The Withered Temple
In the New Testament, Christ consistently heals, forgives, and loves, at the cost of his own life. God offers himself as a sacrifice, so that we can be with Him in Heaven.
But If God is love and mercy, can He also be unforgiving and destructive? And how do the two not contradict each other? If all can be forgiven, are there terms and conditions?
In Matthew 12 we read: “Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the one to come.”
These words are said to the Pharisees who saw Christ heal the people coming to the Temple, yet they believed that He was performing these acts by the power of the devil. As a result, Christ delivers the woes to the pharisees, whom he calls hypocrites that are “like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
Christ’s anger is shown to those who were supposed to know God and follow His commandments. Yet these temple workers delude people and ask them to follow their legalistic ways of praying to God and are not performing God’s actual work. For them, God has no mercy or salvation, and will send them to eternal punishment.
The episode is preceded by Christ’s entrance into the temple when he cleanses it by chasing away the moneychangers.
This act can be considered revolutionary and filled with righteous anger. God comes down to Earth, shows the mortals why they are wrong, puts them in their place, and tells the hypocrite Pharisees and Sadducees that they’re going to be punished forever because they loved money and worldly rules more than Him.
One can feel that same Divine righteousness in the message of John the Baptist, and see how he was punished for speaking against the Jewish state and its order, as it was ruled by a sinful king. We can interpret that God is telling people to do the right thing, yet when they don’t follow through, they deserve to be punished.
How many times is it easier to talk to others about how they should listen and repent, or they will be eternally doomed like the temple workers who denied both Christ and The Forerunner? And when they do not listen, do we feel righteous in our solitude, by being “one voice crying out in the wilderness” – the one who is correct above others, the one who knows better than the rest, the one who is justified to be angry, as they do not listen to God, and therefore should be punished?
Christ’s cleansing of the Temple is eternally relevant:
How today we continue to see the dilution of the sacred into the unenlightened, impure mass of the profane.
How we allow concessions in the church to lure people in when they find some of the rules difficult to follow.
How some corrupt church individuals (who traded money, power, and influence) should’ve been put in jail and not be allowed to be at the altar.
All these things can turn one away from God and shape them into a self-righteous, self-loving idol-maker that uses God’s words for their shield and banner, yet inside they hide their lack of love for anyone except for those who agree with them.
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But let us read more in depth the chapters that show the cleansing of the temple – Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19, John 2. Each Gospel discusses this event, so it must be of some significance. But then we see that in Matthew and Mark’s Gospels another story is intertwined with this act – the cursing of the fig tree…
We try to understand this other act of seemingly random unforgiveness. If, in the cleansing of the Temple, the Gentile merchants (who were making profits for the Pharisees and Sadducees) were rightfully removed from a holy place so that it’s no longer a den of thieves, the fig tree appears to be cursed because it did not have any fruit, and Christ was simply hungry. This latter act seems selfish and childish in comparison.
One event talks about the desacralization of the most holy site in Jerusalem, another one looks like the whim of a pagan god. So why should the two be connected?
Throughout the Bible, the fig tree represents the nation of Israel, as well as prayer and its fruit. In the New Testament we see Christ telling Nathanael “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you”, meaning that Christ saw him in spirit, because he was in prayer, and because of the fruit of his prayer, when Nathanael met Christ, he was called to be one of His apostles.
In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel is identified with Ephraim, as it was considered God’s firstborn, and refers to the leading tribe of the northern kingdom of Israel. The name means “being fruitful” and was given to Joseph’s son in Egypt. In Jeremiah 31 we hear that: “At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.” […] I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son.”
Despite being favored by God, Ephraim is cursed by the Prophet Hosea due to Israel’s fall into idolatry by saying (Hosea 9):
“When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.
But when they came to Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol and became as vile as the thing they loved.
Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird — no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.
Even if they rear children, I will bereave them of every one. Woe to them when I turn away from them!
I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place.
But Ephraim will bring out their children to the slayer.”
Give them, LORD — what will you give them?
Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that are dry.
“Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal, I hated them there.
Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house.
I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious.
Ephraim is blighted, their root is withered, they yield no fruit.
Even if they bear children, I will slay their cherished offspring.”
My God will reject them because they have not obeyed him; they will be wanderers among the nations.”
The fig tree then symbolizes our two daily options: to be like Nathanael and pray to God, and walk with Him as His apostle, bearing the fruits of prayer, or to worship false idols and become cursed and blighted like the nation of Israel.
In a simple gesture, Christ, on his way to cleanse the Temple, gives his followers a reminder of Hosea and sets the stage for the universality of His message.
As He enters and removes the moneychangers, the purpose of His act, and of the Temple is revealed – to be filled with the Holy Spirit, which allows those who need to be with God to return and be cured (those who until now were barred due to the materialism and worldly legalism of the Temple workers).
Immediately after Christ berates the moneychangers, the former den of robbers is now filled with those who need God – the blind and the lame, as well as the children who know Him and shout: “Hosanna to the Son of David”. Those seeking God, are restored in Him, and those who recognize God, proclaim Him.
