Posted on 07/01/2013 11:04:50 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
“Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables” (John 2:15).- John 2:13-17
Clearly, there are some things that are right for the Lord to do that are not right for us to do. For example, because He is the Creator and sovereign of the universe, it is right for the Almighty to demand worship from His creation. However, though we are made in His image, Scripture tells us we are not to do the same. It is evil for a man to demand others worship him or anyone besides Yahweh (Ex. 20:3).
The Father and the Son get angry (Ps. 7:11–13; Rev. 14:14–20), and since God can do no wrong (James 1:13), we know anger is not evil in itself. But is it ever right for us to be angry? Christ’s anger answers the question in the affirmative. God the Son came in the flesh to be the second Adam and earn righteousness for His people. If Jesus had sinned, He could not have earned this righteousness, nor could He have been the lamb without blemish and turn away the Lord’s wrath toward sinners. The incarnate Christ never sinned (1 Peter 2:22), and so He proved His righteousness.
If Jesus never sinned, and if, as a man, He got angry, then we know there are times when men and women can rightly be angered. Jesus’ holy anger is best seen in His cleansing of the temple, which is related in today’s passage. Every year, Jews from around the world traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover because they were only allowed to offer the sacrifice at the temple (Deut. 16:1–8). It was impractical and expensive to bring the animal to be sacrificed, and so it was possible to buy lambs, oxen, and so on in the city. Money changers would set themselves up in the city, along with those who sold animals, in order to facilitate this process.
In Jesus’ day, these sellers set themselves up in the court of the Gentiles, where the nations came to pray. Thus, they barred access to the God-fearers who came to worship Yahweh. Also, the money-changers charged exorbitant rates for currency exchange and price-gouging occurred in selling the animals. These practices insulted the Lord by its exploitation of the poor (Prov. 14:31). Thus, Jesus rightly expelled these merchants from the temple in order to restore God’s house to a place where all could worship (John 2:15–16).
Today’s study helps us understand there are two things that make God especially angry. First, the merchants blocked the Gentiles from learning about and worshiping the Lord, and today we can legalistically impose regulations not found in Scripture that can inhibit the spread of the Gospel. Second, God will not countenance any who exploit or overlook the needs of the poor. May we enjoy freedom in Christ, help the poor, and thereby please our Father.
Isa. 10:1–4
Luke 14:12–14
Gal. 5:2–6
Rev. 22:18–19
What else do the Scriptures tell us about the temple? Who made them the center of Jewish religious life? Why are they important?
One challenge many Christians have is understanding the temple/tabernacle. Jesus Christ of the New Testament is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. He makes the temple the focus of Israel's religious life. Why?
Take a look at the Hebrew for temple/tabernacle and the verses where God asks for one.
Why does Jesus Christ clean out the temple twice? Read the Greek words for temple and the verses in which Christ speaks of it. Many Christians think that Christ made the temple his place of teaching because it is the focus of Jewish life, but the opposite is true. Christ loves and teaches in the temple because he made it the focus of life.
What? You can't read Matthew 21:13 for yourself? (where Jesus quoted the reason?)
Jesus cited Isaiah 56:7 and said: “‘My house will be called a house of prayer...’
The temple was designed to be "a house of prayer" -- not the Mormon superimposed Mormon temple version of necro-baptisms, marriage & generational religious rites (sealings), etc.
Do you really think Jews baptized the dead in those temples? Or had children "sealed" to them?
Actually, Jesus took the Pharisees' misUSE of the temple, and re-focused it from the man-made temple being the key...to the divine temple Himself!
John 2: 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” 20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body.
Because lds do NOT understand that we weep, our Spirit cries, which is why we expose mormonISM.
Drat! An Ecum thread!
How am I going to be able to point out HERESY in here - an “I’ll ignore your religion’s/sect’s/cult’s faults if you’ll ignore mine.”?
Utter nonsense and not Biblical. You can pray anywhere and Israel has. Check God's own words in Ex. 25:8 or John 2:16.
You're taking the verses out of context, per usual. Recall that the Pharisees and Chief Priests of that day demanded a miracle to prove the authority of Jesus Christ to act in his Father's House, clearing them out. He then explained his coming death and resurrection. That incensed them as their apostate status had lost the truth by that time. They were utterly bling to the truth that stood clear as the sun before them.
