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The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift for James B. Jordan
Fyodor Dostoevsky
(Christian Encounters Series)
Athanasius
(Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)
The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
Mark 11:9-10: Then those who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: “ Hosanna! ‘ Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
As Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, the crowds acclaim Him as the Davidic king, come to claim his throne in the name of the Lord. Jesus arrives with an entourage that precedes and follows Him, and celebrates His coming. “Hoshana,” they shout; “Save!” The people celebrate Jesus’ coming as a deliverer and conqueror.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, March 16, 2008 at 5:52 am
The story of Palm Sunday is oddly anticlimatic. Jesus enters Jerusalem surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd that acclaims Him as the Son of David.
We expect something to happen. Jesus will perform some stunning miracle that will finally convince His enemies. He will defeat them in debate and they will slink back to the holes they came from. He will take over the temple and turn it into a house of prayer for all nations. Instead, He enters the temple, looks around, and leaves.
What’s going on? Continue reading…
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, March 16, 2008 at 5:40 am
In his NIV Application commentary on Mark, David Garland interprets Jesus’ statement about the temple as a “house of prayer for all nations” as a condemnation of the separation of Gentiles in the temple: “During his entire ministry Jesus has been gathering in the impure outcasts and the physically maimed, and has even reached out to the Gentiles. He expects the temple to embody this inclusive love. The various purity barriers in the temple, however, have been preventing that. Gentiles were not allowed entry into the temple proper. Would Jesus have envisioned the nations gathered in Mount Zion and then forced to cool their heels in the outer court? Would he have condoned segregation – separate and unequal – in God’s temple? What kind of beacon is it that would draw the nations to Jerusalem only to partition them from the main body of worshipers in the temple?”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, March 14, 2008 at 6:06 am
INTRODUCTION
On the day we call Palm Sunday, Jesus arrives in Jerusalem after a long journey. As He enters the city, the people proclaim Him as King. He is the King, the King come to inspect His house and declare judgment against it.
THE TEXT
“Now when they drew near Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples; and He said to them, ‘Go into the village opposite you; and as soon as you have entered it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has sat. Loose it and bring it. . . .’” (Mark 11:1-26).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 11:17 am
Davies and Allison point out in their commentary on Matthew that Mark uses the verb DIAKONEIN in 1:13 to describe the angel’s ministry to Jesus after His temptation. The word connotes “table service,” and they suggest that Jesus, hungered by fasting, feeds on the bread of angels, as Israel had done before Him. Having defeated Satan, He tames the beasts, and enjoys a foretaste of the Messianic banquet.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, August 4, 2007 at 11:42 am
What is the cross? For Mark, the cross is not so much Jesus’ passive suffering as His last great act of power.
While Matthew shows Jesus as the great teacher of Israel, Mark shows Jesus as a man of action. In the first verse of his gospel, he identifies Jesus by the royal title “Son of God,” and as Son of God Jesus moves immediately from place to place conquering and to conquer. He casts out a demon from a man in a synagogue and a legion of demons from the Gadarene demoniac. He is the stronger Man come to bind the strong man.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, April 9, 2006 at 8:18 am
The Romans were deeply anti-semitic, as a number of studies have shown. So, when they dress Jesus up in purple, press a crown of thorns on his head, genuflect before Him, they are mocking the Jews as much as they are mocking Jesus: Here’s the best that the Jews can offer, the King of the Jews.
Oddly, this is all lost on the Jews. They play right along, as if Pilate is in earnest when he says “What? Shall I crucify your king?”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, February 20, 2006 at 10:44 am
A number of students point out the contrast between Simon of Cyrene, who takes up Jesus’ cross and follows Him, and Simon Peter, who denies Jesus out of fear. The Gentile Simon proves a more faithful disciple, in this moment of crisis, than the Jewish Simon.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, February 20, 2006 at 10:32 am
I’m sure the point has been made elsewhere, perhaps by Wright, but the substitution of Jesus for Barabbas is not only a sign of a generalized substitutionary atonement (though it is that); it is also a sign that Jesus is specifically substituting for Israel. He is the true faithful Israelite giving Himself for Israel, the “son of the Father” (Bar-abbas) that has turned brigand.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, February 20, 2006 at 10:28 am
Some thoughts inspired by student papers on Mark 15:
The most obvious Markan irony in chapter 15 is the fact that the Roman soldiers mock Jesus for being king of the Jews when He in fact is the king of the Jews. God has the last laugh; God is not mocked, even when He’s mocked.
