What does it mean that "zeal for your house will consume me" in John 2:17?

This scripture, as the reader will perceive, is cited from Psalm 69, where we read, "I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me." (vv. 8, 9.) Tracing out its meaning, both in the psalm, and also in the gospel, we learn, first, that our blessed Lord was so devoted to the glory of God, in the interests of His house, that it lifted Him above every natural claim that might have been alleged against Him. Hence it was that, when Mary, finding Him in the temple, said, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing," He replied, "How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" (Luke 2:48-49.) The claim of the Father, whose will He had come to do, was absolute in His soul, excluding every other claim, and in the constant acknowledgment of this He found His incessant delight. It was His daily food. (Ps. 40:8; John 4:34.) This led, secondly, to His complete identification with God and His interests on the earth, so that He felt everything according to God, and for God. He thus said, "The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me." He received everything, not as it related to Himself, but as it affected God and His glory. A reproach uttered against God wounded His heart, because He was here not for Himself, but for God. What might be said against Him could be borne, but a reproach against God was to Him an intolerable sorrow. How little do we know, as being here for Christ, what it is to be more wounded by any dishonour done to the name of Christ than by a wrong done to ourselves! This indeed could only be when we have lost sight of ourselves in His interests; when the aim and object of all we are and do, as well as the motive, is Christ. (Compare Phil. 1:12-26.) Coming now to John's gospel, we find that, under the constraint of His consuming zeal, our Lord was intolerant of any corruption in His Father's house. Thus it was that He purged the temple when He went up to Jerusalem at this feast of the passover. And what were the evils that evoked this display of His zeal? He found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money sitting. All this had commenced for the convenience of the people. It was easier to buy an animal for sacrifice on the spot than to bring one up to Jerusalem, and it saved much trouble to be able to purchase the sacred shekel when it was wanted; and in this way a regular traffic had sprung up within the holy precincts of the temple buildings. In other words, man's convenience had shut out all thought of what was due to God, and in this way man had usurped the place of God. Is there no warning voice in all this for the present day? Do not the convenience of the saints and other things often set aside the Lord's authority as Son over the house of God? The antidote to all corruption in the assembly is this self-same consuming zeal which animated our blessed Lord - a zeal which will be always directed to the maintenance of. His rights and the holiness of the house of God. (Compare Ps. 101.)

The cleansing of the Temple (verses 13-17). If the marriage at Cana tells us that man cannot secure his own happiness by the natural means that God has instituted, the second scene, at Jerusalem, demonstrates that man cannot avail himself of the religion that God has given. If God provides a religion suited to man in the flesh, to regulate his conduct and secure his earthly blessing, man immediately corrupts it into a means of making gain. The House of prayer for all nations becomes the resort of changers of money, who turn the Father's House into a house of merchandise. The Lord deals with this great evil, and justifies His judicial act by claiming His relationship with God as His Father, and asserting that the Temple is His Father's house. Thus, once again, He manifests forth His glory before His disciples as the Son acting in zeal for the glory of His Father's house, according to the Scripture, "The zeal of thine house has eaten me up" (Psalm. 69:9). This psalm, now that the Son has come, receives a fuller and deeper meaning, disclosing to us that the rejected Man, of whom the Psalmist speaks, is none less than the Son.

"Then I restored that which I took not away" (verse 4). These words found their fulfilment in Him. The first man Adam robbed God of His glory. He forsook obedience to, God and dependence upon Him, and became eaten up with self-interest and self-seeking. The second Man the Lord Jesus Christ was marked by absolute obedience and dependence; He was eaten up with zeal for God's house, and was so wholly identified with the interests and glory of God that, if any desired to fling reproaches upon God, the reproach naturally fell upon His head. Thus having taken man's true place, He restored to God as Man the place that was truly His as God. He glorified God where the first man had dishonoured Him.

