Cleansing our Temple

 Next Friday, starting at sunset, Jews will be celebrating the Passover. It was on the same Friday, almost 2000 years ago, that Jesus was crucified.

Before Passover began, the Jews were to put away all leaven out of their houses.

"Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel." - Exodus 12:15.

Passover was the night of the final plague when God delivered the Israelites from their bitter bondage in Egypt. On that night, they were to apply the blood of a lamb to the doorposts of their houses so the death angel would pass over them when all the first-born males were killed.

Every year Israel was to remember the Passover and their great deliverance. Jesus is the fulfillment of Passover. We are to repent before we apply His blood by baptism. (Acts 2:38).

Apostle Paul spoke of leaven when there was sin in the church at Corinth.

"Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." - 1 Corinthians 5:6-8.

Jesus spoke of leaven. "…Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." - Luke 12:1.

Before the Passover, Jesus cleansed His house (the Temple) of leaven.

"And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise." - John 2:13-16.

"It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves." - Luke 19:46.