But there are more subtle ironies at work.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, February 18, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Mark is known for the understated irony of his gospel, but there is a large-scale irony overarching the book that is worthy of Sophocles. Readers know from the first verse of the gospel that Jesus is Son of God, and that title is used periodically through the gospel by the Father and by demons. But no human beings recognize Jesus as Son until the centurion at the cross.
There is the ironic distance between our knowledge and the knowledge of the characters in the story. But that irony is eventually doubled back on the reader: Would we recognize Jesus as Son of God while He’s dying in anguish?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 at 8:45 am
Rikki Watts offers some other dimensions to the quotation from Mark 1:1. He notes that Mark is quoting not only from Isaiah 40, but also from Exodus 23 and Malachi 3, and shows how these three texts overlay each other in Mark’s presentation. Exodus 23 is a warning to Israel about the need to obey the “angel” or “messenger” of Yahweh who will lead them to the promised land, at which point Yahweh Himself will take over as the divine warrior who conquers the land and drives out the Canaanites. In Mark, the reference to Exodus 23 highlights Israel’s hope for a second exodus, and a new conquest, but this hope is given an ironic twist in Malachi 3.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 7, 2006 at 7:52 am
Marcus shows that Daniel 7, cited in Mark 14:62, is lurking behind the trial narrative as a whole. Daniel 7 tells about judgment being passed against the bestial empires in favor of the people of the saints of the most high, with the result that all dominion and power is given to the latter. Mark characteristically inverts this by alluding to this passage in the midst of a scene where Jesus is on trial, and where the bestial empires look healthy as can be. Yet, “Mark’s use of Daniel implies that in the long run it is Jesus’ judges who will be judged; they, who today are scandalized by him and his words, will be condemned by him when they see him coming with the clouds at the eschaton.” As John reported Jesus saying, the trial and cross of Jesus are ultimately the “judgment of this world” – not the judgment of Jesus the Judge who is judged before judging.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, January 19, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Marcus notes that Mark’s attention to Psalm 2 is not exhausted by quoting the words from heaven at Jesus’ baptism: “the whole series of pericopes in 1:9-11, 12-13, 14-15 reflects the basic ‘plot’ of the psalm, and its influence may extend further into Mark’s story. The enemy forces, concretizations of primeval chaos, array themselves against the Lord and against his anointed, shouting in defiance, ‘What have you to do with us?’ (see Mark 1:24) and throwing against them all their hostile might (see Ps. 2:1-3). The one enthroned in heaven, however, shrugs off this display of impotent rage and majestically brings forth his earthly executive, an executive whose purpose and power are so deeply congruent with his own that he can be called his son, and that the revelation of his kingship can simultaneously represent the earthly manifestation of the kingly power of God (see Ps. 2:4-7). In the continuation of Mark’s story, and beyond its end, this figure will shatter God’s enemies and be given worldwide dominion, receiving the nations for his inheritance and setting them on the road toward trust in God (see Ps. 2:8-11). Of course, this plot will be given a typical Markan twist by the fact that the scene of messianic victory will be the cross.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, January 19, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Joel Marcus’ study of Mark’s use of Scripture (The Way of the Lord, W/JK, 1992) begins with an illuminating discussion of the opening verses of the gospel. The quotation from Isaiah brings the whole of Isaiah’s second-exodus eschatology into play, with Jesus playing the role of the triumphant Yahweh leading His people on a conquest/procession toward Zion. The crucial twist comes later, when the way of the Lord is identified as the way to Jerusalem and to the cross.
