of the Holy Spirit.
The Temple was a border.
The Temple was a meeting place of Heaven and earth.
The temple Jesus had spoken of was His body.
Jesus’ body is a temple.
Having come from the communion of God, He embodied His own authority.
Jesus’ body crucified and resurrected is His promised sign.
The body is a temple.
When Jesus cleared the Jerusalem Temple He was making room for bodies.
Jesus cleared the Temple to make room for Gentile bodies.
The body as temple is of utmost concern for Jesus.
You are of utmost concern to Jesus.
There is no body that is worth less!
Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?
You have been bought at a price!
Jesus has authority to make room for you.
But you have authority to make room for Jesus in the temple of your body.
The bodies of people at borders are temples.
The bodies of people at borders are sacred.
Where is our zeal for our Father’s house?
Jesus knows what is in a person.
Jesus can see into our temples.
We can’t easily see what’s in each temple.
But we can treat all bodies as temples, just as Jesus did.
Holy.
This the Way of all who are His Temple.
Temple politics are strangely differentiating.
So are borders.
Here’s a reply to a question on what the Temple has to do with borders:
Jesus and the apostles do take up Temple Theology for helping the church understand what was happening with Jesus in the Incarnate work of God and what is happening with us in the Indwelling of the Spirit of God. These bodies are to be treated as sacred. Love our neighbour gets us there too.
As to the borders and how important the borders of the Temple were in Jesus day — Here’s an inscription:
Blessings,
Craig
https://www.bible-history.com/…/israel/temple-warning.html
Here’s a reply to the question: where are you leading us with this?
Thanks for the question… “what are you leading us toward?”
My ultimate concern is not whether governments draw up borders. I think we can survive borders. Borders are important for those who provide governance. They need to know their limits these days.
But especially as it relates to the body we need to know what the boundaries of our action must be in the sight of God.
My concern is that Christians think theologically about borders and the borders of the temple created by God (the body) and that bears His image. When we do so, we can speak prophetically to nation-states about the treatment of people and what we will not tolerate. I want us to think theologically about the body. And I’d like the Scripture and Jesus to be the point of reference for understanding my own body and the bodies of other people.
In various places in the Gospels and in the NT I think Jesus and the apostles are creating a shift for “temple theology” from the Temple in Jerusalem to the body. The shift is initiated by Jesus right there in the first Temple clearing. (Perhaps we could say its initiated with His incarnation and even in his baptism.) So we are now called on to respect the borders of the human just as we would have respected the borders of the Temple in Jerusalem. From the beginning God intended that our view of “holy” be applied to the body. The shift is made to the individual and then to Jesus’ church as His body.
Don’t you think the body as temple has implications for every Christian and how we view the body from conception to death? The sanctity of life makes no sense unless we view the body of every person as holy unto God. The conversations about abortion, sexuality, justice, the courts, mercy, the medical system, bio-technology makes no sense to me unless we view the body of every person as a temple made for God.
The temptation before us is to simply treat strangers and those unknown to us , as “undesirables,” or as just a body — reducing them to de-humanized objects that we just pass around. Thus we participate in the work of the devil — who comes to kill, steal, and destroy — people.
Every nation-state border has a history and it receives people who may be pushed from their “home” or drawn to the border of because of history. As you note the powers and principalities can be creatively associated with borders. If we fail to understand how nation/state borders are truly zones of temptation to dehumanize people then we will be pawns in the service of those powers and principalities. Our borders are part of the creation — like mammon.
But the body — I think its in a different category of creation.
Don’t you think the body is a border created by God?
We must not trespass against Him.
I want us to reserve the prophetic imperative to call both “liberals” and “conservatives” to the sacredness of the body and each person. Each will be frustrated with Jesus. He’s the man in the middle and He is our peace. It seems to me the closer “liberals” go toward the extremes of their ideologies the closer they come to violence. As well, the closer the “converatives” go toward the extreme of their ideologies, the closer they come to violence. The concern of each becomes an overwhelming desire to dominate. The concern becomes a blindness shaped by “who is right” instead of with the doing of “what is right.” While waiting for Jesus’ return I believe we must be careful about the impulses of the flesh-acting independent of God- towards the triumph of our “faction.” That’s not the fruit of the Spirit. We must be concerned with acting rightly toward all bodies. Jesus provides us with a vision of the body: “this temple.”
Maybe a Christ-shaped theology of the body could be helpful to anyone who is willing to engage with our political systems and our conversations for the common good. Don’t you want border guards to be fortified with a theology of the body as well as a theology of their neighbour?
We are to be governed by the love of God. Governed — sometimes compelled; sometimes constrained.
Thinking about the Kingdom of God, the Temple and the body of Jesus: Jesus annihilated the border between us and the Holy of Holies through His body.
But Jesus didn’t really seem to care where Rome drew up their boundaries. He did care about how anyone with power treated people. And he warns us that His followers are not to dominate people. I think we must treat every body as a person made for God and must give consideration to their agency to act and to their value before God.
That’s where I’d like to lead us.