N. T. Wright remarks that throughout Jesus's brief career he defied and sought to replace the authority of the temple over the religious life of the Jews. When he claimed to be able to forgive sins, Jesus was asserting a power which Wright likens to a private citizen in a modern state issuing passports or other official documents. The temple had a formal monopoly on the forgiveness of sins and on mediating the individual worshipper's relationship with God, which Jesus denied and disrupted.

When Jesus cleanses the temple, therefore, he is claiming that he has a moral authority which exceeds and has actually replaced that of the temple. Wright says that Jesus's action in turning over the tables of the money-changers was significant because it stopped the business of the temple, giving a sign that the whole system of the temple was under judgment and would shortly be destroyed and replaced by a new authority.

Wright explicitly rejects the common interpretation that Jesus was protesting against the commercialization of religion and that he turned over the tables of the money-changers as an act of socialism. He also denies that Jesus regarded the temple as a bad thing in itself, saying that he simply believed the temple had served its purpose now that Jesus had come in person to show people the way.