Don: The possible explanations for the apparently out-of-character actions of Jesus in disrupting the money changers in the temple are either that his humanity overcame his divinity, or that his divinity overcame his humanity. In both cases, he was expressing righteous indignation and distress at the merchants’ activities in his Father’s house. God the Father had also expressed similar distress and indignation:
Put the trumpet to your lips! Like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of the Lord, Because they have transgressed My covenant And rebelled against My law. They cry out to Me, “My God, we of Israel know You!” (Hosea 8:1-2)
Jesus used the temple as a metaphor for his own body, sacrifice, and atonement, thus uniting himself with the worshiper. Paul spoke of this unity of God with Man:
Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:4-11)
The issue in the temple, for Jesus, was not the commerce itself; rather, it was the barrier it created between God and Man. The reconciliation between God and and Man, foreshadowed in the death and resurrection of Jesus, was jeopardized by the merchants, whose activities were designed to undermine and limit the pilgrims’ access to God. It was utterly unacceptable to Jesus that access to God’s abundant grace by sinners in need of it was restricted by merchants demanding money from them. His strong emotion shows how much God abhors any barrier to His grace. That emotion is reflected in the strong language Jesus used in a different setting but referring to essentially the same issue:
“… whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:5-6)
Grace that is hoarded and not passed on to others becomes toxic to the hoarder. Hoarding grace, preventing others from receiving it, passing judgment, are part and parcel of a sin so intolerable to God as to be unpardonable:
“He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
“Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.” (Matthew 12:30-32)
It is intolerable because it puts people beyond the reach of God’s mercy, forgiveness and salvation, which Isaiah called God’s “unusual task” and “extraordinary work”:
For the Lord will rise up as at Mount Perazim,
He will be stirred up as in the valley of Gibeon,
To do His task, His unusual task,
And to work His work, His extraordinary work. (Isaiah 28:21)
Two stories in particular illustrate this point. First is the story of Jonah, who was commissioned by God to go to the Ninevites to dispense a very lavish measure of God’s grace. But Jonah elected to hoard that grace and took ship in the opposite direction. God’s response was to give him even more grace in the form of a giant fish that swallowed him after he was thrown into the sea. This story underscores the “unusual tasks” God will undertake to see that his grace is delivered.
This same “extraordinary work” can be seen in operation when Saul was on his way to persecute Christians—to be a “stumbling block” to them—but was instead converted by God’s grace to become Paul, the Christian apostle:
Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” And the Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to Your saints at Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized; and he took food and was strengthened. (Acts 9:1-19)
The stories of Jonah and Saul are among several that show a God prepared to intervene dramatically when the distribution of His grace is at risk. How does this square with “turning the other cheek”?
“But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ (Matthew 5:39-48)
Are the commandments to pass on God’s grace and to turn the other cheek mutually compatible? If they are, was Christ’s uncharacteristic emotion and behavior justifiable? Are we as guilty as the money changers of being stumbling blocks? Is it possible that in our worship, what we do—even without thinking—deprives others of God’s grace?
Kiran: In the Jewish culture of the time, if a slap were called for, it would be delivered with the back of the hand if from a higher class to a lower class person. Most people being right handed, it meant that the blow would fall on the victim’s right cheek, so if the victim were to turn the other cheek, the belligerent would have to deliver a punch, and a punch could only be delivered to another person of equal rank. It has therefore been argued that Christ’s admonition to “turn the other cheek” was intended as the victim’s declaration of equality with his oppressor. Several other scriptural passages could also be reinterpreted in light of contemporary culture.
David: Jesus said: “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” To show violence or even just anger is surely not perfect, I think.
Donald: Was Jesus upset with the commerce and its chaos, or with the merchants? The merchants evidently thought their commerce in the temple was not inappropriate. Having their tables overturned would have shocked them.
David: We seem reluctant to acknowledge the human side of Jesus. He was sent to us as a divine being but in human form, with all its frailties. I don’t see why we can’t just acknowledge that in “losing it” Jesus was merely being a frail human. Until we accept that, I think we are failing to address the real issues in the story.
Donald: We don’t want to say that Christ did anything wrong, and to admit that he “lost it” would be to admit that he did something wrong.
David: Why is that a problem?
Michael: If Jesus did not remonstrate against what he felt to be wrong, then he would have been a hypocrite.
