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Was Christ Unjustly Angry in Clearing the Temple? LIVE Q&A for May 29, 2025

Was Christ Unjustly Angry in Clearing the Temple?

From Jill:

I’ve always wondered about the anger Jesus had when he cleared the temple. I understand what He said about “My temple should be a house of prayer but you have made it a den of thieves.” I don’t understand the violence- and anger.

John 2 – First cleansing of the temple

13-17: Jesus drives out the moneychangers and sellers of sacrificial animals.

Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the moneychangers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”

The Passover of the Jews was at hand: Jerusalem would be crowded with thousands of visitors coming at Passover. The templemount would be particularly crowded, and Jesus saw many doing business in the outer courts of the temple.
“The very fact of the market being held there would produce an unseemly mixture of sacred and profane transactions, even setting aside the abuses which would be certain to be mingled with the traffic.” (Alford)
The moneychangers doing business: “Astonishing as it may sound, it is likely that as many as two and a quarter million Jews sometimes assembled in the Holy City to keep the Passover.” (Barclay) According to Barclay, they all had to pay the temple tax, which was the equivalent of about two days wages for a working man – but had to be paid in the special temple coin. This is why the moneychangers did so much business.
When He had made a whip of cords: When Jesus drove those doing business out of the temple courts, He did not do it in a flash of anger. He carefully took the time to make a whip of cords, and thought carefully about what He would do.
Curiously, some commentators are confident that Jesus used the whip of cords only upon the animals, and others are confident that He used it upon both men and animals. Nevertheless, the sense is much more a display of Jesus’ authority than violence.
He drove them all out… poured out the changers’ money and overturned tables: Those doing business in the outer courts of the temple spoiled the only place where Gentiles could come and worship. This area (the court of the Gentiles) was made into a house of merchandise.
Remember that cleansing was part of the Passover celebration. Removing every speck of anything leavened (made with yeast) from the home was a symbol, a picture, of cleansing from sin.
Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up: The disciples remembered this line from Psalm 69:9 and connected it to the zeal Jesus had for the purity of God’s house and worship practiced there. The emphasis is on zeal, not anger – but the ideas are connected.

Mark 11 – Second cleansing of the temple

15-19: The temple cleansed.

So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought how they might destroy Him; for they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His teaching. When evening had come, He went out of the city.

Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple: The temple area was filled with profiteers who worked in cooperation with the priests and robbed the pilgrims by forcing them to purchase approved sacrificial animals and currencies at inflated prices.
Every Jewish male had to pay a yearly temple tax – an amount equaling about two days’ pay. It had to be paid in the currency of the temple, and the money exchangers made the exchange into temple money at outrageous rates.
Those who bought and sold in the temple: They did this in the outer courts of the temple, the only area where Gentiles could worship and pray. Therefore, this place of prayer was made into a marketplace, and a dishonest one at that. God intended the temple to be a house of prayer for all nations, but they had made it a den of thieves.
A den of thieves is a place where thieves associate and hide. It is a sorry, shameful condition when the house of God becomes a place where unrepentant and active sinners can associate and hide.

The text of both John 2 and Mark 11 do not specifically say that Jesus was angry, but it isn’t unreasonable to think there was some anger on display.

Three times when the Bible says Jesus was angry

Mark 3:5
And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.

Mark 10:14
But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased [NLT angry, ESV, NIV indignant] and said to them, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God.”

John 11:33
Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. The phrase groaned in the spirit can also be translated indignant or angry, as also in verse 38.

Amplified

When Jesus saw her sobbing, and the Jews who had come with her also sobbing, He was deeply moved in spirit [to the point of anger at the sorrow caused by death] and was troubled,

In all these instances….

Jesus was angry because God gets angry

Psalm 18:7
Then the earth shook and trembled;
The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken,
Because He was angry.

Psalm 7:11
God is a just judge,
And God is angry with the wicked every day.

God is slow to anger (more than seven passages, including Psalm 103:8) but He does get angry
God is not stoic, robotic, like Dr. Spock in Star Trek
The anger of God is an expression of His justice
Our anger can and should be righteous – but it rarely is!

Ephesians 4:26, quoting Psalm 4:4 and Psalm 37:8

“Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath,

Did Jesus offer sacrifices at the Temple during His earthly life?

