PT-1 "He Showed He Was on A Divine Mission" (Matt. 21:12a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/9/2023 9:40 AM

 

My Worship Time                                Focus:  PT-1 “He Showed He Was On A Divine Mission”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 21:12a

 

            Message of the verse:  “And Jesus entered the temple”

 

            When I was listening to the sermon by John MacArthur that goes along with this section he mentioned that some ancient manuscripts of Matthew contain the words “of God” after the temple, and that reading would seem to be authentic.  “As R. C. H. Lenski has commented, ‘The temple of God is never used in the New Testament as a phrase anywhere but here, so it seems unlikely that some scribe would put it in.  But if you understand what Jesus is about to do, it makes sense in the world that [Matthew] would have affirmed that this was the temple of God when he is about to describe the utter ungodliness of its activities.’ Still, the phrase ‘of God’ adds nothing to the basic teaching of the passage, because the temple in Jerusalem obviously belonged to the God of the Jews.  But those two words do serve to sharpen the focus and intensify the emphasis, by highlighting the fact that Jesus was dealing with the holy earthly symbol of the presence of His heavenly Father.”

 

            I have to say that learning that the phrase “The temple of God” is not found anywhere in the New Testament was kind of a shock to me, but I suppose that because of the fact that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead is now on earth then that phrase would not be needed, but it does seem to me that it would be proper to be here in this verse because the people inside the temple of God were using it for anything but worship, and I am speaking of the Jewish leaders as we will see that the poor people were worshiping there in the temple as when Jesus runs all the “elite” out the temple the poor still stay because they were doing nothing wrong.  I will talk more about that in a later SD.

 

            I have talked recently about what most of the Jewish people were looking for in their Messiah, and that would be a military Messiah who could come in and take care of Rome, and so if Jesus was that military Messiah, [which He will be when He returns as seen in Rev. 19] then He would have gone to the main Roman garrison at Forth Antonius.  However He did not do that and this does make perfect sense as Jesus came to the Jewish temple of God and attacked the people who were in there as He will throw them out of there because they are treating the temple of God in a very sinful way.  They were using it to make money by selling animals and changing foreign money into Jewish money.

 

            John MacArthur agrees with me or should I say I agree with him as he writes “At His second coming He will indeed make right the injustices and inequities that plague mankind.  But before He comes again as King of kings and Lord of lords to establish His glorious millennial kingdom and to resolve all the conflicts of fallen mankind, He first had to come as Savior to establish His spiritual kingdom within those who trust in Him.

 

            Lord willing we will continue to look at this subject in our next SD.

6/9/2023 10:00 AM