NOTES for Joh 2:13-25

Advocates of violence like to invoke the expulsion of the merchants from the Temple to justify their claims about “the need to restore order by force.” But let us note that Christ did not go to the Temple with instruments of punishment. He fashioned the whip there from cords, material at hand, since a whip is used to drive cattle. There is not a single mention of His striking even one of the people whose tables He overturned. His restoration of order in the Temple courtyard was neither a pogrom nor violence that led to disorder and physical injuries. Let us also remember that Jesus was never accused of violence in the Temple; it was not charged against Him even at His trial before the Sanhedrin. He possessed from above the right to restore order, something no advocate of a “strong hand” can claim for himself.

It is probably no accident that immediately after recounting this event the evangelist says that Jesus Himself knew what was in man, and He saw for what purpose a person was in the Temple. A place of prayer can, after all, be turned into a place for gaining practical benefit even without trade in the literal sense...

He did not need human testimony. It is we who need His testimony about the purity of our intentions.