The apostle John clearly distinguishes between the feasts as the Jews improperly kept them according to their own traditions, and the feasts of God. Some people claim that we ought to keep the feasts in the same manner as the Jews did. However, if we did, we would be keeping the traditions of men, and observing them or showing them to be of greater value than the commandments of God. Apparently John wrote what he did so that we would be able to distinguish that Jesus did NOT keep the Passover in the same manner as the Jews.
John was not talking about the Passover. It is the Feast of Unleavened Bread that John was talking about here, but called "Passover." I want you to notice the context in which this appears. There is no indication from the context that Jesus agreed with the way the Jews were keeping it. If He agreed with the way the Jews were keeping it, do you not think that He would have come into the Temple and said, "Oh, isn't that nice? Look at the moneychangers over there. They're selling all these things so that the people can make a beautiful wonderful sacrifice to God. Isn't that nice? Oh, how beautiful!"
I do not think He agreed with the way that it was being done. You see, just the opposite is true. He forcefully denounced and corrected the Jews for violating the feast with their merchandising, thievery, and corruption. I submit to you that is why John called it "the feast of the Jews." That was not the way it was supposed to be kept. There is prior authority for doing this. In Isaiah 1, God says, "Your new moons and your feasts I hate." In Amos 5 He says "I hate, I despise your feasts." I have read in commentaries where the commentators say there is no indication that these were feasts of Baal, but rather they were the feasts days of God that were kept in honor of Baal.
So here is Jesus, in John 2, repeating in a little bit milder way what had already been done in the Old Testament, and He did it by denouncing, by throwing out the moneychangers and the merchandisers who were there.
