What does the Bible say about selling in church?

When the Lord Jesus Christ went into, the temple in Jerusalem, He heard the lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep, the cooing of doves, the rattle of coins on the money changers' table. He drove them all out and said, "They have made My Father's house a house of merchandise, a den of thieves", for they were cheating one another in the very courts of God's house, making it a convenience for their purpose. It was evil in the sight of the Lord; and here we find the church, the house of God, had become the "great house", having lost its character of holiness.

In Jerusalem He comes again to the temple, this time ejecting from the temple those who were selling and buying, overthrowing the tables of the money-changers and the seats of the dove sellers; also stopping the carrying of vessels through the temple. He firmly reproves this greed for money by referring to Isaiah 56:7, "My house shall be called the house of prayer."

In expelling the merchants from the temple, the Lord did not act precipitately, but showed the calm deliberation of observing first; yet when He acts, He does so decidedly and firmly, telling them that though His house was the house of prayer, they had made it a den of thieves. The scribes and Pharisees had no answer to His sobering insistence in God's rights, but they are only more infuriated against Him, plotting as to how to get rid of Him. They were afraid of Him, not because of His being God's true witness, but because His teaching had evident influence on the people, of whose approval they were envious. How sad it is that God's approval meant nothing to them!

From Cana He went to Capernaum, His mother and brethren being with Him, as well as His disciples, and stayed briefly there. It was here that Peter, Andrew, James and John lived (Mark 1:21-29). But as the Passover drew near He went up to Jerusalem. The Passover had been called in Leviticus 23:4-5 “a feast of Jehovah,” but it had degenerated into merely “the Passover of the Jews.” The holy character of the temple itself was desecrated by the greed of men. They may piously affirm that they had brought the oxen, sheep and doves there as a convenience for those desiring to offer sacrifices, and that money changing was for the convenience of those who had come from other countries; but the bald truth was that money-making was their object. The place for this was in the business markets. These creatures of sacrifice of course all really speak of Christ: the ox, of His devoted service toward God; the sheep, of His submission to God; the dove, of His purity before God. How revolting then that these should be sold for monetary profit!

The Lord does not hesitate in using a scourge to drive the oxen and sheep out, nor to pour out the change of the money-changers, nor to overturn their tables, and to command the sellers of doves to take them away. He claims His Father's house for His Father, where men's merchandising is to have no place.

Jesus had just presented Himself to them as King, so, having arrived in the city, He went straight to the temple, the very centre of their religion, and asserted His kingly power in cleansing it. He had done this at the very beginning of His ministry, as recorded in John 2; He did it again at the end. The trafficking and money-changing in the temple had doubtless sprung out of the kindly arrangements of the law, which Deuteronomy 14:24-26 records. Ungodly men had taken advantage of this provision to turn the temple precincts into a den of thieves. God intended His temple to be the house where men drew near to Him with their requests. Its custodians had turned it into a place where men were swindled, and so the name of God was maligned. To defile or corrupt the temple of God is a sin of tremendous gravity. 1 Corinthians 3:17 shows this, in its application to God's present temple.

The first errand of the King in His city is the temple. "And Jesus entered into the temple of God, and cast out all that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those that sold the doves. And He says to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of robbers" (verses 12-13). This is the second time that the Lord acted in cleansing the temple. The first is recorded in the Gospel of John 2:13, 17, and it took place at the beginning of His ministry. There it is the zeal for God's house, but here He acts in all His Kingly authority. How great and awful must have been the defilement of God's temple in those days. Money changers were undoubtedly in the foreground, for money played then in the days of the Jewish apostasy as important a role as it does in the apostasy we witness about us. "We can picture to ourselves the scene around the table of an eastern money changer -- the weighing of the coins, deductions for loss of weight, arguing, disputing, bargaining, and we realize the terrible truthfulness of our Lord's charge that they had made the Father's house a mart and a place of traffic." (Edersheim: Life of Christ, Vol. I., 369.) And besides the money changers were those who bought and sold. All that which was required for the meat and drink offering was for sale by the Temple authorities. With the sale much speculation was connected; covetousness, as Jewish talmudical writings prove, was the ruling passion in this blasphemous traffic. And the most awful fact was that the priesthood, especially the High-priestly family earned riches from it. The Bazaars and the Temple markets were controlled and owned by the sons of Annas.

Into this scene of desecration He enters. No whip of cords is in His hands; the King does not need it. The tables are turned over in wild confusion; the coins roll over the pavement, while the sacrificial animals and birds are driven out, perhaps in a wild stampede, followed by their owners and the officials of the temple. And what He uses is His own Word. "It is written my house shall be called an house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of robbers." It was His house, as well as His Father's. Of old in the first house His own Glory appeared and dwelt there. The words "mine house shall be called an house of prayer" are found in Isaiah 56:7. "For all people" which is in Isaiah, the Lord does not quote. That temple was not meant to be a house "for all people;" the temple in Is. 56:7 is the millennial temple, and that future temple will be the house to which the nations of the earth will come during the coming age, to worship the Lord of Hosts. And so the Lord came suddenly to His temple to cleanse it (Mal. 3:1-3). But this again is only a shadow of another coming and the final fulfilment of the prophecy contained in the third chapter of Malachi. Another temple will stand in Jerusalem during the great tribulation and there will be even greater defilement. In that temple one will sit who is clearly pictured in the Word. "That man of sin, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing Himself that He is God" (2 Thess. 2:3, 4). Him the Lord will destroy with the brightness of His coming.

