Matthew 21

¹² And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. ¹³ He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” ¹⁴ And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. ¹⁵ But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, ¹⁶ and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” ¹⁷ And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

Earlier this year, I, along with our Associate Pastor Thomas Sewell and a few other pastors, had dinner at John’s Pizzeria in Times Square. I enjoyed the meal and it was made all the more intriguing by the atmosphere. John’s Pizzeria is, to say the least, architecturally interesting. The restaurant’s website gives a snapshot of its history.

In 1995, Madeline Castellotti had a vision. Where frightened visitors saw adult shops and violence, Madeline saw potential. It was then she decided Times Square would be home to the world famous John’s of Times Square. As she walked the Crossroads of the World, she was looking for a location that was as unique as her pizza. After stumbling upon an abandoned church on West 44th Street, where the homeless squatted and spray painted gang signs were apart of the décor, Madeline instantly saw the beauty of this old Gospel Tabernacle Church. During her initial tour of this location, the perfectly intact stained glass ceiling caught her attention. It was made up of 8 parts, all equal in size, just like a pizza. Madeline Castellotti knew this would be home to her dream, the most unique pizzeria in the world.[1]

Yes, pizza in a church, or a former church, I should say. One may wish that the 8-paned stained glass drew the observer to thoughts of God, but what Mrs. Castellotti saw there was pizza and so pizza is what that building is all about now. As I said, I enjoyed the meal. I had actually been there before and remembered it well. It was good to be back there. Even so, I must say it is a little eerie being a repurposed church, a church that is doing something other than what a church should be doing. There is something a bit sad about it, even if the pizza was great! I know that churches close and buildings change. More than that, I know that the church is not the building, but the people. Yet, it still strikes me as a sad development.

It is one thing for a sacred place to close and be repurposed. It is another thing, however, for the temple of God to be repurposed while yet still claiming to be the temple of God! This is what Jesus encountered in Matthew 21:12–17.

The Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary does a good job of laying out Jesus’ approach to the temple.

Climbing the imposing steps on the southern end of the temple mount, Jesus enters the temple through the Hulda Gates located on the southern wall. The Huldah Gates, named after the prophetess Huldah (2 Kings 22:14; 2 Chron 34:22) were a double and triple gate. He then climbs another series of steps to four rows of forty thick columns each. The northern side opened into the temple courts, but within the Stoa was a market where commercial activity enabled pilgrims from the Diaspora to participate in temple activities. Here they exchanged their currency for temple currency, the Tyrian shekel, which was used to pay the required temple tax (17:24–27; cf. Ex. 30:11–16) and purchase animals and other products for their sacrifices.[2]

With this background in mind, let us consider Jesus’ surprising actions in the temple and why he responded the way He did.

Jesus’ anger was directed at hearts that had become wicked even in the shadow of the presence of God.

Our approach to our text is going to take a bit of a different angle. What I would like to do is take the two Old Testament passages that Jesus appeals to and view them in their wider contexts in order to highlight what He is doing here in Matthew 21.

¹² And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. ¹³ He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

Jesus quotes from two Old Testament texts in verse 13:

• Jeremiah 7
• Isaiah 56

These two texts, and their accompanying contexts, give great insight into explaining Matthew 21:12 and Jesus’ disruption of the commerce in the temple. We will deal first with the “den of robbers” passage. When this passage is considered we will see that Jesus’ anger was directed at hearts that had become wicked even in the shadow of the presence of God.

Let us listen to Jeremiah 7. Watch for the “den of robbers.”

¹ The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. ³ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. ⁴ Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ ⁵ “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, ⁶ if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, ⁷ then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever. ⁸ “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. ⁹ Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰ and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? ¹¹ Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.

In Jeremiah 7, God rebukes the arrogance and false sense of security that had taken hold of His children as they came to see the presence of the temple as some sort of de facto blessing regardless of the condition of their hearts. In other words, you cannot just say “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” then carry on however you want to. On the contrary, the fact that Israel had the temple should have made them more righteous, not less. Their accountability before God by virtue of the temple being in their midst is heightened, not lessened. Even so, while standing in the very shadow of the temple of the living God, God’s people were:

• practicing injustice,
• oppressing the sojourner,
• oppressing the fatherless,
• oppressing the widow,
• shedding innocent blood,
• going after other gods.

Again, they were doing these things while still going to the temple to offer sacrifice! Their hearts had grown hard in the very presence of God. So God says to them, in essence, “Stop thinking that the presence of the religious externals matters more than the reality of your hearts and the sincerity of your worship! The presence of the temple will not help you in the day of judgment if you have grown wicked.”

And it is this that Jesus quotes in Matthew 21:13. “You make it a den of robbers.” That is, “You are doing here and now the very same things that Israel was doing when God issued His warning through the prophet Jeremiah! You too are crying ‘The temple of the Lord!’ and gambling that this will save you when, in reality, you are oppressing the poor.”

And how were they oppressing the poor? Michael Card notes that “it appears the sacrifices required for the poor, specifically doves, have been unfairly marked up.”[3] We are not told this outright in Matthew 21, but this or something like it would make sense of Jesus’ appeal to Jeremiah 7. The poor had to purchase their sacrifice in Jerusalem, and the temple was where you did that. Most likely, in some manner, prices were being hiked, if perhaps selectively, to profit off of those who wanted to worship. In this way, worship and sacrifice and praise were being distorted into a gross display of profiteering and material gain.

