Cleansing the Real Tempel Through His Death(1)

Luke 19:45 And He entered into the temple and began to cast out those who were  selling, (46) Saying to them, It is written, "And My house shall be a house of prayer," but you have made it a den of robbers. (47) And He taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the leaders of the people sought to destroy Him.  Eph 2:21 In whom all the building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord; (22) In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit.

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The Lord entered into the temple for the purpose of cleansing it. Do you know what was in the temple? The temple was filled with mammon and material things, filled with the matters of buying and selling. This was the reason the Lord cleansed the temple.

On His journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, the Lord emphasized the need to overcome mammon and material possessions. He even said that in order to follow Him we need to renounce our possessions and stay away from the stupefying effects of material things. Because what He required His disciples to renounce was prevailing in the temple, He went into the temple to cleanse it.

The Lord's cleansing of the temple indicates that His presenting of Himself on the cross to God was for the producing of a cleansed temple. This means that His death has the effect of producing a church that is a purified, cleansed temple. Our basis for saying this is the clear revelation in the New Testament. The New Testament reveals that the Lord Jesus died to produce many grains that would be formed into one loaf, which is the Body (John 12:24; 1 Cor. 10:17). This Body is the church (Eph. 1:22-23), and the church is the temple of God (Eph. 2:21; 1 Cor. 3:16). This temple, in contrast to the robbers' cave, is a purified and cleansed house for God's dwelling place.

The Man-Savior's triumphant entry into Jerusalem was not for the purpose of taking over the country. The Lord entered into Jerusalem to present Himself to an all-inclusive death, to the death ordained by God. This death would not merely bring in the jubilee; it would also produce a cleansed and purified dwelling place for God.

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