In perfect consistency with His rightful dignity as King, He purged the temple from the pollution of those who bought and sold in it. Earlier in His ministry He had done the same (John 2:13-17). but the greed of man is determined even to corrupt the sanctuary of God for personal gain or advantage. He quotes from Isaiah 56:7 to fasten on these men the shameful quilt of what they were doing. God's house was a house of prayer, but they had made it a den of thieves, He tells them. This was scathing, solemn language, but they could not resist Him, for their own consciences bore witness that He was right. In lovely contrast to their grasping character, He heals the blind and the lame in the temple, a beautiful picture of how things will change in the temple when this blessed Messiah is manifested to Israel at the end of the great tribulation compare Malachi 3:1-4.

For the second time (Jn.2:13-17) the Lord found in the temple those who bought and sold, and again He acted with firm decision for His Father's glory in expelling them from His Father's house. His words were solemn and scathing: God's house was a house of prayer, but men were showing their contempt for God promoting their selfish practices there, taking advantage of those who came for prayer. He did not hesitate to accuse these merchants of making God's house a den of thieves (v.46).

12 And they came to Jerusalem, and He enters then into the temple. Yesterday, the full survey of their condition, and the condition of His Father's, Jehovah's house, had been made, and to-day judgment is to be executed with all the authority, the condemning authority of Jehovah's King, bearing with none of this evil now. Long had grace been patient. He had retired to a distance, to give time for repentance. He being thus manifested (in the way with them) and after John's warnings, but now, this past, with all righteous authority and indignation, at headquarters, there was no more but to get rid of them. What authority in the righteousness of God! "He began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves." This den of thieves! And in Jehovah's house! How free from idolatry! How full of sin! He would sanctify it. He suffered no man to pass through, to carry anything through the temple, making it just a passage for his convenience. He maintained the holiness of God's house, and while He maintained its holiness as Jehovah's house, not the mere convenience of Jewish pride, as Jehovah's house, His Father's house, it had all its wide claim and value in His eyes - a house of prayer for all nations. The holiness of God's house gives it its extension, because it makes it properly God's house, and His claim is over all, and it is a claim of grace. But, while the Lord does this, His judgment and charge on the Jewish people is distinct and conclusive: "Ye have made it a den of thieves." His word too is from Scripture, so that the truth and guilt was plain. It had the force of God's word to them. We have also to note that the title of God, and the moral charge always has its force in the subject it applies to; thus the passage of Isaiah has its accomplishment in the latter day, when the house shall be so as God's house. Yet the claim of God was at least from its utterance by the Prophet. Yet it was then, after all, judgment, when sin had made it impossible (for all tended to the blessed end when Christ shall be there) and the charge was made in Jeremiah's time actually, but as it hung over their heads, so was it accomplished by their hands, and they are charged with it - they had done the thing, i.e., He puts it as a question: Did not their conduct amount to their considering it so? "Ye have made it a den of thieves." How plain, and bold, and unmoved in judgment is the Lord now, for He had taken the pronouncing of judgment in His own hand now. And the Lord applied the testimony of the Prophets now in judgment.

Is there nothing akin to this, it may be asked, in the day of His ministry? Can we not see something of this when His disciples remembered that it had been written of Him, "The zeal of thine house devours Me"? He found in the temple the sellers of oxen, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers sitting, and having made a scourge of small cords He cast them all out of the temple and said … "take these things hence: make not My Father's house a house of merchandise." This second cleansing of the temple, it will be recalled, took place within a few days of His death, and at no time in the history does His supremacy so shine out. If the doings of the last week be carefully studied it will be seen that He is indeed a King against whom there is no rising. "The voice of Jehovah is powerful, the voice of Jehovah is full of majesty, the voice of Jehovah breaketh the cedars" (Psalm 29:4-5).

At the end of verse 8 we read: “The lame and the blind hated of David's soul … ! Therefore they said, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.” Who is it that speaks like this? It is David himself. How he differs from Christ in this point! Coming into the world, the Lord Jesus did exactly the opposite: “Blind men see and lame walk” (Matt. 11:5). He cannot meet a single one of these unfortunate souls but what His love and His power unite to give healing. Even when His wrath, divine wrath, is expressed, is it not marvelous to see it opening up the floodgates of His grace? “And Jesus entered into the temple of God, and cast out all that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers and the seats of them that sold the doves. And He says to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of robbers. And blind and lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them” (Matt. 21:12-14). His wrath and indignation are expressed in the zeal of God's house which devoured Him (Ps. 69:9), but He purifies His house, not to prevent the blind and the lame from entering it like David, but in order to introduce them there by healing them. We find a second example in the parable of the great supper. All the guests excused themselves from coming. “Then the master of the house, in anger, said to his bondman, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring here the poor and crippled and lame and blind” (Luke 14:21). The master's anger against his guests results in seating the blind and the lame at the table of his great feast.