NOTES for Joh 2:16

It often happens in religious life like this: a certain tradition has formed, no one knows when and no one knows why; it has taken firm root, entered common use, and becomes more unshakable than those traditions about which everything is known and whose spiritual soundness need not be doubted. And the tradition is often not simply less than successful, but even directly contradicts the norms of the Torah or the Gospel. Such was trading in the courtyard of the Jerusalem Temple: it contradicted the Torah directly and unambiguously, had arisen God knows when, but no one encroached on it; so firmly did the false authority of a false tradition support a bad custom.

Still, as usually happens in such cases, convenience and profit supported the bad tradition more than authority did. The convenience of those who came to the Temple from afar and could buy everything necessary right there, in the temple courtyard. The profit of those who were ready and glad to sell it to them, as usual, for more than the same thing sold for in the city markets of Jerusalem. And the violation of the Torah became customary.

It would seem a small thing: in the Temple of the Gospel era there were so many courts that several small markets could have fit there without harming the sacrifices themselves. But Jesus does not treat this "small thing" as a small thing at all. For Him everything is absolutely serious. If it is the house of God, then it is the house of God. To the end. Without compromises. Without appeals to a bad tradition that contradicts the Torah. Without regard to convenience and profit.

And the point here is not some special legalistic harshness in Him, not some rigorism; there is nothing of the kind in Him. The point is that He understands: in spiritual life, and in life generally, there are no small things. Not because God is petty, but because any compromise spiritually divides a person. And serving two masters, as the Savior says, is a path with no future. In the Kingdom there is only one King: He Himself, appointed to this Kingdom by His heavenly Father.

And there, in the life of the Kingdom, there can be no compromises. Simply because it is always life in fullness. To the maximum. As much as one can contain, but without discounts and without indulgences. Otherwise one will not be able to live in the Kingdom. That means those who seek the Kingdom had better not grow used to compromises, at least so that later they will not have to break the habit, slowly and perhaps painfully. As one sometimes painfully gets rid of bad habits and traditions that have entered flesh and blood and common use, that are easy to introduce but not so easy to get rid of afterward.