Jay: We define perfection as being without sin. I’m not sure that’s the best way to describe God’s perfection, though. To me, His perfection stems from his unconditional love and grace. When we try to impose our definitions of right and wrong and sin on a divine being, we are on tricky ground. A divine being cannot be measured against human standards of right and wrong. We may say that Jesus was perfect because he never sinned, but to me that may not be adequate. Most of the paragraph in Matthew about being perfect is preceded by admonitions to love one’s enemies. It’s not enough just to love one’s brother—that is good but not not perfect.
To say that Jesus was not perfect would seem to demolish Christianity and its promise of salvation through the death of Christ’s perfect person. But why would we do that, knowing that Christ was divine and eternal and therefore beyond our understanding? Isn’t that what his contemporaries were trying to do—telling the Jews what God expects and how they were to go about meeting His expectations?
David: But Jesus told us the perfection paradigm, in Matthew 5, in very plain and unambiguous language: “Love your enemies.” We don’t need to second guess the divine will here. We understand it loud and clear, and to me, it is not loving one’s enemies to ransack their business and threaten or hit them with a scourge.
Jay: I am arguing that from the divine perspective, those actions might have been acts of love, for all we know or could know given our limited human understanding. Perhaps it’s like smacking a baby’s hand pretty hard if it goes to touch a hot stovetop. It’s an act of love intended to prevent the baby from really hurting itself, now and in future. It’s not a sin.
David: But it is a slippery slope.
Jay: Yes, it is; I just hope it perhaps might help us put another perspective on what happened in the temple.
Kiran: Jesus and his contemporaries were Jews oppressed by the Romans, who were thus their enemies. In saying “love your enemy” Jesus perhaps did not include other Jews, or his Jewish listeners would have assumed he meant only Romans. Who is our enemy today? And should oppressor and oppressed love one another alike?
Michael: I think the preaching of perfection is one of the biggest hurdles against God’s grace. At those times when I thought I had received grace, I was in no way perfect; quite the opposite! We cannot be perfect.
Donald: I agree. We slap a child to strike fear into it so it will not repeat a dangerous behavior. God gave us the Ten Commandments to guide our behavior. Is there another place in the Bible where Christ “lost it”?
Don: Not in terms of action, but he certainly used some pretty strong language at times, as for example in laying out the deficiencies of the Pharisees. But whenever the issue of depriving people of His grace comes up, God reacts pretty dramatically—as, for instance, in his physical treatment of Jonah and Saul.
David: There are other examples of Jesus showing his human weakness, such as his weeping over the death of his friend Lazarus. In his divinity, Jesus must have known that death has no sting and—especially in this case—that Lazarus was about to be physically resurrected anyway. Even more telling of his human frailty was his heart-rending cry on the cross, when grace actually seems to have deserted him:
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46)
Such anguish is surely human, not divine. But I see nothing wrong in accepting such humanity in Christ. To me, if he had never once betrayed any trace of his humanity, he would have been a divine fraud. God the Father would not care about being crucified, personally. What possible harm could it do Him? One reason Jesus knew that his call for us to be “perfect” was impossible for us was because it was impossible even for him! But the impossibility does not absolve us of the responsibility to try.
Jay: We don’t consider it a sin to be in despair, anguish, to feel forsaken; but we do consider it a sin, or almost a sin, to be angry.
Owen: God caused the earth to swallow up a people that spurned Him:
Then Moses arose and went to Dathan and Abiram, with the elders of Israel following him, and he spoke to the congregation, saying, “Depart now from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing that belongs to them, or you will be swept away in all their sin.” So they got back from around the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram; and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the doorway of their tents, along with their wives and their sons and their little ones. Moses said, “By this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these deeds; for this is not my doing. If these men die the death of all men or if they suffer the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into Sheol, then you will understand that these men have spurned the Lord.”
As he finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split open; and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to Korah with their possessions. (Numbers 16:25-32)
If one were unaware of Moses’ explanation for what was about to happen, one might be excused for thinking that God had just “lost it” with these people, but in fact it was a measured response, not a sudden angry reaction.
