Be Zealous for Me, O Lord!
Be Zealous for Me, O Lord!
3/12 Reading Portions: Exodus 23; John 2; Job 41; 2 Corinthians 11
Online Bible Audio/Readings Links (ESV)
3/12 Reading Portions: Exodus 23; John 2; Job 41; 2 Corinthians 11
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His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house will consume Me.” John 2:17
ZEAL
This incident occurred at the beginning of the Lord’s ministry. Christ’s cleansing the temple is often connected with the end of His ministry (Matt 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46), not the start. Yet, there’s something more important implied here. Christ’s zeal for the Father’s house was more than a fleeting fancy. It was constant because Jesus was consistent always with His holy and righteous nature. This didn’t happen merely once at the beginning of His ministry and one other time just before Jesus went to the cross. This happened again and again and again. John didn’t need to record it every time; otherwise, his gospel account would have been as thick as the whole Bible (John 20:30; 21:35).
Keeping and fulfilling the Law of Moses, Jesus would have attended three feasts every year (Ex 23:14-17; Lev 23; Deut 16:16): the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles. Unleavened Bread contained seven feast days. Weeks, or Pentecost, was a one-day event, however, it contained three days because preparation or consecration days were included (Ex 19:11, 15-16). Tabernacles, or Harvest, contained ten days: the Feast of Trumpets on the first day of the seventh month, Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, on the tenth day of the month, and eight days for Tabernacles itself, beginning on the fifteenth day of the month. Jesus was in and out of the temple several times per day. This is how incredibly vile, criminal, and depraved the religious leaders were— they set the tables back up as soon as Jesus turned them over. Oh, how often the flesh desires to forsake the holiness of God and His Word for the things of the world— lust, greed, and enterprise (1 Jn 2:16)! Oh, Lord Jesus, continue to enter the temple of our lives to overturn the depraved condition of our mortal flesh!
Like holy whips, the Lord will cleanse
The temples of our minds,
With washing by the Word, and hence,
Christ makes our lives divine.