What matters, church, is not the presence of the sanctuary but the intention of the heart. Our buildings and our religious machinery and our institutionalized faith will not save us, but it might condemn us if we trust in these aspects and lose the Lord God while doing so.

Jesus’ anger was directed at those who put obstacles in the way of outsiders coming to the one true God.

There is another reason for Jesus’ anger and it too is revealed in the sider context of the Old Testament passage he quotes.

¹² And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. ¹³ He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

To understand what is happening here we need first to understand the layout of the temple. Craig Keener has offered a helpful and succinct explanation.

The Old Testament temple did not officially restrict the access of women or non-Jews, but by extending Jewish purity laws the architects of Herod’s temple had excluded Jewish women from the Court of Israel, placing them on a lower level, and non-Jews outside even the Court of Women. Non-Jews could enter the Jewish part of the temple only on pain of death, yet the noisy crowds around the merchants’ tables no doubt consumed a significant part of the large space of the Court of the Gentiles at the crowded festivals.[4]

Think of the temple as three layers, as far as the public was concerned. We will start with the closest layer and move to the farthest.

• The Court of Israel: Jewish men
• The Court of Women: Jewish women
• The Court of the Gentiles: Gentile men and women

The very architecture of the place communicated who was closest and who was furthest, and the furthest away were the Gentiles. And as Keener suggested, many New Testament scholars believe (though this is not certain) that these tables and these animals and these money changers were likely set up in the court of the Gentiles, thereby hindering the worship of outsiders and foreigners to Israel. If this is so, then Gentile God-fearers who came to the temple were doubly-hindered, first by virtue of being the furthest away from the Holy of Holies and second by virtue of the disruptive commerce going on around them.

It is there that Jesus’ reference to Isaiah 56 is most telling, for, in that chapter, and in the wider context of the “house of prayer” statement, there is a strong emphasis on God’s love for the outsiders. Listen:

¹ Thus says the Lord: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed. ² Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.” ³ Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” ⁴ For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, ⁵ I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. ⁶ “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant—⁷ these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” ⁸ The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”

Again, Jesus’ appeal to this specific passage is more instructive. He quotes from verse 7, but verse 7 has a context, and what do we see in his wider context? We see:

• that the Lord does not want “the foreigner” to be separated from His people,
• that the Lord does not want “the eunuch” to think that there is no hope,
• that the outsider who gives his or her heart to God will be brought in closer than the child of God whose heart is far from Him.

This helps us understand—regardless of exactly where this commerce in Matthew 21 was taking place (though Jesus’ reference to Isaiah 56 suggests the Court of the Gentiles)—that one of Jesus’ primary concerns here is that the outsider not be hindered from coming in to the Lord God. This helps us understand, too, Jesus’ anger. How could these stewards of the sacred place actually hinder those who are seeking God? The house that was intended to be a house of prayer had been perverted into a den of robbers. The gentiles could not pray over the clamor of coins and haggling. This was unacceptable! And so Jesus moves in a shocking manner to expel these blasphemers from the court.

John Howson, around 500 years ago, wrote of our text:

Here our Savior, the prince of peace and fountain of mercy, comes to Jerusalem and with his own hands does punish and abuse, and the profanations of the temple of God. Adam sinned, and he sent his angels or cherubim to cast him out of paradise. The wicked Sodomites sinned, and he sent his angels, and it rained fire from heaven and consumed them…Only this sin of profaning and abusing his temple, he corrects and chastens with his own hands, he sends not his angels, he sends not fire, he sends not water, he sends not his prophets, but he comes himself and executes punishment on them…[5]

Yes, Jesus deals with this abomination Himself. The poor were being fleeced in the very house of God. The gentiles’ worship was being hindered in the very house of God. The house of prayer had become a den of robbers.

Beware, church! Beware of missing God in the midst of things of God!

The priests’ and scribes’ anger was directed at those who had the reality of which they only had the symbols.

But somebody else is angry in our text, and their anger, unlike Jesus’, is not righteous. Observe:

¹⁴ And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. ¹⁵ But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, ¹⁶ and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” ¹⁷ And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

Yes, the chief priests and the scribes were angry. They were, we are told, “indignant” (v.15). But let us notice once again, as we noticed in Jesus’ journey up to Jerusalem from Jericho, that the blind are able to see whereas those who can see are blind.

The blind “came to him.”

The lame “came to him.”

“The children” praised his name.

The least of these understood.

The lowliest of these understood.

But the priests, the men of God, the seminary graduates, the PhDs, the religious establishment, the spiritual elites: they missed it.

To work among the things of God while missing God is a tragedy. To traffic in the sacred while blaspheming the sacred is a catastrophe of immeasurable proportions.

The lowly, the outcast, the forgotten, the passed-by, they saw, they understood, they came, they had church! But the officials and the leaders and the men of the cloth? They missed it! They totally missed it!

Proximity to the things of God does not equal an actual relationship with God.

Closeness does not equate to connection.

Church, let us worship the one true God and let us invite all who will come to worship! God forbid we hinder the humble heart that is seeking God! God forbid that we miss God in the very house of God! May Jesus look at us and be pleased as we gather in His name.

 

[1] https://www.johnspizzerianyc.com

[2] Wilkins, Michael J. “Matthew.” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Gen. Ed. Clinton E. Arnold. Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), p.125.

[3] Card, Michael. Matthew. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2013), p.186.

[4] Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p.101.

[5] Lee, Jason K. and William M. Marsh. Matthew. Reformation Commentary on Scripture. Gen. Ed. Timothy George. New Testament I (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021), p.270.