Marcus summarizes: “The members of Mark’s community would easily read themselves into this portrait of the disciples on their way up to Jerusalem. Cued by the placement of the key HODOS ["way"] passage at the beginning of the Gospel and by the statement that the gospel was as Isaiah had prophesied it . . . , they would know that the subsequent HODOS passages were meant to be interpreted in the light of the first one, and hence that their own path of suffering and death was overlaid with the end-of-days picture of Yahweh’s march through the wilderness with his chosen people in tow. They would recognize, therefore, that the eschatological power of God was powerfully present among them even in their time of weakness, failure, suffering, and death. All appearances to the contrary, they would preceive, that their journey up to Jerusalem was a victory march of the divine warrior, casting down every obstacle as he made his triumphant way to Zion, causing the blind to see and the desert to bloom about him.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, January 19, 2006 at 12:39 pm
People often cling to familiar and comfortable things even when they know that clinging to the past will destroy them. Remember Lot?s wife: When fire falls from heaven and starts burning your town, that?s a strong hint it?s time to leave. Yet, Lot?s wife yearned for the doomed world she should have been leaving, and died with it.
The Jews of Jesus?Etime had same mentality, as fanatical as contemporary Muslim suicide bombers. The Romans were amazed at the Jews?Ebehavior during the Jewish War. One historian wrote that ?The Jews resisted [Titus] with more ardor than ever, as if it were a kind of windfall to fall fighting against a foe far outnumbering them, they were not overcome until a part of the Temple had caught fire. Then some impaled themselves voluntarily on the swords of the Romans, others slew each other, others did away with themselves or leaped into the flames. They all believed, especially at the last, that it was not a disaster but victory, salvation, and happiness to perish together with the temple.?E
Jesus instructed His disciples to act very differently. When the abomination of desolation appears where he should not be, Jesus says, it?s time to flee and leave everything behind. Jesus tells His disciples, mostly Jews, to put aside their instinctive loyalty to the temple, even though it?s the temple of Yahweh. They should instead take their stand with Jesus, the new temple of the living God, and leave the temple and Jerusalem to their fate.
These instructions are specific to the first-century Christians, but they also have multiple applications to us. Like the Jews of the first-century, we cling to old ways of doing things long after they should have been decently buried. Parents treat their teenage children like infants; a husband with children continues to live as if he is single; Christians remain in churches that have long ago abandoned any serious commitment to God?s Word; we go through the motions of a job that is no longer productive. Habit and comfort are strong motivations, and it is one of the most difficult things in the world to leave an old way of life behind and try something new. Yet, Jesus frequently calls His people to just that. As much as Jesus?Eoriginal disciples, we need to hear Jesus?Eexhortation, ?Those who are in Judea, flee to the mountains.?E
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, March 20, 2005 at 8:40 am
Destroy this Temple, Mark 13:1-37
THE KING RETURNS
Palm Sunday celebrates the king?s coming to His city. On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem, hailed as a king.
-He requisitions a donkey, claiming it as Lord: ?The Lord has need of it.?E
-The donkey has been tied and needs to be untied (Mark 11:2), an echo of the prophecy of Jacob about the king from the tribe of Judah: ?He ties his foal to the vine, and his donkey?s colt to the choice vine?E(Genesis 49:11).
-It is a donkey on which no one has ever sat (Mark 11:2), a donkey fit for a king, a donkey exclusively designated for the king?s use (cf. Esther 6:8).
-He rides on the donkey into the city of David, like Solomon going toward his coronation, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah about the entrance of the conquering and pacifying king: ?Rejoice greatly, O Daughter Zion; shout, O Daughter Jerusalem. Behold your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey?E(Zechariah 9:9).
