“And to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away from here; stop making My Father’s house a place of business!” His disciples remembered that it was written: “Zeal for Your house will consume me.”
This passage describes when Jesus walked into the Temple and found it being dishonored, used as a place for personal advancement instead of worship. He found people pursuing profit not purity, using God’s house to fleece God’s children. His zealous reaction didn’t surprise the disciples as it had been prophesied in Psalms nearly a thousand years earlier.
The Temple was a beautiful building. Its purpose was to allow people to receive communication from the Lord. It was sacred ground and the abuse of it deeply angered Christ.
I heartily applaud His actions when it is directed at the moneychangers …but am less enthusiastic about what should happen when I am the one abusing the temple. Scripture says my body houses the Holy Spirit. Is there any doubt of God’s response when I pollute it with hypocrisy, lust, anger, or self-centeredness? How can I applaud the turning over of the moneychanger’s tables, and then be surprised at God’s anger when in the name of “religion”, I act just like them. The next verses refer to Jesus body as the Temple, so the application is undeniable.
This highlights a crucial fact. We don’t take our bodies TO church….our bodies ARE the church. We are the Temple of the Holy Spirit. How can we fill our hearts with perversion, drugs, drunkenness, and self-righteousness, and expect God’s Spirit to reside there?
To pollute our “Temples” and then show up on Sunday for hypocritical self-advancement, looks a lot like the activity that angered Christ in this passage. God does not change, so we should expect His reaction to be similar.
He made a whip, scattered the money, and turned over the tables… You can argue if you want to, but it is clear that God resides in your heart and expects you to sanctify it and keep it holy… God is still zealous about His Temple, and that necessitates that you walk in purity. It stirs His wrath when you claim to be His child, while you defile His house.
“The temple in which the Lord Jesus delights most, is a broken and contrite heart, renewed by the Holy Spirit.” - J. C. Ryle
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