But it was just this whole-hearted identification with God, and zeal for His house, that brought upon the Lord Jesus the full weight of man's hatred and persecution — a persecution which did not stop short of death. Adversaries surrounded Him on all sides; reproach, shame and dishonour were rolled in upon Him from all quarters. He did indeed descend. He had to say, "I sink." But this descending was first; that infers that there is something to be accounted second. There is a glorious sequel.

This was pre-eminently so in the Man, Christ Jesus. He could say, in the fullest sense of the words, "The zeal of thine house has eaten me up." He was literally consumed with the desire to do the will of the Father Who sent Him.

This is a remarkable transaction. The point of it is distinctly noticed: the consciousness of Sonship (in Him as a Man) making Him zealous for His Father's honour. The point of this book is here distinctly shown out. The world would blame this also, but when there is energy of the Spirit, zeal (which might seem beside itself) when the matter is undeniable for God's honour, is not rejected. It was right to be done; whether it was right to do it in another sense is another question. Here it is left on its right ground: "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." It was witness, too, of that day when, as Son indeed with power, He shall purge the temple of all that defiles it; that blessed day when all shall be cleared away that hinders the Father's glory, and the free access of His love. Now was His time, indeed, to suffer, but still the great result to which this all leads, the purpose of God, known and set in His heart, was breaking forth even out of its time; for it was strange to Him also to suffer, but the great results were not strange. But God gave Him (most glorious Jesus!) the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season to them that were weary. He wakened His ear morning by morning, He wakened His ear to hear as the learned. But I pass beyond my subject.

Here, as he thinks of it, the psalmist's zeal breaks out: it consumes him as the altar-flame the sacrifice; as with Christ in the temple, where He flames out in a testimony against the evil, which puts Him in opposition to the heads of the people, identified with the wickedness that was then in power. It is not with the psalmist that men are his adversaries merely, but "because mine adversaries have forgotten Thy words."

But as we have been seeing, this devotedness characterized His entire life. He goes into the temple, which is for Him His Father's house, but He finds it polluted by men who, under the plea of caring for God's things, are really seeking their own. Our Lord with a scourge of small cords drives them out, and casts out all their traffic. "Make not My Father's house a house of merchandise," He says, and His disciples remember the words of the 69th psalm (Ps. 69:9) — one of the sacrificial psalms — "The zeal of Thy house hath eaten Me up." This very zeal and devotedness to His Father's glory was a pledge of His death. So when asked by the Pharisees by what authority He did these things, His reply shows that He knew full Well where such zeal was leading Him: "Destroy this temple" — take My life — "and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:13-22).

This raises the question, What was it that brought Christ into reproach? Psalm 69:7-9 give the answer. There we hear the Lord saying, “The zeal of Thine house has eaten Me up.” He was zealous for God in the midst of a God-hating nation, and in result He was treated as a “stranger” and an “alien”. His zeal brought Him into the outside place of reproach and shame. He represented God in a world that hated God. His presence among men gave them an occasion for expressing their hatred. They vented their hatred to God upon Christ, as the Lord says, “For Thy sake I have borne reproach”, and again, “The reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon Me.”

Observe the moral and spiritual power here that finds no active opposition from the Jews. However bitter their resentment, they could not resist this honorable action on His Father's behalf. The quotation from Psalm 69:9 is at the time remembered by His disciples: for when that which was totally unbecoming to His Father's nature had dared to invade His Father's house, this could not but occasion a burning zeal in His soul. Let us take a solemn lesson from this as to what is becoming to God's house, the assembly of God, today.

He showed what the patience and consolation of God were, and was reproached for it, as we learn from this quotation from Psalm 69, "The reproaches of them that reproached Thee have fallen upon Me." That is the second half of a verse, the first half is "The zeal of Thy house has eaten Me up." This is quoted and applied to the Lord in John 2, when with a whip of small cords, He drove from the Temple those who had turned it into a den of thieves. He did that alone, we could have no part in such divine and holy indignation, but in these reproaches we may share, and shall if we are like Him, and that which causes the reproaches is as necessary to the well-being of God's house on earth now as was the zeal that cleansed the Temple then.