The temple defiled.
The Jews had a horror of death, and regarded a corpse with disgust as an unclean thing, the presence of which would defile the most holy place, and the touch of which would render unclean any person who came in contact with it. Therefore a massacre in the temple would defile that sanctuary in the eyes of the nation by filling it with scenes of death, and strewing its courts with abhorred dead bodies. The irony of such a conception lies in the fact that the aggravated abominations of idolatry and vice which brought down this fate on the doomed temple had not been regarded as any defilement. So it was when the Jews feared to enter Pilate's palace lest the consequent defilement should prevent them from eating the Passover, although the stain of murder on their consciences was not reckoned to be any impediment (John 18:28). Thus men strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.
I. SIN LEADS TO AN UNDUE PREFERENCE OF THE EXTERNAL TO THE INTERNAL.
1. This is caused by the deadening influence of sin. The once keen conscience is blunted, and the perception of real evil dulled, so that what should be regarded with loathing is tolerated with indifference. At the same time, the conventional standards by which questions of outward propriety are measured remain undiminished. The loss of the higher standards then gives these lower ones a fictitious supremacy. The fog which hides the eternal mountains of Divine righteousness magnifies the petty hillocks of human opinion.
2. This is illustrated in all phases of experience. Not only is more thought of external than of internal defilement in religion; external things generally take the lead. The punishment of a sin is more considered than the evil of the sin itself. Shame is treated as worse than guilt. The word "character" comes to be transferred from interior disposition to public reputation. A social stigma is dreaded, while undiscovered sin is harboured complacently.
II. REAL DEFILEMENT IS MORAL AND INTERNAL. It is those things which proceed out of a man that defile him (Matthew 15:18), because they spring from the centre of all true evil, the heart of man.
1. The sanctuary of worship is only defiled by the corrupt conduct of the worshippers. Pompey could not really defile the sacred courts by trampling rudely over the holy ground. The true abomination of desolation was the sin of the Jews. A church is desecrated by worldliness and evil thoughts in the worshippers.
2. The temple of the body is only defiled by unholy conduct. It is a mere symbol of this defilement when contact with a corpse is thought to render the person unclean. Contact with sinful occupations is the real defilement. When this temple of the Holy Ghost is turned into a depository of evil, its glory departs. It is not the dead flesh of a corpse, but living carnality that defiles. When this rottenness is cut out no external defilement can hurt, for then "to the pure all things are pure."
III. THE PUNISHMENT OF INTERNAL DEFILEMENT IS OUTWARD SHAME. The Jews are to have the temple defiled in this external manner as a punishment for the previous moral degradation of it. In the end sin blossoms into shame. The commission of sin may be hidden, but the punishment of it will be public. In God's great day the secrets of all hearts will be revealed. Then hypocrisy will cease, and the external will be a true index to the internal The defiled soul will be seen in a foul body; the corruption of heart will be punished by the degradation of all things that a man prizes. The only way of escape is by a previous confusion of the soul corruption, and the cleansing of the heart from its defilement through the grace of Christ (Psalms 51:7).