By following the Jewish rite of purification to do his first sign (literally “beginning of the signs”), Jesus brings out the truth that the real meaning of the Jewish religious customs is fulfilled only in him, who transforms the old ceremonial system into something that human beings can experience. Jesus replaces the old Jewish ritual order with his own new order.
In the OT, the “sweet wine” supplied by God to his people is the mark of deliverance from exile (Jer 31:12; Amos 9:13–14) and of prosperity (Joel 3:18), and it has an eschatological connotation also. In the light of this, Jesus’ conversion of water into wine indicates that the long-awaited kingdom of God has arrived and that God himself has drawn near in the person and ministry of Jesus to fulfill his promise of abundant blessings.10 The narrative of the wedding at Cana reaches its climax in 2:11, where the manifestation of Jesus’ glory through this sign leads the disciples to believe in him, while for others it is only a satisfaction of physical thirst (see comments on 1:14 for understanding “glory”). This sign renews the disciples’ commitment to Jesus and leads them into deeper faith.
After this sign, Jesus went to Capernaum with his mother, brothers, and disciples and stayed a few days there (2:12). This is a symbol of the corporate life of the new community, which includes men and women, centered in Jesus.
Jesus’ revolutionary act in the temple (2:13–22)
In 2:13 there is an abrupt shift from Capernaum (2:12) to Jerusalem. In the Synoptic accounts, Jesus enters into Jerusalem only once, at the end of his ministry, but in John Jesus makes four visits to Jerusalem, mainly during the Passover (2:13; 5:1; 7:10, 14; 12:9, 12). During one of his visits Jesus cleansed the Jerusalem temple and subsequently confronted the Jewish leaders (2:13–22). In the Synoptic Gospels this event is narrated nearly at the end of Jesus’ ministry (Matt 21:12–17 par.), whereas in John it is placed in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. One cannot prove that Jesus cleansed the temple twice. For John chronology has only marginal significance. In both 2:1–11 and 2:13–22 Jesus transforms the Jewish legal custom to do good to people by fulfilling their need.
Jesus went up to Jerusalem just before the Passover, a Jewish festival celebrated every year in commemoration of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, having passed over their houses without killing the first-born by seeing the blood of a lamb on their lintels and doorposts (Exod 12). All who went up to Jerusalem used to go to the temple to offer sacrifices and worship God (cf. Ps 122). Naturally Jesus, as a Jew, first went into the temple.
In the temple, Jesus did not see an atmosphere of worship, but a business trend. He found those who were selling oxen, sheep, and pigeons, and money changers sitting (2:14) for exchanging the currency brought by pilgrims who came from other countries into Tyrian coinage, which was the prescribed currency to pay temple dues (m. Bek. 8:7). The oxen, sheep, and pigeons were required by the Law to be sacrificed (Lev 1 and 3). Surprisingly, sale of “lambs,” the actual Passover sacrifice, is not mentioned in the narrative. The temple authorities apparently did not give priority to the sacrificial lambs, but were primarily concerned with the trade that would bring them economic profit. That is why Jesus became zealous for the house of God and made a whip of cords to chase out the animals and to pour out the coins of the money changers by overturning their tables (2:15). He rebuked them by stating that they should not use “my Father’s house” for the purpose of trading (John 2:16; cf. Jer 7:11 and Isa 56:7; see also Matt 21:13 par.).
The business seems to have been carried on in the “Court of the Gentiles,” an area beyond which Gentiles were not permitted to go, into the forecourts and the sanctuary, lest they face the death penalty. The ongoing business and profit making consequently prevented the Gentiles from entry into the temple to pray and worship,11 although the temple was to be the house of prayer for “all nations” (Mark 11:17). John’s phrase “a house of trade” alludes to Zech 14:21, where it appears in the context of Zechariah’s prophecy about coming of the non-Jews into the temple to worship Yahweh the King (Zech 14:16–17). Thus, one of the reasons, if not the sole reason,12 for Jesus’ vehement action was the preventing of Gentiles by the Jewish authorities from entering the court by making it a commercial place.
The narrator comments that Jesus’ disciples remembered what is written in the Scripture, “The zeal for your house will consume me” (John 2:17; cf. Ps 69:9). They realized that Jesus’ vehement action to preserve the purification of the house of the Lord was due to his consuming zeal for the Father’s house (cf. Luke 2:49). Psalm 69 actually speaks of the suffering of a righteous one and it was used by first-century Christians to proclaim the suffering and death of Jesus (cf. Ps 69:21 with Matt 27:34, 48; Luke 23:36; John 19:30; Rom 11:9–10). Jesus’ words “will consume me” anticipate his suffering and death in order to build a new temple, that is, a community with a new life to worship the Father in spirit and in truth (4:23–24).
That Jesus spoke of his death is further confirmed by 2:19, where he asks “the Jews” to destroy “this temple,”13 his body, with a challenge that he will raise it up in three days (cf. Matt 26:61; 27:40; Mark 14:58; 15:29). He spoke in response to the Jerusalem authorities, who asked for a sign from him to prove that he had authority from God to disrupt the cultic worship by chasing out the animals kept for sacrifice (2:18). In 2:19 Jesus speaks of his death and resurrection in terms of destroying the old temple with all its legal system of animal sacrifices and building a new temple to be a place of life-giving power. In this sense, 2:17–22 foreshadows the death and resurrection of Christ,14 a “sign” to be seen by his adversaries.
Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, as a whole, is a prophetic and symbolic act that points to the “greater reality” that is coming (e.g., Isa 8:16–18; Ezek 4:1–3). It is also Jesus’ non-miraculous sign that anticipates his sacrifice on the cross (cf. Matt 12:39–40). John’s addition of “sheep and oxen” that were driven out of the temple is to symbolize that Jesus removes the need for animal sacrifices to obtain forgiveness of sins and deliverance. The Jerusalem temple is now replaced by a new Temple, Jesus, in whom the offering of animals has no place (cf. 2:19). Jesus himself is the sacrifice to remove human sin and he is the one who offers it (e.g., Heb 9:11–14). His life and work thus mark the end of the temple worship and the beginning of a new and life-giving worship. The action of Jesus in the temple is not merely that of a Jewish reformer or merely a protest against the irreverence and corruption of Jewish worship, but is a sign to convey the truth that the end of animal sacrifice is at hand.15 In this act of Jesus, one can see the shadow of the cross again.
This is confirmed in 2:20–22. The temple authorities misunderstood Jesus’ statement that he was boasting himself of rebuilding the destroyed temple in three days, while it took originally forty-six years to build (2:19–20).16 They ridiculed him for saying so (cf. Matt 27:40) without understanding that Jesus would give up his body to be destroyed on the cross and would raise it up in three days (2:21) to restore true spiritual worship for which the Jerusalem temple stood. Even his disciples only understood this after Jesus’ resurrection. John displays his literary device of non-understanding to lead his readers to a higher level of understanding.17
The resurrection of Jesus opened the eyes of Jesus’ community to see the reality behind his signs and symbolic acts. The comment “his disciples remembered” (2:17, 22) means an unveiling of truth by the Spirit after the death