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THE KING’S BUSINESS
it was the force of His holy presence on fire with indignation for the outraged honor of God, or whether it was the force of the wfiip that He brandished in His hand. The Lord had suddenly come to His tem ple and was purifying it from the very presence of the seekers after personal gain into whose hands the worship of God’s house had fallen. The traders and the sheep and the oxen were “cast o u t t h e changers’ money was “poured out,” the tables used for their unholy traffic in the house of God were “overthrown,” but Jesus did not drive out the doves nor over turn their cages. With a heart full of pity even for the doves which were there for the use of the poor, who could not afford oxen or sheep (Lev. 5:7), He said to those that sold them, “Take these things hence,” thus allowing them to be gently carried out of the temple. In all these details we see the vivid recollection of the writer; every detail had burned itself into the memory of John; the account is evidently that of an eye witness, and the truth of the story is apparent in every detail that is told. It is a wonderful revelation of the holy and uncompromising sternness of our Lord upon the one hand, and of His -wonderful tenderness upon the other. By His indignantly pouring out the money that, was being used to take advantage of the necessities of the common people, He showed His estimate of silver and gold, especially the silver and gold that are tainted. In His overthrowing the tables He shows His authority mingled with His righteous indignation. In the way in which the traders fled before Him (cf. John 18:6), He gave a foreglimpse of the way in which sinners shall quail before Him in the coming judgment. Many professing Christians today are as guilty in commer cializing the worship of God as were these Jewish rulers of old. We do well to take warning. At this-, first cleansing of the temple, Jesus told them that they had made His “Father’s house” a “house of mer chandise,” but at His last cleansing of the temple, 'a fte r they had come back
into “a house of merchandise” under any pretext, no matter how plausible. There is something very solemn in this for us today, when so often in connection with our evangelistic work those who are called to preach the gospel and win souls are seeking to coin money by the sale of hymn books and .other things connected with the meetings. If the Lord Jesus were to come to any of our modern day religious gather ings He would drive out a great deal that we permit. The whole atmosphere of the Father’s house at Jerusalem was contami nated both morally and physically. This moved our Lord Jesus with indignation at the desecration of the house of which He could think in no other way than as “My Father’s house.” In the full and over whelming consciousness that He was the Son of God H e asserted His authority and manifested His indignation at these defilers of His Father’s house. As the Son of God and the Messiah, He had a perfect right to take the law in His own hands and put a stop to the whole unholy traffic, and this He did. He made a “scourge of cords” (not of “small” cords as our Authorized Version reads. The word trans lated “small cords” here is the same word as is used of the ropes that held the boat in Acts 27:32. I t is found in the New Testament only in these two passages). According to Jewish!, tradition the Messiah was to come with a scourge, was to come as a chastizer of evil doers. Raising this whip aloft in noble and holy .indignation He “cast” these traffickers out of the temple. One commentator says, “The Greek word (translated ‘drove out’) does not mean by force, but by authority,” but there is absolutely' no warrant for this statement. It is the same word that is used for example in Acts 27:28 of the throwing of the wheat out of the ship into the sea.- It is quite likely that our Lord did not have to use the whip, for the majesty of His presence at this time so terrified these offenders that they fled before Him, but the words used imply the forcéful driving of them out, whether
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