As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words. (Luke 19:41-48, NIV)

The temple represents God dwelling among people, a sacred place of relationship between God and man. There was a place for His Chosen People of Israel, and also a place there for all others who came to worship Him. However, over the years, the Court of the Gentiles had morphed into something else, and Jesus was angry.

Isaiah 56 tells us what God intended for His temple: a place for all who bind themselves to the Lord.

Jesus was about to give up His life to pay for the sins of all who turn to Him for salvation. And He came into the Court of the Gentiles, a place given for all to worship, and found it was a place of commerce. Gentiles were not allowed to enter any other place to worship in the Temple, and they had been deprived, pushed out, rejected from the House of Prayer intended for all. And Jesus was angry.

After Jesus had paid the price for our salvation (John 3:16), He rose again and returned to heaven. The Holy Spirit came down to dwell in each believer, and the Spirit is in all of us together as we worship across the world. We became His Temple.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
(1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NIV)

So, the question for us living today is: “When Jesus walks into my temple, into the outer and inner courts, what does He need to clean out so that we can worship Him?”