Apr 25
13
Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 56:1-8
“Thus says the LORD: ‘Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil. ‘Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, ‘The LORD will surely separate me from his people’; and let not the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree.’ For thus says the LORD: ‘To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.’ The Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, ‘I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.’” (Isaiah 56:1-8, ESV)
New Testament Reading: Luke 19:41-48
“And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.’ And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, ‘It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.’ And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.” (Luke 19:41-48, ESV)
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Please excuse any typos and misspellings within this manuscript. It has been published online for the benefit of the saints of Emmaus Reformed Baptist Church but without the benefit of proofreading.
Introduction
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the city of Jerusalem and the temple in the midst of that city to the Old Covenant people of God from the days of King David onward. Jerusalem was not only the capital city of Old Covenant Israel, it was the place where the glory of God was manifest and where the people of God would assemble to worship. The people of Israel made regular pilgrimages up to Jerusalem to worship God there through the offering up of sacrifices.
In the previous sermon, I reminded you that beginning with Luke 9:51, Jesus had set his face toward Jerusalem. From that point in Jesus’ ministry, Luke reports that Jesus “went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem” (Luke 13:22, ESV). Jesus’s journey toward Jerusalem was very important, for not only was he a Hebrew man, he also claimed to be the Messiah, the Anointed King of God’s everlasting Kingdom. What would Jesus do once in Jerusalem? Would he attempt to overthrow the Romans? Would he make Jerusalem the center of his operation? No doubt, questions like these were on everyone’s mind.
It must be remembered that Jesus had already said what would happen to him in Jerusalem. He had spoken to his disciples, saying, “‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.’ But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said” (Luke 18:31–34, ESV). Furthermore, Jesus had explained that his kingdom would not immediately appear. In Luke 17: 20-21, “Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:20–21, ESV). Remember, the Parable of the Ten Minas found in Luke 19:11-27 was told to correct the misconception that the kingdom of God would appear immediately. Even with these teachings from Jesus, the people remained curious and uncertain concerning the things Christ would do once in Jerusalem. Would he make Jerusalem his capital city? Would he oppose the Romans? Would he treasure the temple? What Jesus did and said once he arrived in Jerusalem must have shocked everyone.
What did Jesus do when he finally entered Jerusalem? He wept over the city. He announced that the city and the temple in the midst of it would soon be besieged and destroyed. He then cleansed the temple and taught in the midst of it as his people drew near.
Jesus Wept Over Jerusalem
First, let us consider that Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem when he arrived. This is what Luke describes in verses 41 and 42. “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes’” (Luke 19:41-42, ESV).
Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem? He wept over the city because the vast majority of those who lived within it were blind and unbelieving. They could not see that Jesus was the Messiah that God had promised. Though the gospel of the kingdom had been proclaimed to them by Jesus and his Apostles, they did not believe it. Christ came to bring peace. Through him, men find peace with God, spiritual peace within, peace in this life, and in the life to come. But these people could not see the things that make for peace—they could not see Jesus or his kingdom. They could not comprehend the gospel. They remained in their sins, therefore, and at enmity with God. More than this, judgment and destruction would soon come upon the city, so Jesus wept over the city and those who lived there..
Of all people, those living in Jerusalem should have known the things that make for peace. They had the Old Testament Scriptures, which speak of Christ. The city of Jerusalem, the temple, the priesthood, and the sacrifices they offered continuously testified concerning Christ Jesus and the atoning sacrifice he would offer up to God to secure peace between God and man. And as has been said, Jesus Christ and his Apostles ministered among these people, proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom and performing many signs and wonders to prove their message was true. This is why Christ wept, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!”
The words, “But now they are hidden from your eyes” indicate that the time was up. For three years, Jesus had ministered in their midst. The people, and especially the leaders of Israel, who were centered in Jerusalem, had rejected Jesus. Finally, God gave this rebellious and unbelieving people over to judicial blindness. This is how God works with rebellions and unbelieving sinners. He will often judge sinners by giving them over to their sin and rebellion. As Romans 1:24 says, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Romans 1:24–25, ESV). There is a warning to sinners found here. Men and women must not toy with sin or drag their feet as it pertains to repentance and faith. No, the Scriptures urge us men and women, staying, “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6–7, ESV).
As you may know, there are some who will attempt to use this passage about Jesus weeping over Jerusalem to deny the doctrines of unconditional election or predestination, reprobation, and particular redemption. The argument goes something like this: See, Jesus wept over the unbelief in Jerusalem. This indicates that Christ, the Son of God incarnate, came to save all people and desires that all people be saved. When he went to the cross, he must have atoned for the sins of all.
There are many problems with this view.
First of all, this passage is not about predestination, reprobation, or atonement. It is about the arrival of the Messiah in Jerusalem. Those we may learn things about the heart of Christ for sinners, the purpose of the passage is not to teach us about predestination, reprobation, or atonement.
