Jn.2:17 – His disciples remembered that it was written: “ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE WILL CONSUME ME.”
This passage deals with a picture of Christ that at first glance can be quite disturbing. We always seem to look at Jesus in His gentleness and mercy but in this passage we see His rage. How could anger be a good quality? Augustine said that if we don’t have jealousy we don’t really have love. That is exactly what we see when we see Jesus with a whip driving people and animals out of the temple. He is jealous for His house. Today He is still jealous for His house. When Christ walked the earth it was pictured by the temple in Jerusalem, today His house is His church, the place He has chosen to dwell. Here is how Albert Barnes describes this passage.
“The zeal of thine house.…. Hath absorbed me, or engaged my entire attention and affection….In Jesus this was the great commanding sentiment of his life. In us it should be also. In this manifestation of zeal he began and ended his ministry. In this we should begin and end our lives. We learn, also, that ministers of religion should aim to purify the church of God. Wicked men, conscience-smitten, will tremble when they see proper zeal in the ministers of Jesus Christ; and there is no combination of wicked men, and no form of depravity, that can stand before the faithful, zealous, pure preaching of the gospel. The preaching of every minister should be such that wicked men will feel that they must either become Christians or leave the house of God, or spend their lives there in the consciousness of guilt and the fear of hell.”
There are many today who do not respect His church but would rather focus on the faults found there and criticize the body of Christ. There are ministers who have also disrespected the church by not allowing the glory of God’s presence to be on display in His house. Both are grievous sins. I believe the Lord has been cleansing His church of both of these evils. He is preparing for the glory of God to be put on full display in His house in these last days. I think its time for His people and His ministers to be consumed by zeal for His house.
To be vigilant, never allowing yourself to think that you’ve arrived at a complete understanding of what and how Gods plans pertain to you and the people around you. Those folks got off the glory train at an unscheduled stop.