God’s House of Prayer–XME (part 3 of 5)

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• on September 15, 2012
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God’s House of Prayer—Extreme Makeover Edition (part 3 of 5)

House of Prayer in Jesus’ Day

The idea of God’s house being a house of prayer announced by Isaiah still applied in Jesus’ day.  However, it had been compromised.

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” Matthew 21:12–13 (ESV)

Jesus reiterates that His Father’s house is a house of prayer (Mark adds the phrase from Isaiah, “for the nations,” while Luke omits it in line with Matthew.)  In emphatic fashion He rebukes the religious leaders (who ultimately were responsible for temple activities) for making it a den of robbers.

In so doing, Jesus establishes two things.  One, the identity and purpose of His Father’s house still stands.  Two, the religious leaders of the day had high jacked God’s house for their own purposes.

With Jesus’ castigation ringing in our ears, it profits us to pause for personal assessment.   Have we made Christ’s church, the temple of God’s Spirit, something other than what our God intends?  Have we commandeered it for our own ends and even our own glory? I am mindful of John Bunyan’s stinging insight in his book The Holy War:

(Lucifer’s strategy) Mr. Sweet-world and Mr. Present-good are two men of civility and cunning.  Let those engaged in this business for us, and let Mansoul be taken with much business, and if possible with much pleasure and this is the way to get ground of them.  Let us but cumber and occupy and amuse Mansoul sufficiently, and they will make their castle a warehouse for goods instead of a garrison for men of war.

Today the church triumphant has been substituted for the church militant by the caprice of church leaders for its consumers.  In like fashion, we may be guilty of making the church a business venture or religious social club or an ecclesiastical YMCA with its family programming offerings.

Returning to take stock of the concept in Jesus’ day, we gain some sense of what God has in mind by house of prayer.   The Synoptic Gospels include Jesus’ comment after the Triumphal Entry, connecting it to His messianic identity and mission.  There is some variation in order as Matthew includes Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree after the cleansing of the temple, while Mark inserts the cleansing between Jesus’ lesson of the fig tree.  Luke does not relate the incident with the fig tree, instead recording the temple cleansing after Jesus’ weeping over Jerusalem and His announcing the destruction of the temple because of the people’s apostasy.

The common theme seems to be failure to live up to expectations, God’s expectations.  The barren fig tree stands symbolic of a failed Jewish leadership, a failed city to be holy, a failed temple.  God’s prophetic word had been violated. His intention dismissed.  His purpose for His house exchanged for man’s (shades of satanic machination).  The fruitless fig tree symbolizes the failure of the first covenant and its centerpiece, the temple and sacrificial system.

John differs from the Synoptics in his Gospel account by not making mention of Isaiah’s prophecy regarding a house of prayer. However, he does quote Jesus in asserting that the temple had been made a den of thieves, carrying echoes of Jesus’ rebuke for deviation from God’s purpose for the temple.

John’s reference occurs at the beginning of his Gospel and holds unique aspects.  One, John comments from Ps. 69:9 that “zeal for the Father’s house” would consume Jesus.  Two, John quotes Jesus as referring to Himself as the temple that would be destroyed and raised up, making Himself the house of prayer that would be raised up and restored to God’s purpose and realized in fulfillment.  By “zeal” it seems (negatively) that Jesus would not countenance man’s violation of His Father’s purpose for His house, and (positively) that God has plans remaining in place.   Jesus spoke most stridently (in righteous anger) when protecting the Father’s glory against those who would revile His name and scorn His purpose.

So Jesus’ day brings correction, reaffirmation, transition and fulfillment.  He sets the stage for what He would want His church to be and to do as a house of prayer for the sake of His kingdom.

NEXT: Part 4 of 5, “New Covenant House of Prayer”