This is a great question. The answer which comes immediately to my mind is yes. We know that Jesus had sacrifices offered on His behalf. When Jesus was born, His parents brought the dedication sacrifices to the temple. We also know from Luke 2:22-24 that they didn’t have much money because they brought the sacrifices which poorer people would bring. They brought two birds for sacrifice, which was allowed under the law of Moses for people who had fewer financial resources. That was done on Jesus’ behalf. As far as Jesus being an observant and faithful Jew who fulfilled the law of Moses, I think you would have to say that He did come and bring offering and sacrifices at times. Of course, all of this would point forward to the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus Himself would offer, the ultimate sacrifice of His own life.

I’m very grateful for this question, because I love questions concerning things that I have not thought about before. I’m just going to base this on the fact that Jesus kept the law perfectly in every way. Because He kept the law of God perfectly, Jesus would never have to offer a sacrifice for His own sin, obviously. He never offered a sin offering for Himself because He was the sin offering for His people. But instead, we can say that Jesus, instead of offering a sin offering, would have offered other offerings of thanksgiving, offerings having to do with Jewish feasts, or dedication offerings. Those would be kind of offerings which Jesus would fulfill as an observant Jew growing up in His day in age.

How do you explain the wrath of God to someone who believes God is evil?

There’s not much you can say about God’s wrath to someone who believes that God is evil. If somebody fundamentally believes that God is evil, then they are naturally going to see the exercise of God’s wrath as evil. What I might ask them is whether they could theoretically see a demonstration of punishment to be a good or righteous act? I think that’s an obvious yes. You could say that any judge who sentences a criminal is displaying wrath against that criminal. If it’s truly a righteous and appropriate thing to do, there’s nothing wrong with it at all. The judge has made a righteous decision in carrying out and commanding a punishment to be made against that criminal.

In the same way, God has the right, and also the responsibility, to do this for the universe. If somebody is automatically on the side of saying that God is evil, there’s really not much you can do to convince them otherwise. But they should be able to understand that, at least in theory, it’s possible for somebody to execute wrath in a way that is not only righteous but also good. When criminals are punished justly and fairly, that’s good. It’s good for the criminal, it’s good for the victim, and it’s good for the community. I would just wonder why a person believes that God, especially the God revealed in the Bible, not just the God of their imagination, is fundamentally evil?

How do Jews who don’t believe in Jesus seek forgiveness?

Can you explain how Jews that don’t believe in Jesus seek forgiveness? I mean, I know today through grace. But if they don’t animal sacrifice, what is their thinking? There’s no Temple.

First of all, we need to clarify that there are different kinds of Jews today. There are Orthodox Jews, Reformed Jews, conservative Jews, and an awful lot of atheistic Jews who say they don’t believe in God at all. So, if you were to ask an atheistic Jew, “How do you sacrifice for sin?”, there is no answer to that question, because they don’t even think there is a God, so why would they sacrifice for sin?

But let’s assume you’re asking, “How does an observant Jew seek forgiveness?” I believe they would think to compensate for their sinfulness in two ways. First, by doing good works. They think that their good works and their observance of God’s law will cover over their sins. That is somewhat bound up in the idea of the Day of Atonement for the Jewish people today. It’s a day when they fast and refrain from eating. It’s a day when they afflict their souls and think of their own sinfulness and how they need to come into right relationship with God. The idea is that it’s a sort of a self-atonement.

I want to take pains to say that that doesn’t avail before God at all. You can’t atone for your past sins by your future good deeds, nor can you atone by present obedience. The only way to atone for sin is through a sacrifice. Modern Jewish people would say they do it either through their obedience to the law – their good deeds – or they would say they do it by their study of the law. I don’t believe either one of those things actually can pay the debt of sin, but that’s probably the answer which many observant religious Jewish people would give. But please note that we’re setting atheists to the side, even though many people of Jewish heritage are atheists themselves. Many people fail to understand that a very large number of Israeli Jews are either not observant at all, or minimally, in a strictly cultural sense, but they are secular, and perhaps even atheists.

What are Pastor David’s thoughts on election, predestination, and free will? Will we know more fully when we get to heaven?

Yes, we will absolutely know more fully when we get to heaven. There’s no doubt about that. The Bible clearly addresses the topic of predestination or election, so it’s not wrong for us to think and talk about it. These are clearly biblical concepts. The Bible talks about the idea of God having a predestined plan, and a predestined people. The Bible talks about God choosing, which is called election. To elect something means to choose. God does these things.