-He is received as a king. The people spread a carpet of palm branches and garments in front of his way (Mark 11:8). They give Jesus the ?red carpet?Etreatment. When Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War, Clytemnestra lays out garments for the returning king to walk on, to keep him from staining his feet with dirt. They acclaim him as the king of the Jews: ?Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David?E(Mark 11:10).
The events of Palm Sunday are royal events from start to finish.
BATTLE IN THE TEMPLE
But, strangely to us, Jesus does not march into Jerusalem and make His way toward the palace. Instead, He arrives in Jerusalem and makes a beeline for the temple, and for the rest of his ministry the temple becomes His base of operations. He comes as a king, but heads straight for the priestly center of Israel, not the political center. And the temple is the location for the remainder of Jesus?Elife and work.
-According to Mark?s account, Jesus first enters the temple and inspects it on Palm Sunday itself (11:11), but then he withdraws to Bethany for the night.
-The next day He returns to the temple and begins to throw out the money changers and overturning the tables.
-Contrary to many popular interpretations of this passage, Jesus is not condemning trading, buying and selling, in the temple area as such. The law encouraged the development of a market in sacrificial animals around the temple. According to Deuteronomy 14:24-26, ?If the distance is so great for you that you are not able to bring the tithe, since the place where the LORD your God chooses to set His name is too far away from you when the LORD your God blesses you, then you shall exchange it for money, and bind the money in your hand and go to the place which the LORD your God chooses. You may spend the money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household.?E It was natural that a market would develop in the temple area where Jews could buy blemishless sacrificial animals.
-Nor is Jesus objecting to cheating and shifty dealing going on at the temple. He accuses the Jews of making the temple, the ?house of prayer for all nations,?Einto a ?robbers?Eden?E(11:17), but robbers do not cheat in their den. Robbers cheat and steal and do their violence elsewhere, and then retreat to the den for safety. This is how the Jews are treating the temple, as a safe haven where they can escape from the consequences of their sins.
-That Jesus means this is clear from the context of Jeremiah 7, the passage He is quoting: ?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. Do not trust in deceptive words, saying, ?This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.?EFor if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your own ruin, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ?We are delivered!?E?Ethat you may do all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,?Edeclares the LORD.?E Jesus symbolically enacts the coming destruction of the temple, when the sacrifices and operations of the temple will cease forever.
-More specifically, Jesus condemns the Jews of His day for their violent opposition to the Romans. The word for ?robber,?Eas N. T. Wright and others have pointed out, is a word for ?brigand?Eor even ?revolutionary.?E As in Jeremiah?s time, the Jews in Jesus?Eday foolishly and disobediently chafe under Gentile rule, plot revolutionary violence, and think that they can escape from the consequences of their actions by winning Yahweh?s favor in the temple. In our sermon text, Jesus warns that these hopes are futile, and that the Jews will ultimately fall precisely because of their false confidence in the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.
-Once Jesus pronounces His condemnation of the temple and its worshipers, He sets up shop in the temple, in the heart of Judaism. Over the course of the last week of His life, He wages a battle in the temple. He is not attempting to reform the temple. Things are too far gone already for that. He is announcing the temple?s destruction in both veiled and open ways, and He is acting in a way that provokes further response from the Jewish leaders. But He is showing the Jews, one last time, what the temple is for: It is to be a place of teaching, healing, salvation, and not a safe-house for brigands.
-He leaves the temple in the evening after His demonstration, but then he is back (11:27), and is challenged by the chief priests, scribes, and elders about his authority to do ?these things?E(v. 28), the things He has been doing in the temple. Jesus claims that His authority comes from John?s baptism, where the Father announced that He was the beloved Son. He has authority to take over the house of Yahweh because He is the heir, the Son. The parables and debates in Mark 12 also take place in the temple (11:27; 12:35; 12:41; 13:1).
