The Lord of the House Text: Luke 19:45-48
Introduction: A Declaration of Ownership
When Jesus Christ comes to town, He does not come as a visiting dignitary asking for a polite tour. He does not come as a consultant offering suggestions for improvement. He comes as the King. He comes as the Lord of the House. And when the Lord of the House finds that His house has been turned into a flea market for religious hucksters, He does not form a committee. He does not write a letter to the editor. He gets to work.
The cleansing of the Temple is one of those scenes in the Gospels that makes our modern, effeminate sensibilities very uncomfortable. We like the gentle Jesus, meek and mild. We are less keen on the Jesus who braids a whip and starts flipping tables. But we must have all of Christ, or we have none of him. You cannot receive Him as Savior and refuse to have Him as Lord. When you invite Jesus into your life, you are inviting all of Him, and He is committed to cleansing His temple, which is you. You either receive the cleansing, or you resist the cleansing. You either rejoice with the children in the temple as the tables go over, or you side with the chief priests and scribes who are greatly displeased.
This event, which Luke places here at the climax of the Triumphal Entry, is a direct, frontal assault on the corrupt religious establishment of the day. It is an act of royal authority. It is a prophetic sign-act of judgment. And it is a glorious declaration that worship must be according to God's Word, not man's corrupt traditions. The Temple had become the symbol of a faith that had been hollowed out, where the machinery of religion was used to fleece the flock instead of feeding them. Jesus did not come to tinker with this system; He came to demolish it. This was His second inspection of the leprous house, and His actions here set the stage for His final verdict: not one stone will be left upon another.
What we are witnessing is not an out-of-control fit of rage. This is the calculated, deliberate, and righteous zeal of the Son for His Father's house. It is a physical sermon, a parable in action. And it has everything to teach us about true worship, the nature of Christ's authority, and the perpetual danger of religious corruption.
The Text
And Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, saying to them, “It is written, ‘AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER,’ but you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.”
And He was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people hung upon every word He said.
(Luke 19:45-48 LSB)
The King Inspects His House (v. 45-46)
We begin with the action itself, the royal visitation and subsequent purification.
"And Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, saying to them, 'It is written, AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER, but you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.'" (Luke 19:45-46)
Jesus enters the Temple as its rightful Lord. This is not His first time doing this. John's gospel tells us He cleansed the temple once before, at the very beginning of His ministry. This fits the pattern laid out in the law for a priest inspecting a house for leprosy. The priest comes once, and if he finds corruption, he orders the house shut up and cleansed. He then returns for a second inspection. If the corruption has returned and spread, he condemns the entire house to be torn down (Lev. 14:34-45). This first cleansing was a warning. This second cleansing is the final inspection before the sentence of demolition is pronounced, which Jesus does just a short time later (Luke 21:6).
He drives out "those who were selling." What was the problem here? On the surface, it was a convenience. Worshippers coming from a distance needed to buy approved sacrificial animals and exchange their pagan Roman currency for the holy Temple shekel. The problem was not the service itself, but the location and the spirit. This was happening in the Court of the Gentiles, the one place where non-Jews could come to pray and seek the God of Israel. This court had been turned into a noisy, chaotic bazaar. The path to God for the nations was blocked by commerce. But it was worse than that. It was corrupt commerce. The money changers and sellers of doves were notorious for their exorbitant exchange rates and inflated prices, preying on the poor and the devout. This was not ministry; it was racketeering.
Jesus's authority for this action is not based on some human permit. He does not appeal to the Temple guard or the Sanhedrin. His authority is the Word of God. "It is written." He quotes from two prophets, smashing them together like two stones. The first is from Isaiah 56:7, "My house shall be a house of prayer for all the nations." The second is from Jeremiah 7:11, "Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight?"