But people often wonder, how do God’s election and predestination fit together with the free will of man? I prefer to phrase it this way: how do God’s predestination and election combine together or fit together with the real choices of men and women? I don’t favor the phrase free will. Many people use it, and I think I understand what they mean by it, but I think there’s a very legitimate argument to be made that we as human beings don’t have a completely free will, and that our will can be bound or hindered or limited by many different circumstances. For now, we’ll leave aside the idea of whether or not we have a completely free will.

So, do we have real choices to make as human beings? Can we say yes, or no? Are we programmed robots that have to operate according to our programming, or do we have real choices? I don’t know any other way to understand the Bible’s description of who man is and how God appeals to man, other than to say that the Bible treats us as men and women who have the capacity to make real choices. How does that fit together with God’s predestined plan? I really don’t know. I just know that it does, and I know that God works it all out.

There is a non-biblical anecdote about the doorway in heaven. When you enter into the doorway, it says, “All who believe in Jesus Christ can enter here.” All believers would say, “Yes, I believe. I’m a believer. I’m going to walk through that doorway.” So, you walk through the doorway, and turn around, and what do you see on the other side of the doorway? You see written on the other side of the door, “Chosen from before the foundation of the world.” I know it’s a bit of a lame illustration, but there is some truth to it. From a human perspective, our responsibility is to choose: to choose Jesus, and if I may say, to do whatever we can to persuade other people to choose Him as well. But from God’s eternal perspective, He knows exactly what He’s doing. He’s not worried about it. He’s not stressed about it. He has an eternal plan that He’s working out, and it’s a glorious plan.

How should I pray, when I fear that God’s answer might bring pain?

I struggle to pray, I love praying – but I fear that what I ask for will be granted along with so many other things which bring pain. I know Jesus is always good, but this is a bit hard.

God bless you. Please remember that God, as a loving Father, understands our limitations. Sometimes we just don’t know what we should pray for. In those times, God isn’t playing a game in heaven where He says, “Oh, you didn’t know what to pray for, and you prayed for the wrong thing. So, I’m going to put evil on you instead of good. You should have prayed for this instead of that.” No, not at all.

We obviously aren’t perfect, but to the best of our ability, we need come to God with a pure heart and say, “Lord, I want Your will. This is what I perceive Your will to be. I surrender this to You.” God will answer that prayer as a loving Father. You don’t have to fear asking for the wrong thing by accident and getting a whammy from God.

It’s true that sometimes we don’t know or understand what we ask for in prayer. I’ll give an example. Sometimes we pray things like, “Lord, whatever it takes, draw me closer to You. I just want to know You more. I want to be a truer disciple to You, whatever it takes. Lord, do that in my life.” I can imagine somebody saying, “Don’t pray that! You’re asking God to smack you around in order to make you a better.” But I would disagree. Pray that prayer with the right heart before God. God sees your heart, and God isn’t going to punish you for making such a surrendered request before Him. I want you to have peace. I want you to continue to seek the Lord with a pure heart. Ask God to help you with the things that are inadequate and need work on in your life, but also take rest in Him as a faithful, loving Savior.

How will God judge someone who has never heard the gospel?

What if someone in a remote tribe away from the internet, yet to be evangelized, and has never heard the Word: when they die, how will God judge them?

I’ll give you a basic principle. God will not judge them by what they have not heard. God will judge them by what they have heard. The Bible tells us that God has communicated to all humanity in at least two ways. People who have never picked up a Bible or heard the gospel preached, still have heard God communicate to them in at least two ways. First, through creation they can see that there is a God and that He’s glorious and powerful. Secondly, they can also see God and hear communication from Him in their conscience. Now, the conscience is not a perfect communicator. A person can have a twisted or warped or burned-over conscience, but nevertheless, it still has the power to communicate at least some of God’s truth to us. God communicates to all humanity through creation and conscience.

So, God does not have to judge anybody by a gospel of Jesus Christ which they did not hear, or by Bible passages that they never heard or learned. No, God has the right to judge every human being on the basis of creation and conscience. God will rightly judge those who have never heard the gospel or the Bible on the basis of what they have done in response to creation and conscience. God is a just and fair judge. Abraham said of the Lord, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (see Genesis 18:25). The answer to that question is yes, He absolutely will do right in all of His ways.