But the temple he had spoken of [in that particular case] was his body. At other times spanning the OT and the NT he was referring to His Father’s House or Dwelling.
What he was reorienting the remnant of Israel on was the importance of the living Messiah, not their dead practices in the temple which by their own actions, lack of authority and loss of knowledge they’d desecrated. They wanted to shut God’s mouth, but lacked the authority and power to do so.
The Christian expectation is in the least a steady state of apostasy. That’s the entire story of the Bible from start to finish. We live in a world of lost knowledge.
We shouldn't forget that Almighty God DID use many words to describe Himself in Holy Scripture - though it would be foolish to imagine it was exhaustive. We wouldn't know anything at all about Him had He not. Jesus also gave us insight into the nature of the Father and the eternal Godhead as well as His plans for His creation. So, whatever words we use to describe God can be those words He used and the thoughts those words and names provide us helps enormously to give us a firm enough understanding of Him so that we desire to follow and obey Him once He has opened our eyes and hearts to His reality.
Jesus answers Philip with a sort of Physics lesson, telling Philip that all he can see of God The Father Almighty is what Philip and the others could see of God in Jesus. Put in modern meaning, Jesus told Philip that he was not able to see that which is beyond his sensing abilities, so where God intersected Philips sensing abilities is the only place where Philip can see and sense God directly.
Jesus was telling Philip that He, Jesus, was God with them and all they could see of The Father Almighty was where He intersects their senses, The Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in The Father.
Mormonism apologetics is based upon seeking to sow doubt as to the truth and authenticity of the Bible, and into this doubt they then try to inject their blasphemies and deceptions, just as this 1010 poster is trying to do. The Bible contains passages where the three in one nature of God is illustrated for us, without saying 'this, 1010rd, is evidence of God in three persons being One not a troika as Joseph Smith asserted blasphemously.'
In fact, in our day with our greater understanding of the Physics of the Universe can better comprehend the triune nature of the One God because of our knowledge. The following is my feeble effort to illustrate this more to the point ability:
The One God evidences Himself in the work He is doingThe following will be 'a way' to understand the notion of the trinitarian nature of the Deity, not a strictly Biblical explanation, but one which is applicable to the teaching of the Bible. Here goes:
God The Father Almighty is greater than His creation, thus greater than dimension time and dimension space, thus we may think of The Father Almighty as beyond time and space but not prevented from touching and indeed penetrating His creation.
The universe of space and time is likened to a bubble: what is inside the bubble is in time and space. But the nature of what is inside the bubble is only partially understood in modern Physics.
The Bible relates scenes which defy our simplistic notions, but let us make the statement that God The Father Almighty is as comfortable outside the bubble of our spacetime as He is inside the bubble.
Modern Physics has discovered that the balance of forces and tensions sustaining the universe necessary for human life to arise within the universe is extremely delicate, on the order of a mathematical improbability, represented as a 'one in less than' fraction so tiny that a one over a one followed by more than one-hundred zeros [1 / 1x10100] defines the probability that the whole thing remains in balance! Such a delicate balancing act is but one of the continuing 'works' of the Holy Spirit of God. It is by the Spirit of God, The Word, that the universe came into existence and it is said in the Bible that by His Spirit the whole is maintained.
But the Bible also states that The Word was with God in the beginning and was God. In John's gospel we find that Jesus is The Word made flesh Who dwelt among us. So, inside the bubble Created by The Father Almighty, sustained by God The Holy Spirit, is the Word, God made flesh Who dwelt among us. The Creator does not stop being greater than His creation bubble, nor does His Spirit cease to sustain it all in balance, when Jesus comes in the flesh to dwell among us.
When one reads the Tanakh/Old Testament, one finds scenes like the fifth chapter of Daniel where a being is in one spacetime 'where/when' reaching into another 'where/when' to write on the palace party central wall of king Belshazzar. Just the forearm/hand is seen in the where/when of Belshazzar and the party folks, the rest of the being remains in 'another' where/when.
God The Father Almighty created this 'other' where/when, His Holy Spirit maintains its balance and separateness from our where/when, and Jesus has moved in and out of this other where/when: as shown when He resurrected from the tomb without rolling away the stone, just passing out of the tomb where/when, into 'another' where/when; then back into our where/when as He spoke to the women come to the sepulchre; and when He appeared in a locked and shuttered room with the disciples present; or appeared suddenly with the disciples walking on a road and broke bread with them then left our where/when to go to the 'other' where/when.
