APrayer
of Jesus
I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will.
Edition No. 18          January 1, 2003
WE ARE HERE TO LISTEN TO
The Voice of Jesus
"This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"
MISUNDERSTANDING JESUS (#8)   
The Whip
The False Teaching
Men often cite the cleansing of the temple to justify violence: And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and over -
turned their tables.
(Jn. 2:15, RSV)

He drove out the men, with the sheep and the oxen.  It was a violent scene of righteous anger as Jesus lifted his whip and lashed out! Many artists, including Rembrandt and el Greco, reinforce this scene. Search the web and you find examples where preachers, scholars and other churchmen interpret the scene thusly.  The vision of this scene is a great comfort to soldiers of Christian states at war, who only lash out, as did Jesus, at the enemies of Truth and justice in a good and righteous cause. If good men do not fight evil men, Christian civilization will collapse! For example, WW II was the good war in which God gave the victory to those who truly follow Jesus.  But behold, what great violence a little whip can yield!
Exposing the Error
Jesus says, But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also;(Matt. 5:39) If the men to whom he spoke, in the temple cleansing, were evil, would it not be inconsistent, to say the very least, for Jesus to lash out at them? He also says, Love your neighbor, and Love your enemies. Is this consistent with lashing them with a whip? The image of an executioner comes to mind, lashing out to apply the 40 lashes less one, and leaving a back of flayed and bleeding flesh. Can we place Jesus in this image? Many can, for they are many who promote the false teaching.
  Further, the scene is without reason because the whip is an effective weapon only if its victim is bound. It is a useless weapon against even one unbound man, but Jesus faced many.
  They yielded to his authority? Unreasonable again, for those men surely hated Jesus and would not obey him. Christians do not obey Jesus
today; why would one think the Jews in the temple would obey him?
Declaring the Truth

Another version reads: So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.(Jn. 2:15, NIV)  
Check the bold word above and compare with the one in the first column. Know also that there is no them in the Greek, and you see that the RSV is a botched version. The phrase, both sheep and cattle merely defines the all in the preceeding phrase in order that we may know that he did not attack the men! Jesus never struck another, except with his words, and we must listen now lest we also be struck at the Last Judgment!
It helps here to have been  reared on a farm. Herding the cows from pasture to the barn at night was my chore. I took a rawhide whip and had much fun poping the cows if they got out of line. It is very effective.  But I don't advise raising a whip against any man; he will choke you with it! more
The Temple Cleansing in the Synoptic Gospels

Matthew (21:12-13), Mark (11:15-19) and Luke (45-48) tell of a temple cleansing and each clearly states that Jesus drove out the buyers and sellers.  But they mention neither the whip nor the sheep and the oxen!  This is either 1) the same event described in the Fourth Gospel above, or 2) a different event.  If it is the same event, the synoptic version discredits itself because Matthew, Mark, and Luke know of neither a whip nor of the animals.  If it is a different event, it is irrelevant to the above presentation because it contains no whip. It is not in Jesus to strike another person.