Jesus’s cleansing of the temple is often used to justify the use of violence. Each of the four Gospels includes an account of his disruption of the temple. Here, we will primarily focus on John’s account.
Some take this passage to show that violence is permissible because Jesus himself engaged in an act of violence. They assert that Jesus fashioned a whip and used it against animals and people, forcefully driving them out of the temple. In Mark’s account, Jesus also prohibits anyone from carrying anything through the temple area—perhaps using force to accomplish this. In their book An Introduction to Biblical Ethics, Robertson McQuilkin and Paul Copan discuss this passage as part of a section on war and peace. They argue that the New Testament is not nonmilitaristic and state that “Jesus used force in driving moneychangers from the temple and (forcibly?) stopping merchants from entering the temple.”[1] However, there is some ambiguity here. Force comes in many varieties. One might use force without harming anyone. No one is reported being harmed or injured by what Jesus does in the temple.
There are numerous interpretations of Jesus’s actions in the temple.[2] Many in the early church interpreted what Jesus did as physically nonviolent. Augustine, however, argues that it provides a moral justification for violence by Christians against heretics and those who would divide the church. Many Christians follow Augustine’s lead and use this passage to widen the scope of the forms and targets of violence. Over the centuries, this belief became deeply entrenched in the Christian tradition. As Andy Alexis-Baker puts it:
Since antiquity, theologians and church leaders have cited the temple incident for many purposes, including condemning usury and greed, critiquing merchants, promoting anti-Semitism, and calling for inner conversion. Perhaps the most ubiquitous use of the temple incident, however, has been to justify Christian violence. From just war to Crusades to executing heretics, Jesus’ action in the temple has provided fuel for righteous violence and killing.[3]
He adds that because John’s account is the only one in which the whip appears, it has played (and still does play) a central role for many who seek to justify violence from a Christian perspective.
But is this correct? Does the cleansing of the temple by Jesus truly justify at least some forms of Christian violence? In short, the answer is no.
As noted above, the passage contains ambiguities. Yet, a solid case can be made that this passage does not justify violence. Careful attention to context is crucial. The temple itself covered roughly thirty-five acres of space.[4] The outer courtyard was the largest and most open part of the temple area. People could exchange money and purchase animals to use for sacrifices. The incident did not occur in a small enclosed area, but instead: “we need to envision him creating as much commotion as one man could manage in a few minutes’ time in one portion of the open space in a complex encompassing about five or six city blocks, with hundreds of people coming and going. Most visitors to the temple that day would never have noticed it.”[5] Many conclude that what Jesus is doing here is symbolic, something like what a Hebrew prophet might do in order to show and teach the values of God.
But was it a violent act?
Many scholars argue that it was not. To see why, we must consider some details in John’s account. The Greek term phragellion, often translated as “whip” in the passage, could refer to a scourge (an instrument of torture or punishment), a whip, or even a lash. Translations differ: “scourge of small cords” (KJV); “whip out of cords” (NIV); “whip from ropes” (CEB). So, what did Jesus use? Evidence indicates that weapons were not allowed in the temple area. Apparently, Jesus made the “whip of cords/ropes” from materials that were on hand. He likely would have employed material used in animal bedding, fodder, or ropes used to tie up animals. If so, this was nothing like the Roman instrument of torture, both in its makeup and in the potential harm it could cause.
Also, did Jesus use the makeshift whip on animals, people, both, or neither? The NRSV apparently takes “all” to refer only to animals: “Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.” Many other translations follow suit (ASV, NIV, and TNIV). The text does not describe what Jesus did in the temple as a justification for violent acts against people. In addition, a makeshift whip made out of rope seems barely capable of inflicting violence on the cattle and sheep, as it “would hardly do much more than get them moving out the door, their owners running after them to keep them from running amok.”[6] Thus, Jesus would in effect have been shooing animals out of the temple precincts.[7] Only John’s Gospel mentions a whip, and only John’s Gospel mentions the animals. It makes sense, then, to see the makeshift whip as the means of shooing animals out of the area. It seems to be quite a stretch to use this episode as justification for inflicting physical harm on other human beings.
What applications might the temple cleansing hold for us? First, nothing in the accounts of this event indicate that ethical principles are to be drawn from it. Rather, the temple cleansing tells us something about the identity of Jesus as the Christ.[8]
While there are a range of interpretations of the temple incident, ultimately the passage itself does not justify Christian violence. In fact, the accounts in the four canonical Gospels show remarkable restraint, both in the action and the narrative.[9] As David Rensberger concludes, “The traditional understanding of Jesus’s action in the temple area as an act of violent fury cannot be sustained on a careful reading of the Gospels.”[10]
The accounts have so many gaps. The temptation is to fill those gaps as we see fit. A violent Jesus is less countercultural for us, because he responds as we likely would, or as our own cultural ideal of the masculine action hero would. Our “commonsense” reading of the passage here reveals what might be wrong with our common sense, rather than a Jesus who resorts to violence in order to accomplish his mission.
The most important point for our purposes is this: the zeal Jesus demonstrates for the temple does not justify injuring or killing anyone, because nobody was injured or killed. There may be passages that justify or at least permit this or other forms of violence, but this passage is not one of them. To use it to justify arming oneself or harming others is to misuse and misapply the deeds of Jesus.
The above is adapted from my book, God and Guns in America (Eerdmans, 2020).
[1]. Robertson McQuilkin and Paul Copan, An Introduction to Biblical Ethics: Walking in the Way of Wisdom, 3rd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 417.
[2]. Andy Alexis-Baker, “Violence, Nonviolence and the Temple Incident in John 2:13–15,” Biblical Interpretation 20, no. 1–2 (2012): 73–96.
[3]. Alexis-Baker, “Violence, Nonviolence,” 74.
[4]. David Rensberger, “Jesus’s Action in the Temple,” in Struggles for Shalom: Peace and Violence across the Testaments, ed. Laura L. Brenneman and Brad D. Schantz (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014), 179–90.
[5]. Rensberger, “Jesus’s Action in the Temple,” 183.
[6]. Alexis-Baker, “Violence, Nonviolence,” 94.
[7]. Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld, Killing Enmity: Violence and the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 61.
[8]. Neufeld, Killing Enmity, 70.
[9]. Cf. David J. Neville, The Vehement Jesus: Grappling with Troubling Gospel Texts (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2017), 179.
[10]. Rensberger, “Jesus’s Action in the Temple,” 189.