-In the temple, surrounded by the jostling crowds gathering for Passover, He tells the tale of wicked vineyard tenants who are trying to seize the vineyard; He responds to the challenge concerning the poll-tax to Caesar; He responds to the Sadducees?Eunbelief; and He poses a conundrum from Psalm 110. The fact that Jesus speaks in parables is itself a sign of judgment, for it ensures that ?seeing they shall not see?Eand ?hearing they shall not understand.?E
-In the temple where scribes and chief priests walked and worked, He warns about ?scribes who like to walk around in long robes?Eand who seek ?respectful greetings in the market places?Eand who seek ?places of honor at banquets,?Ebut who meanwhile are preying on widows (12:38-40).
-Jesus spends the week making the temple a place of teaching and healing, a house of prayer for all nations, demonstrating what the temple could be, but also condemning the Jewish leaders for their sacrileges. Those leaders spend the week attempting to trap Jesus, trying to publicly humiliate Him, and finally plotting to kill Him. Throughout these debates and conflicts, Jesus emerges victorious, publicly embarrasses the scribes and priests, leads His opponents to fall into the traps that they set for Him, and earns their murderous hatred. Throughout, their response confirms His evaluation: They have turned the temple into a den of robbers, and Jesus?Eactions provoke them to attempt one climactic act of violence: the murder of Jesus.
-This may seem strange to us that Jesus would come as a King and then head to the temple. In biblical perspective, however, it is not strange at all. The temple of Yahweh was His palace, the seat of His throne. Jesus comes as the anointed of Yahweh, as Yahweh incarnate, and He comes to His house to challenge the stewards of His house to give an account of their actions. Further, the king of Israel was responsible for the upkeep and oversight of the temple; it was the king?s job to ensure that the temple was kept in good repair and was maintained properly. The battle in the temple is a battle about Jesus?Ekingship, about Yahweh?s kingship. In resisting and rejecting Jesus, the Jewish leaders are resisting and rejecting the One who has been set up as judge and ruler over them.
DESTROY THIS TEMPLE
-It is crucial to see that our sermon text is embedded in this context. The Olivet Discourse in Mark 13 thus does not come out of the blue.
-Jesus passed initial judgment on the temple by calling it a den of thieves. After a week of conflict and debate, He pronounces a more definitive judgment on the temple: It is doomed. Jesus has predicted this in various ways through riddles and stories and parables and ripostes. But in 13:1 we have the most dramatic sign that the temple is doomed: Jesus leaves it, and never returns. As in Ezekiel 8-11, the glory of God, incarnate glory, departs from the temple, leaving it empty and vulnerable to desolation.
-Though the passage is often interpreted as a prediction of the end of the world, the immediate and more distant context make it clear that Jesus is talking about something else.
-The fact that it comes at the end of a series of conflicts between Jesus and the Jewish leaders is a sign that it?s about the temple in Jerusalem.
-This sermon is Jesus?Eanswer to the question of the disciples about the timing and signs of the destruction of the ?wonderful buildings?Ethat made up the temple (13:1-4).
-He describes a series of events that will take place before ?this generation?Epasses away (v. 30).
-Everything in the sermon is about events that occur within the generation of the apostles. Jesus?Ewarnings and predictions are specifically directed at them.
-The disciples will be delivered to the courts, flogged in the synagogues, and taken before governors and kings (v. 9).
-Jesus promises the apostles that the Spirit will give them utterance when they are forced to testify (v. 11).
-Families will divide over Jesus during the first generation of the church (v. 12), and people will hate the apostles because of Jesus (v. 13).
-The warnings of verses 14-15 are even more clearly specific to the first century context: Jesus speaks of ?those who are in Judea,?Eand assumes people will be on their ?housetops.?E While many of the Jews will be fleeing to the city and temple for protection, Jesus urges His disciples to flee from the city. The whole passage deals with events within the lives of the apostles.
-Verses 24-27 are often seen as a problem for this interpretation of the passage, but when seen in biblical context they pose no problem at all.
-In verses 24-25, Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 13 and 34, both of which are prophecies about the end of an empire. Jesus is not talking about the end of the whole universe, but about the end of a particular earthly and historical order.
