“And the disciples remembered that it was written, ‘The Zeal of Thine house hath eaten Me up.'” John 2:17
The zeal of the Lord is a very real thing. In Psalm 69 we find it mentioned. In the great passage in the book of Isaiah, where he writes concerning “…a child is born, and a son is given,” he goes on to speak of the “government,” authority of His kingdom, resting upon His shoulder. The Spirit of God then broadens our view of this Son, this one to whom all power and authority is given. Isaiah writes, “…and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, and the Prince of peace.” (9:6) In speaking of His kingdom, and His government, the throne of David, he speaks of establishing it with judgment and with justice…henceforth and forever. This is a tremendous statement, which stretches out into eternity in its fulfillment. How is God to do this in the present moment, and forever? It will be by the “zeal of the Lord of hosts,” which will perform it. What does this mean?
The day that Jesus entered the temple in Jerusalem, and found that it had become a “den of thieves,” (Matt. 21:12), he was so moved, and empowered by the Spirit of His Father, that with a scourge of small cords, He drove out of the temple, those that sold oxen, sheep, and doves, and the changers of money. He cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of those them that sold doves. Why? It was because sinful, religiously twisted man, had slowly replaced not only the true meaning of the temple in the minds and hearts of the people, but they had come to deny its true purpose. The temple had ceased to be “the house of prayer,” but instead had decended into the faithless abyss of theivery and materialism. The temple that Zerubbabel had built hundreds of years before, and which had been restored and embellished by the godless ruler, Herod, still remained on the very place where God had said, “The glory of this latter house (that of Zerubbabel) shall be greater than of the former (that of Solomon), and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord.” (Hagg. 2:9) In a very real sense, when Jesus entered the first time into that temple as a baby, later as a child, and then as the Messiah and Savior of the world, God’s glory was revealed, “…full of grace and truth.” There, standing before those who had defiled the temple, and had usurped its true purpose and meaning, was the Son of the eternal God, who was “burning with a holy fire,” that being the very zeal of His Father. Never was a man so intensely guarding the holy name of God, as this Son who was completely under the control of the Father at that moment, even during the act of casting out of the temple, money changers, and the thieves, the livestock, and all that opposed the true worship of God in prayer. Christ was indeed that day, in a very particular way, filled with quiet strength, rage, purpose, and deliberate action. God would accomplish by Christ’s zeal, His purpose to reveal to the people again that not only was the temple to be always the place of prayer, but that God zealously would work to that end to maintain it.
How does this matter, this subject and reality of the zeal of the Lord translate in the life of the believer? It begins in realizing that the Spirit of God, by which the believer is born again, and which fills him, is the same as the Spirit which moved Christ to cleanse the temple. It is the same which also moved Him to cry out the last day of the feast, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.” (Jn. 7:37) The zeal of the Lord moved Christ in the temple, but also to cry, “…come unto Me.”
Dear Father, Move us every day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.