When, for their ingratitude, God punished the Israelites he had rescued from Egypt, it was again violent but not a surprise. Even the Israelites, in recognizing their sin, were not really surprised:
The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. (Numbers 21:6-9)
The behavior of the merchants on the temple was also no surprise to God, and his reaction there can also be taken to have been measured and purposeful.
Donald: We are used to such passages in Scripture as these, where God is essentially saying “Enough is enough!” So why should we be upset with Christ for saying the same?
David: Because Jesus himself told us to take such passages with at least a grain of salt. In Matthew 5 (cited above) he said “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” He was telling us that the real God is a God of love (as I believe we know, in our hearts); that He is not the merciless, vengeful, violent God of the Old Testament. We seem very reluctant to challenge the Old Testament, but Jesus wasn’t!
We must be careful in our zeal to defend the Bible lest we put a “spin” on God’s word. Even if we accept the spin (as I see it) that the angry God who killed people with snakes and sinkholes was actually acting in a cool and calculated way, not a hot and impulsive way, then we are still left with the evident fact that Jesus was hot and impulsive in his violence in the temple. Suppose he had instead been cool and calculating: What other non-violent options might he have had? Plenty spring to my mind. The parent who impulsively slaps the child for a dangerous act would probably not use violence at all if s/he had plenty of time to react and consider how to deal with the situation. “Be careful, or you’ll burn yourself!” Why didn’t Jesus say something like that to the money changers? His violence on this occasion was completely out of his divine character, and very rare (even unlikely) in his human character—but, q.e.d., it was not impossible.
Michael: I don’t see any violence. He didn’t hit anyone.
David: He was angry and he wielded a scourge. It seems reasonable to assume he lashed out with it. Whether he hit anyone or not, his behavior was unquestionably violent.
Michael: I still think it would have been hypocritical in him not to have done what he did. He could not allow his purpose of bringing people to God to be thwarted, and how can flipping a couple of tables possibly be compared to keeping people from God?
David: On that basis, he ought to have been even more violent, because then the impact would have been greater, and according to your argument, that would be a good thing. To me, any violence at all—even the mere threat of it—is the start of a slippery descent into unimaginable evil, and is a mark of imperfection if ever there were one. It is a mark all humans bear—including the human Jesus. If he did not bear it, his death and resurrection would be meaningless. Any old God could do that.
Donald: When I get very angry I tend to think about how I might do things differently. It’s a rational process. But “losing it”, to me, implies no thought for what happens next.
Jay: We want to define the severity of Christ’s actions. Had he just screamed at the merchants we might not be having this discussion. It’s the scourge, and the table-turning, that troubles us. But we have to remember that we cannot define right and wrong, we cannot judge. When we do, we are in trouble. And we seem to be trying to do just that—to judge Jesus and the rightness or wrongness of his actions.
David: But in this case, Jesus himself gave us a crystal-clear definition of right: “I say to you, love your enemies”! I don’t equate beating people up with loving them.
Owen: He had to do it, to get his message across. He could have talked till he was blue in the face, but he had to get his message across somehow. Calm doesn’t always work, especially when behaviors have become entrenched, so he had to go off script a little bit.
David: Right on! An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth! 😉 Cynicism apart, does anyone suppose his actions made the least bit of difference in the temple? That the money changers stopped work and started to follow Jesus instead? Of course Jesus came to make an impact, but not just on money changers 2,000 years ago. He came to have an impact on us, today, as well. Everything about the ministry of Jesus tells us that the violent eye-for-an-eye ethos was antithetical to his.
I repeat my contention that the only way out of this apparent dilemma is to recognize the human-divine duality of Jesus. I see nothing wrong in doing that.
Donald: It’s interesting to reflect that indeed, the money changers went right back to what they were doing, and that the message was intended for us.
Owen and Kiran: Perhaps Jesus was using the money changers to get at the real villains—the Pharisees. And he paid the price for doing so, when they had him killed.
Jay: He was also sending a message to the people who were being oppressed, not just to the oppressors.
Michael: Even if Jesus turned the tables on the money lenders only for one day, it was enough. He got his message across not just for that day, but also for all time. He achieved his bigger goal. Similarly, the Good Samaritan’s act was a one-off—we don’t suppose he went around helping people every day—but the impact was everlasting.
Don: We do need to consider the various audiences: The money changers, the Pharisees, the temple pilgrims, the followers of Jesus, ourselves, and humanity for all time.
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