-Verse 27 contains a quotation from Daniel 7, which speaks of the Son of Man ascending to heaven on the clouds. Jesus says that the destruction of the temple will enable the Jews to ?see?Eor perceive that the Son of Man, Jesus, has been given all authority and power and dominion. The destruction of Jerusalem will be Jesus?Epublic vindication, proving that He was a prophet and more than a prophet.
- But there is another crucial dimension to Jesus?Eprophecy, one that helps us to see the depth of what Jesus is predicting. Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple, but we know from John 2 and other places in the NT that Jesus Himself is the temple. As Mark Horne has pointed out, His prediction of the destruction of the temple thus foreshadows His own arrest, sufferings, and death.
-Jesus predicts that the Jews will deliver the apostles to the courts (13:9); but first Jesus is delivered to the courts.
-Jesus predicts that the apostles will be ?flogged in the synagogues?E(13:9); but first Jesus is flogged (15:15).
-Jesus warns the disciples that they will stand before governors and kings to testify (13:9); but first Jesus stands before Pilate the governor (cf. Matthew 27:2, 11, 14-15, 21, 27) and before King Herod (cf. Luke 23:7ff.).
-Jesus tells the apostles to leave their cloaks behind them when they flee from the city (13:16); in Gethsemane, a young man flees without his cloak (14:51-52).
-Jesus predicts tribulation (13:19), and suffers tribulation, sorrow, and pain.
-Most dramatically, the apocalyptic imagery of 13:24-27 is literally fulfilled in the cross.
-After the days of tribulation, ?the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light?E(13:24). At the cross, ?when the sixth hour had come, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour?E(15:33).
-In the coming generation, ?the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken?E(13:25); at the death of Jesus, the temple veil, which symbolized the veil of the firmament dividing heaven and earth, was torn in two, rent like the heavens at Jesus?Ebaptism.
-When the temple falls, all will perceive that the Son of Man has received dominion from His Father (13:26). As Jesus dies, as the temple of His body is destroyed, a Gentile centurion confesses that Jesus was the Son of God (15:39).
-Even the Jews who mock Jesus on the cross recognize a connection with His temple predictions: ?Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuilt it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the cross!?E(15:29).
CONCLUSION
In short, Jesus?Esufferings and death are a first fulfillment of the prophecy about the destruction of the temple. In this we see the purpose of Jesus?Ework, His substitutionary sacrifice for the people of God.
-Israel has made the temple of God into a den of robbers, and that temple is going to be destroyed. But there is still hope, since Jesus offers Himself to destruction as a substitute temple, a temple destroyed and raised on the third day. Should the leaders of Israel respond in faith, they might yet be saved, and the vineyard might not be taken from them.
-But Jesus predicts that this will not happen. If they hate the Master, they will hate the disciples; if they flog and arrest and kill Jesus, they will flog and arrest and kill the disciples. And because they resist and reject the gospel as it comes through Jesus?Edisciples, the vineyard of God is taken from the tenants, the chief priests and scribes, and given to another, to the Son and His apostolic patriarchs. Because they do continue to trust in their temple of stone, rather than in the destroyed and raised temple of Jesus?Ebody, ?not one stone shall be left upon another which will not be torn down.?E
Though this chapter is about an event that happened nearly 2000 years ago, it is not irrelevant to us. We preach the same gospel, and it makes the same demands: Trust in nothing ?Eno religious institution, no heritage, no ethnicity ?Enothing but Jesus. We must be willing to abandon father and mother, land and inheritance, for the sake of the gospel. And the church?s triumph and advance still comes through her suffering; a new temple always arises, as it did at the beginning, from the rubble of the old. The king comes into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to announce and enact the destruction of the temple. Jesus demonstrates His kingship by destroying the temple. But even more pointedly, Jesus demonstrates His kingship by giving the temple of His body to destruction, and by erecting a new temple on the third day.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, February 19, 2005 at 11:30 am
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