Yet the Pharisees indignantly say that Jesus Christ is not God, but that He is performing these “magical” acts of healing because He is possessed by a demon. Despite the evidence in front of their eyes, they choose to fight Him, and later kill Him.
Christ tells the temple workers that they may speak against Him, as they are just starting to know Him. He also tells them when the blind man is healed and recognizes Jesus as Lord, that because they say that they see, that their sins remain.
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How can this happen from those who were at the most important site of Judaism, who know the laws, who read the Scripture, who perform the works of the Temple?
How do they not see the work of the Holy Spirit, and believe that it is a demon working through Christ?
The first 4 commandments regard the love for God. How could one blaspheme God if they loved Him?
If you did know God – the Father and His Spirit (since the Jews were still learning about Christ), then you would love Him with all your heart, not put yourself above Him by making an idol of yourself (or anything else), and not take His name in vain. You would also keep his Sabbath holy – and understand that restoration from God by healing on a Sabbath, is not breaking the 4th commandment.
A man that does not blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is the one who understands His work in our world. He can see how God moves in and around us, he marvels at His works, and his heart is filled with the joy of knowing God. But a man that despairs because he doesn’t know God, will slowly harden his heart towards the Holy Spirit and replace the temple of God with his own palpable idols.
If our body was once the Temple of the Holy Spirit, we now chase Him away and replace Him with the statues we built for ourselves.
In God’s Temple, on His altar we are called to bring a sacrifice of righteousness. “A broken heart God will not despise”, because through those cracks, God can pour itself into and fill us with the Holy Spirit, so that we again might commune with Him through Christ.
God forgives almost every transgression, but when we reject His help and call Him demonic instead of divine, then we cannot be forgiven.
In our world we love ourselves, we praise ourselves, and we seek the comfort of the adulations we would receive from those around us. We build a sterile temple, that does not give alms to anyone, but takes from everywhere around us to raise the statues of our own idols. Pride binds the mortar for those statues being lifted high above the altars where we sacrifice our time, soul, and gifts, in a constant burning of our energy focused on consuming the world to aggrandize ourselves. We turn away from God and harden our hearts toward Him as our act of blasphemy.
The temple to our ego is a tall pillar of salt, that absorbs all water from around it and withers the earth around it, where nothing can grow. Our idols require constant maintenance, and for others to bring them offerings, into a never-ending race towards plus-infinity.
In contrast, the temple of the Holy Spirit is described as a well from which springs eternal life, as rivers of living water.
Oh, how that well can open and swallow that pillar whole… how those living waters can overflow the barren land and let every speck rejoice in being filled with God…
God gives us everything, and we are asked to be like Him and give everything in return by following His commandments – Love Him and Love our neighbor as ourselves. Give to God and give to our neighbor. Forgive our neighbor so that we can be forgiven. Grow the fruits of the spirit inside us, to share them with those in need, so that they, by seeing God work through us, that they might Glorify our Father who is in Heaven.
But if our actions touch nobody, we do not bear fruit in the Spirit. We cannot nourish the God in our neighbor that is hungry, and God will reject us, wither our root, and slay our “cherished offspring” – meaning anything that we consider of value that we create, yet that is not aligned with God or given to God as worship.
In one’s love for righteousness, we look outwards – at the temple workers, at the people of Israel, everyone receiving what can be considered just punishment. And how sweet is to feel that you are on the right side of history, and that only you can see things correctly, like God…
And how deluded that is… And how, like a money changer, how many people we keep away from the Temple…
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The role of adding the fig tree to the act is not only to remind us of the nation of Israel, which was given many chances, and yet now is left blighted, as Christ preaches the Gospel to the entire world. It is not about the fact that the Gentiles who know Christ and follow the church correctly will be saved by God – that brings us back to the same delusion that kept the Pharisees and Sadducees from seeing Jesus as the Messiah. The role of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple is to allow us to understand that God asks us to be fruitful through our Spirit.
Each one of us is the whitened sepulcher by not being filled with God, but with our ego.
If my temple is for my idols, there is no room for God. I peddle God like the Pharisees on the outside, but inside the temple is withered of the Holy Spirit.
My acts are for my own purpose and glory. I attract light to myself, instead of letting my light so shine before men, that they may see my good works, and glorify my Father which is in heaven. Because inside me there is no light, as the light can only come from God.
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
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In partaking of the Eucharist, Christ can be joy and healing for those who are in Him, “discerning the Lord’s body”, or can be judgement, sickness, and death to those who are unworthily approaching the cup.
By being in Him, we are thankful “to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word; but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”
The final verses from Christ’s woe to the Pharisees completes the message He delivers regarding salvation or eternal damnation:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say,
‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
We are called to be in Christ, and by doing so, performing only God’s will. As we clean our temple and allow the Holy Spirit to fill it and restore it, we become His sons, who are coming in His name.