The trinitarian nature of God is shown in the Bible, even in the Tanakh. Trinity IS the nature of God as we have been given to know. Even in the Old Testament/Tanakh, we do have instruction on the Three nature of God as Creator, Sustainer, and Deliverer. God Is manifested as three yet one, seen identified by the 'work' He is doing/'action' He is taking.
With each manifestation, we are given to realize His presence simultaneously as Creator--because we exist in the realm He created, as Sustainer--because the balance is too delicate to stand alone without His sustaining the separation and interdependence, and as God with us in the person of Jesus our Lord and Savior.
The usual response from Mormonism apologists when I post that essay is 'so why would God pray to Himself as when Jesus prayed to The Father?' That is changing the subject and seeking to confuse the issues at hand n order to stop the realization of what it means that God is One yet manifesting in three identities based upon what He is 'doing'. Mormonism began with abject rejection of Christianity and evolved into a cult seeking to be accepted as the most accurate form of Christianity. To do this the ism apologists work to sow doubts and their deceptions and twists of scripture.
Utterly nonsensical. A holy place is a specially set-aside place. The temple was such a "set aside" for prayer -- and not just any type of intercession...but intercession for ALL NATIONS...
The same "ALL NATIONS" Jesus' Great Commission focused on discipling (Matthew 28:18-20) -- a little bit AFTER that Matthew 21 comment...
And, in citing that Matthew verse -- where Jesus cited part of Isaiah 56:7--isn't taking that out context at all: all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—7 these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
The context there begins talking about the Holy Sabbath, yet another "set aside" -- done on a weekly basis.
Besides. Your Johnny-come-lately Mormon superimposition is an anachronism:
And for LOTS of reasons:
* You can marry a couple anywhere and Christians -- and Jews -- have been. (You don't need a Mormon temple to do it; and the Jews didn't do it, either...neither did the Book of Mormon characters...Even the early Mormons did that all thruout the 1830s!)
* You can also perform ALL baptismal rites outside of the temple (You don't need a Mormon temple to do it -- even for "the dead"...hey...just dig up the corpses @ your local cemetery, 1010, & immerse them yourself if you're so eager to "Mormonize" the dead!)
* 1010...they also didn't have "temple recommends" back then, now did they?
* Lastly, go back to the "house of prayer for ALL NATIONS"...including Gentiles!
Yeah...here the temple was intercession for the Gentiles...and here Mormon temples have signs that effectively say, "No trespassing! Gentiles, keep out!"
I look at the entry for "temple" found on pp. 451-452. Per this source, the Helaman and Alma references are to "unholy temples."
That leaves only three Book of Mormon books that references "temple"...2 Nephi 5:16, Jacob 1:17; 2:2; and 3 Nephi 11:1; 24:1...the last one is about the Lord coming to his temple...The first one is about a temple being built...3 Nephi 11:1 is about being around a temple...which leaves only the book of Jacob telling anybody what was done in a temple...Jacob 1:17 says teaching was going on there...and the word of God was declared in the temple in Jacob 2:2...
That, my friend, is the full extent of Book of Mormon teachings on the temple!
If Mormonism is some "restoration" of what they were doing in BoM times, then where did all of this ritualism come from???
And why all these Lds temple ceremony ritualistic changes (Why change something supposedly revealed 'directly from Mormon god?')
WHY does lds need to change the Bible?
Poor old Joe Smith might have fabricated Mormonism differently had he been able to read that little book.
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. - John 8:58
As soon then as he had said unto them, I am [he], they went backward, and fell to the ground. – John 18:6
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. - Revelation 1:8
As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pities his children, so the LORD pities them that fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103:12-14)
Then they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another: and the LORD listened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought on his name. And they shall be mine, said the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him. (Malachi 3:16-17)
For the LORD will not cast off for ever: But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. (Lamentations 3:31-33)
The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. (Psalm 145:8,9)
It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is your faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, said my soul; therefore will I hope in him. (Lamentations 3:22-24)
Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 9:23,24)
“Decades ago I read a little book”
Try reading the Bible instead of the opinions of men.
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