By quoting Isaiah, Jesus declares the true purpose of the Temple. It was to be a place of communion with God, not just for Israel, but for the world. The religious leaders had turned this outward-facing missionary outpost into an inward-looking, money-making enterprise. They had forgotten the Gentiles. By quoting Jeremiah, Jesus pronounces His verdict on what they had become. Jeremiah delivered his "Temple sermon" in the very gates of the Temple, warning the people not to trust in the physical building while their hearts were full of theft, murder, and idolatry. He warned them that God would destroy that Temple just as He had destroyed Shiloh. Jesus is now standing as a greater prophet than Jeremiah, delivering the same verdict. A "robbers' den" is not a place where robbing happens; it is the hideout where thieves go to congratulate themselves on their plunder and feel safe. They thought their religious activity in the Temple sanctified their wicked behavior outside of it. Jesus says no, your wicked hearts have desecrated this Temple.
The Standoff of Authority (v. 47-48)
After the physical confrontation comes the spiritual and political standoff. The battle lines are drawn.
"And He was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people hung upon every word He said." (Luke 19:47-48 LSB)
Having cleansed the house, Jesus occupies it. He takes over. "He was teaching daily in the temple." This is an astonishing display of sovereignty. He has thrown out the merchants, and now He has commandeered the theological lecture halls. He is teaching with an authority that makes the official teachers obsolete. The Lord is in His holy temple, and He is declaring His own Word.
This, of course, the establishment cannot tolerate. Notice the coalition arrayed against Him: "the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men." This is the whole corrupt power structure. The chief priests were the Sadducees, the liberal, aristocratic compromisers who controlled the Temple treasury. The scribes were the theological lawyers, the experts in the law, mostly Pharisees. The "leading men" were the elders, the political lay leaders. They had their theological squabbles, but they were united in this: this man Jesus is a threat to our power, our prestige, and our profits. He must be destroyed.
Their desire is murderous, but their hands are tied. Why? Because of the people. "All the people hung upon every word He said." The Greek is vivid; they were hanging on His lips. The common people, so long abused by this corrupt leadership, recognized the voice of the true Shepherd. They heard the ring of truth. They saw a man who acted with the authority of God, not the pathetic, derivative authority of the scribes. This popular support provided a temporary shield for Jesus, but it also reveals the cowardice and hypocrisy of the leaders. They were not restrained by the fear of God, but by the fear of a riot. They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God, and now they were trapped by that very fact.
This is a picture of two kingdoms in conflict. The kingdom of Christ, built on the authority of His Word and drawing the hearts of the people, and the kingdom of the religious establishment, built on tradition, power, and money, now exposed and seething with impotent rage. They want to kill Him, but they can't figure out how. The raw authority of Christ has them completely flummoxed.
Conclusion: Cleansing Our Temples
It is a great mistake to read this passage and merely cluck our tongues at those corrupt first-century priests. The principle here is perennial. The temptation to turn the house of God into a business, a social club, or a platform for personal ambition is an ever-present one. The church is always just one generation away from needing its tables flipped.
When worship becomes a performance designed to attract consumers, when the gospel is softened to make it more marketable, when we measure success by budgets and buildings instead of faithfulness and holiness, we are setting up tables in the temple. When we erect barriers of tradition, or complexity, or snobbery that keep sincere seekers from coming to God, we are cluttering the Court of the Gentiles. When our religion becomes a cloak for a life of greed, gossip, and compromise, we have made God's house a den of thieves.
But the good news is that Jesus is still in the business of cleansing His temple. And today, that temple is His church, and it is the individual believer. "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" (1 Cor. 3:16). When Christ comes to us by His Spirit, He comes to drive out the money changers of our hearts. He comes to overthrow the tables of our cherished, respectable sins. He comes to confront our compromises and our idols.
This is the work of sanctification. And it can be a violent, disruptive process. But it is a glorious interference. We should not be like the chief priests, resisting His Lordship and plotting how to contain Him. We should be like the crowds, hanging on His every word, and like the children Matthew mentions, shouting "Hosanna!" as the tables go flying. We should pray, "Lord, come and cleanse this temple. Overturn what needs to be overturned. Drive out what needs to be driven out. Make my heart, and make this church, a house of prayer, for Your glory alone."