Secondly, other passages in Holy Scripture do directly teach us about the doctrines of predestination, reprobation, and atonement. For example, Ephesians 1:4-5 teaches that Christians have been chosen by God in Christ “before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will…” Romans 9:22 speaks of “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” (Romans 9:22, ESV). And in John 10:15, Christ specifically says that he would “lay down [his] life for the sheep.” These texts, and many others like them, clearly teach that God has predestined some to everlasting life, has decreed to pass over others, and that Christ was sent to atone for the sins of many, but not all (see Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 9:28). Our interpretation of this narrative wherein we behold Christ weeping over the city of Jerusalem cannot contradict the clear teaching of Scripture concerning the doctrines of predestination, reprobation, and particular atonement.
Thirdly, those who claim that Jesus’s weeping over Jerusalem disproves the doctrines of election and particular redemption forget that Jesus Christ was and is the Son of God incarnate. He is the person of the eternal Son of God, and he is human. The point is this: Christ did not weep over Jerusalem through his divine nature—God does not weep, brothers and sisters. He does not have passions like we have. He does not have eyes or tear ducts. Jesus wept over Jerusalem as a man, through the human nature he had assumed. Think of the story of the death of Jesus’s friend, Lazarus. According to his divine nature, Jesus decreed that Lazarus would die on the day that he died. It was as a man with a true and reasonable soul that Jesus wept when Lazarus died. And the same thing must be said when we consider Jesus’ weeping over Jerusalem. According to his divine nature, he decreed that Jerusalem would reject him, that he would be crucified there (see Acts 2:23), and that the city would soon afterward be destroyed (see Isaiah 46:10). It was according to his human nature that he wept. As a man, he wept, and he wept sincerely.
Fourthly, this was no ordinary city that Jesus Christ wept over, but the precious and sacred city of Jerusalem. This was the city of God’s choosing. The temple was there. God’s glory was manifest there. Under the Old Covenant, from David’s day onward, worship was centered there. In the days of his earthly ministry, Christ did not weep over every city he came to. Though every village, town, and city Christ came to was certainly filled with rebellions and unbelieving sinners, I cannot think of a single instance wherein Christ wept over a city besides Jerusalem. And this he did only at the end of his earthly ministry, immediately before he would suffer and die in that place. Let us not pretend that Christ went around perpetually weeping over lost sinners in general or that he does so in heaven to this present day. Jesus wept over Jerusalem when he entered the city at the end of his earthly ministry, not long before his crucifixion.
Fifthly, though it is true that Jesus wept sincerely as a man, we must remember that he was no mere man. He is the God-man, the Messiah, the anointed Prophet, Priest, and King of God’s eternal kingdom. May I suggest to you that when Jesus wept over Jerusalem, he ultimately did so to fulfill his prophetical office. Old Testament scholars have noticed that weeping is a prophetic sign indicating that judgment is on its way. In 2 Kings 8:11, the prophet Elisha wept before prophesying concerning the destruction that would soon come upon the people of Israel. The prophet Jeremiah is sometimes called the weeping prophet. In Jeremiah 9:1, he says, “Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” In Jeremiah 14:17, he says, “Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people is shattered with a great wound, with a very grievous blow.” When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, he wept as God’s Prophet. Prophets like Elisha and Jeremiah wept over calamities that would befall Israel, but Christ wept over the full and final destruction of Old Covenant Jerusalem and the temple. The closing of an era was around the corner. The Old Covenant was about to give way to the New. And so the man Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of God incarnate, sincerely wept when he came to Jerusalem, and in so doing, he signaled that judgment was soon to come.
Jesus Announced The Destruction Of Jerusalem And The Temple
This brings us to our second observation. When Jesus arrived at Jerusalem, he did not embrace the city or seek to make it the capital of his kingdom. No, he announced that the city and its temple would soon be besieged and destroyed.
Look at verse 43. Jesus wept over Jerusalem, saying, “For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:43-44, ESV).
This prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem would be fulfilled in the year 70 A.D. when the Romans, under emperor Titus, besieged Jerusalem, slaughtered its population, and tore everything in the city, including the great and magnificent temple, to the ground. If you wish to read a history us this, see The Wars Of The Jews, The History Of The Destruction Of Jerusalem, written by the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, in the year 75 A.D.
Why was Jerusalem destroyed? Christ said, “because you did not know the time of your visitation”. John Gill comments on this phrase, saying, “The time of the ministry of John the Baptist, of Christ, and his apostles in Judea, was the time of Jerusalem’s visitation in a way of mercy; which not being taken notice of, and observed, brought another kind of visitation upon them, even in a way of wrath and vengeance.”
Gill goes on to list a number of explanations provided by unbelieving Jewish Rabbis for the destruction of Jerusalem. Some it was because the people “profaned the sabbath”, others “because they ceased reading the Shema (hear, O” Israel, &c.) morning and evening”. Others say it was because
children were not put to school. Still others are of the opinion that the city was destroyed “because there was no shame among them.” And others say it was because the people rejected and mocked the “the messengers of God”. This last reason is closest to the truth. John Gill is correct when he identifies the cause as “their rejection of Jesus, as the Messiah.”
