Cleansing the Temple
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wicked purpose, and do unto him what they listed, from that day forth
sacrificial offerings, and the services connected with them, would be
valueless in the sight of God, for type would have met antitype in the
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perfect offering of the Son of God.
The whole priesthood was established to represent the mediatorial
character and work of Christ; and the entire plan of sacrificial worship
was a foreshadowing of the death of the Saviour to redeem the world
from sin. There would be no more need of burnt-offerings and the
blood of beasts when the great event toward which they had pointed
for ages was consummated. The temple was Christ’s; its services and
ceremonies referred directly to him. What then must have been his
feelings when he found it polluted by the spirit of avarice and extortion,
a place of merchandise and traffic!
When Christ was crucified, the inner vail of the temple was rent in
twain from top to bottom, which event signified that the ceremonial
system of the sacrificial offerings was at an end forever, that the one
great and final sacrifice was made in the Lamb of God, slain for the
sins of the world.
In the defilement and cleansing of the temple we have a lesson for
this time. The same spirit that existed among the Jews, leading them
to substitute gain for godliness, and outward pomp for inward purity,
curses the Christian world today. It spreads like a defiling leprosy
among the professed worshipers of God. Sacred things are brought
down to a level with the vain matters of the world. Vice is mistaken for
virtue, and righteousness for crime. Temporal business is mingled with
the worship of God. Extortion and wicked speculation are practiced by
those who profess to be servants of the Most High. Said the inspired
apostle, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit
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of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him
shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”
It is necessary that Jesus should occupy his temple in the human heart
every day, and cleanse it from the defilement of sin.
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