As Jesus passed through the crowds and the palms were laid before him, he went straight to the Temple.
When Jesus was teaching He only acknowledged two gods. In Mark 12:29, Jesus quotes the Jewish declaration known as the Shema:
“The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
He speaks of the One True God. There is none other! He makes a clear distinction in His acknowledgement of who God is. Later He speaks of the false God:
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” – Matthew 6:24 NASB2020
When He comes to the Temple the last time, He follows the Passover lambs in. He has been there many times and has seen the tradition and ways of man. Everywhere He looked there was mammon. The moneychangers exchanged the foreign currency of the pilgrims who came from other nations for the acceptable Tyrian Shekel, approved for Temple offerings. They set up exchange booths and charged excessive fees.
Jesus had already taught that the rival god of the world was man.
This distinction does not leave any gray area. The language here is of a love or hate relationship. He speaks of loyalty and service to one or the other. There is no doubt as He entered to pray that He expected anything but prayer. Nothing that reminded Him as a young man in the Temple, where God conversation was evident.
He described it as being about the Father’s business. Now it was just business; the god of mammon has taken up residence.
John gives his account in chapter 9: He drove the buyer and sellers out of the Temple. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers. Knocked over the seats of those selling doves. Knowing personally how significant was the sign of the dove. The Holy Ghost descended like a dove at His inaugural as the Lamb of God.
John even writes that He made a whip out of cords and drove them out. He had exposed the Pharisees and others many times and they would go away angry. But they did not take action. But this was different. He took it upon Himself to cleanse the Temple of corruption, exploitation, and the turning worship of wealth into a profit-benefiting system.
They had become servants of mammon. Jesus brought His own personal earthquake—shaking the very core of Judaism and its hypocrisy. It was then the Jewish leadership began to implement their plan to kill Him. Believing all the evil that had been stored up in their hearts. Taking their thirty pieces of silver and buying themselves a betrayer.
Wealth would no longer take over worship. The master had come to the house, His house. This shaking was a separation of righteousness and unrighteousness, of those who love God and those who hate Him.
One day soon He is coming back to Jerusalem with His mighty earthquake and will divide the Temple Mount. Where the Temple will be and where the Dome of the Rock now stands. Once again declaring His authorship and ownership of everything.
Onward and upward we go. Let His cleansing come to His church in Jesus’ Name.
He is Risen and Risen indeed.
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