
Jesus told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” John 2:16
In the Jerusalem Temple, animals and birds are sold for sacrifice and the sellers are shark-minded. Jesus comes to cleanse the temple and correct unjust spiritual usury by purifying the temple. Zeal for His Father’s house consumes Jesus. The side liners ask Jesus, “What sign can you show us for doing this?”– the temple has been under construction for 46 years and not finished yet; they’re asking if He really means to destroy the Temple building.
Jesus responds, referring to His body as Temple, “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise It up.” Here is God’s Grand Plan revealed. In three year ministry which He will give us all the spiritual sustanence that He can, then in a sweep of human injustice the perfect Son of God will be forced to die on a cruel Cross. Three days later He will Resurrect. His Temple will not be destroyed. His zeal to save us consumes Jesus.
His zeal drives liars and thieves out of God’s Temple. Our bodies are temples of God when we are born again and saved by Jesus. Paul questions, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple (or sanctuary) of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19) All that we are belongs to Jesus.