God Graciously Takes Strangers Into His House

Twice in His ministry Jesus drove from the temple the moneychangers and merchants, and accused them of turning God's House of Prayer into a den of thieves.

We miss the full import of Christ's rebuke, because the passage He was calling to mind is found in Isaiah 56. The promise by God that His House would be a House of Prayer to all Nations was a promise to bring in strangers and foreigners into fellowship unto Himself.

Jesus proclaimed that God's people the Jews had, despite their much-vaunted self-righteousness and ritualism and sacramentalism, polluted the House of God.

The question could be asked: if the temple were no longer a House of Prayer to all nations, how would God's solemn promise - to bring unto His House strangers - be accomplished?

The Lord Jesus quickly supplied the answer when he declared to the unbelieving Jews, "Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days!" This He spoke of His body, and His resurrection from the tomb three days after His crucifixion.

What had been God's House of Prayer had been destroyed by unbelieving Israel, but it was replaced by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, a temple and house of God that could never be destroyed, and one far more glorious than any physical building mankind could ever build.

Thus, the gospel fulfillment of the promise of Isaiah 56 is readily seen. We have a new temple in Christ. We have a better sacrifice, which God has promised to accept upon His altar - the body of God's precious Lamb slain once for sinners!

Any person, be he Jew or Gentile, may lay hold upon the covenant - not the old, but the new! - and be brought into God's House of Prayer with rejoicing!