The Bible Edge
Everyone needs an Edge, Believers can have a Bible Edge
John 2:15
And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;
In this telling of the first “cleansing of the Temple” a valuable lesson is to be learned. Herein is a wonderful example of the Lord using something physical to teach a spiritual truth. The overthrowing of the tables, the pouring out of the changers money, the driving out of the flocks of sheep and oxen, even the scourge of small cords, are all physical. The temple itself is physical; according to John 2:20 it took 46 years to build this temple. But, Jesus said he would destroy it and raise it up again in three days.
To those who heard this it was an impossible thing. Destroy a building and rebuild it in three days when it took them 46 years to build? The thing they didn’t understand is that Jesus was using a physical building to teach a spiritual truth. We know today, because of the balance of the Scriptures that the Lord was not talking about tearing down and rebuilding the physical structure, but rather His body. Herein He likens His body to the temple. Verse 21 makes this clear, But he spake of the temple of his body.
He did the same thing several times, meaning using the physical to teach a spiritual truth. Consider John 6:53 where the Lord said: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. He is not speaking literally, but rather spiritually. He used something physical, something they could relate to, something that was so unheard of and socially unacceptable to teach a spiritual truth. Earlier in this chapter of John, verse 48, the Lord said: I am that bread of life. Again, a physical thing is used to teach a spiritual truth. Many in that day did not, could not, would not, understand, so, as it is recorded in John 6:66: From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. The spiritual truth of Christ was too much for them.
So, it was also with many when He cleansed the temple and taught about the spiritual temple of His body. But when He arose from the dead they believed. That is His believers believed. After all, that is what His believers do, they believe all things concerning Him as found in the Bible. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. (John 2:22) Today, we may not understand all that Jesus said, especially about the prophecies of the end time. But when it happens, then His believers will remember and believe. The Bible edge today is not about money, it is about the wealth of knowledge that can be gained by understanding that sometimes the physical is showing us the spiritual. The things that can be seen are used to teach us things that cannot be seen.
William T. Howe, Ph.D.
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