These things were decreed by God, it is true. But human freedom and responsibility are not removed. As Acts 2:23 says, “Jesus, [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God”; nevertheless the people were guilty of crucifying and killing Jesus by the hands of lawless men.” In the same way, the destruction of Jerusalem was decreed, but it was because the people did not know the time of their visitation. God visited them by sending the Messiah to them. At first, it was a visitation of mercy. After the people rejected and killed the Messiah, it was time for a visitation of God’s wrath and judgment.
Sobering, isn’t it? And it is sobering, especially as we consider that this pattern we see wherein Christ came at first to show mercy and grace, and then, having been rejected by the Jews, returned in judgment against the Jews, will be repeated in a full and final way at the end of this present evil age. As the writer of Hebrews says, “so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:28, ESV). And he will also judge, for “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…” (Hebrews 9:27, ESV). Yes, Christ’s dealings with the Jews at the close of the Old Covenant era will be repeated at the end of time. He came at first to atone for sin. He will come again to judge and make all things new.
Jesus Cleansed The Temple And Taught In It
What did Christ do when he arrived in Jerusalem? Did he rejoice as if he had arrived at home? Did he embrace the earthly city and proceed to make it the center of his inaugurated kingdom? No, to the contrary, he wept over the city and the people who resided within it and announced its destruction. Thirdly, Jesus cleansed the temple and taught in it.
Look with me at verses 45-48. “And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, ‘It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.’ And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.” (Luke 19:45–48, ESV)
When Luke mentions those who sold in the temple, he refers to the money changers and those who would sell animals, like sheep, oxen, and doves for sacrifice, often at exorbitant prices. These would set up shop in the outer courtyard intended for the Gentiles. Not only did this communicate that the Gentiles (non-Jews) were unimportant, it also gave the entrance of the temple the feel of a common marketplace as opposed to a sacred place set apart for prayer and worship.
Luke tells us that Christ drove out those who sold, saying, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’”. This is a citation from Isaiah 56, which was read at the beginning of this sermon. As I have told you in the past, when an Old Testament text is cited in the New Testament, it is probably a good idea to go to that text and take a look around. Isaiah 56 is a beautiful passage, and it has a lot to do with the things that Jesus was doing in those days. In it, the LORD speaks through the prophet, saying, “for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed.” In it, the LORD pronounces blessings on the man who “keeps the Sabbath”. In it the LORD invited the foreigner and the outcast to draw near. ‘“Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, ‘The LORD will surely separate me from his people’; and let not the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree.’ For thus says the LORD: ‘To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” No wonder Christ cleared the money changers and those who sold out of the court of the Gentiles! It was because the LORD had promised, saying, those who “holdfast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.’ The Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, ‘I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered’” (Isaiah 56:1-8, ESV). As you can see, not only does Isaiah 56 say that the temple is a house of prayer, it also speaks of the day when the LORD’s salvation would finally come and says that on that day, the LORD would gather to himself the outcasts of Israel and many others besides these. Yes, even Gentiles would be gathered in.
When Christ cleansed the temple, it was not because he planned to use it in his kingdom. No, he had just announced that destruction would soon come to this place. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, Christ spoke of the temple, saying, “Behold, your house is forsaken” (Luke 13:35, ESV). He cleansed the temple and gathered his disciples around him to teach them within it:
One, to condemn the corruption of the Israelites’ religion.
Two, to lay claim to the temple. This temple was his house.
Three, to signal that Isaiah 56 (and Jeremiah 7:11) was being fulfilled.
Four, to signal that the outcasts of Israel and the Gentiles would soon be gathered into the New Covenant temple, that is to say, the church (see 1 Peter 2:4ff.)
Five, to promote the purity of the New Covenant temple. When Christ cleansed the Old Covenant typological temple, saying that it was a house of prayer, while gathering his disciples to himself to teach them, he showed us what his New Covenant temple was to be. The church is made up of living stones who are disciples of Jesus. His church is a house of prayer. In it, his word is to dwell richly. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16, ESV).
Conclusion
Dear brothers and sisters, this passage we have considered is immensely important, for it clarifies the relationship that Jesus Christ would have with the earthly city of Jerusalem and the Old Covenant temple in his inaugurated kingdom. As has been stated in previous sermons, his kingdom is here now, but not in ways that can be observed. It is a spiritual and heavenly kingdom presently. His kingdom is manifest on earth, not in any nation in particular, but in his churches. The Jerusalem of the New Covenant, Israel of God, is in heaven above, not on earth below. Its temple is not made of stone, but of converted persons made alive by the Holy Spirit who have their lives built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, with Christ as the cornerstone. This is what the Apostle Peter teaches when he speaks to disciples of Jesus, saying, “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4–5, ESV).
May the Lord grant us clarity of mind concerning the nature of Christ’s kingdom presently, and by his grace, enable us to do this very thing: to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, our great Prophet, Priest, and King.
