Jesus Alive

The Zeal of the Lord

David McCullough’s biography of Teddy Roosevelt, Mornings On Horseback, includes this story of young Teddy as a child in New York City:

Mittie [his mother] had found he was so afraid of the Madison Square Church that he refused to set foot inside if alone. He was terrified, she discovered, of something called the “zeal.” It was crouched in the dark corners of the church ready to jump at him, he said. When she asked what a zeal might be, he said he was not sure, but thought it was probably a large animal like an alligator or a dragon. He had heard the minister read about it from the Bible. Using a concordance, she read him those passages containing the word zeal until suddenly, very excited, he told her to stop. The line was from the Gospel of John 2:17: “And his disciples remembered that it was written, ‘The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.’ ”[1]

Young Teddy Roosevelt was comically mistaken about zeal. Zeal is — “excessive fervor to do something or accomplish some end.” People are zealous about many things, good and bad. Zealous about causes, both good and bad, zealous about making money, zealous about fine cuisine. As we explore John 2:13-22, we will discover what Jesus was zealous about and the results of his zeal.

The Cleansing

Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up” (Jn 2:13–17, NKJV).

We are told that the Passover was at hand, a festival that commemorated the deliverance of the Children of Israel from Egyptian bondage. During a time when preparations should have been made to prepare for this festival that celebrated God’s faithfulness to his people, merchants positioned themselves on the grounds of the temple seeking to make maximum profits at the expense of the people who had travelled long distances from all across the empire to come to Jerusalem for Passover. The greater tragedy was the priests permitted the merchants to merchandise sickly animals for exorbitant prices to people who had no other choice but to buy these detestable offerings, else they would have nothing at all. It’s more than likely that the priests were getting a sizeable kickback from the sales. When Jesus saw this travesty [read vs. 15-16].

Verse 17 says, Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.” (Jn 2:17, NKJV) The term “it is written” or “it was written” tells us the disciples recognized that a prophecy predicted this very event. Where is this prophecy found? It’s found in Ps 69. Let’s turn to this Davidic prophecy. [Read up to verse 5]. Wait a minute, this cannot be a prophecy about Jesus? “O God, You know my foolishness; And my sins are not hidden from You.” (Ps 69:5, NKJV)

The Prophecy

[Keep reading until vs. 7] No way, this cannot apply to Jesus. [Read verse 8]. Wait a minute, this sounds familiar. Yes, Mark 3:20-21 says, “Jesus entered a house, and the crowd gathered again so that they were not even able to eat. When his family heard this, they set out to restrain him, because they said, “He’s out of his mind.” (Mk 3:20–21, CSB) [continue reading until vs. 9] More importantly, there we have it, the text that the disciples remembered, “Because zeal for Your house has eaten me up, And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.” (Ps 69:9, NKJV)

[Continue reading from verse 16] “You know my shame, my dishonor,” what did Jesus have to be ashamed about? Perhaps this Psalm is really not about Jesus. I’m confused! However, when we read verse 21 [read the verse] we cannot deny that, indeed, this Psalm is about Jesus. But how could this be? Jesus never sinned.

Let’s return to John 2 [continue reading from vs. 18]. The Jewish leaders tried to get into a debate with Jesus over his statement about the temple, but they failed to understand that Jesus was referring to the temple of his body. They failed to grasp that Jesus had penetrated their plots to murder him. Indeed, Ps 69 is a Davidic prophecy about the experience that Jesus would have at the hands of his enemies, culminating in his cruel death by crucifixion.

The Awakening

[Read vs. 22] The disciples could not understand why Jesus would allow himself to be arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane; they knew that with one thought or wave of his hand, he could have vanquished all his enemies like a superhero. It was after Jesus’s resurrection that the disciples finally got it. They finally understood the zeal of the Lord. Again, how could Psalms 69 refer to Jesus with statements such as, “O God, You know my foolishness; And my sins are not hidden from You” (Ps 69:5, NKJV) or “You know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonor; . . .” (Ps 69:19, NKJV)?

Turn with me to 2 Cor 5:21, For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Co 5:21, NKJV). Jesus did not only bear the sins of the world; no, in his zeal to save humanity regardless of the cost to himself, according to Paul, Jesus became sin! Try and absorb that! Let’s look at another statement Paul makes in Gal 3.

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”)” (Ga 3:13, NKJV)

Friends, Psalms 69 is all about Jesus; it’s all about the zeal that Jesus had that led him to stand in place of sinners, take what you and I deserve, and be identified so closely with sinful humanity. Only after Jesus’s resurrection his disciples finally got it. They finally understood what the prophets had predicted about Jesus, for they saw him fulfill these prophecies with their own eyes. They remembered his zeal in clearing out the temple on two occasions. They remembered him being mocked and beaten; they remembered Roman soldiers trying to give him vinegar to drink. The disciples came to the profound and solemn conclusion that Jesus did it all for them; he stood in their place. According to Isa 53:12, “he was counted among the rebellious.” Something happened to the disciples when they more fully grasped the depth of Christ’s love for them and the reality of who Jesus was.

“Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.” (Jn 2:22, NKJV)

Did you catch that friends? The disciples believed the Scripture and the word of Jesus after his resurrection. In other words, before his resurrection, you fill in the blanks! The Jesus they walked with for three and a half years was not who they believed he was. It was as though the Jesus of the Scriptures was dead to them. They were following another Jesus, but not the Jesus that Moses, David, and Isaiah prophesied about. But after the resurrection, they finally got it. Their eyes were opened, and the rest was history.

Is it possible to be a follower of Jesus, and not believe the Scriptures, and not believe the word of Jesus? Let’s read John 2:22 again carefully.

“Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.” (Jn 2:22, NKJV)

Atheist Says Meeting Jesus Like ‘Waking from Sleep’

Joy Davidman was a Jewish American atheist poet who as a young woman became a communist to satisfy her thirst for justice. She married a fellow writer, Bill. (After Bill’s death she married C.S. Lewis.)

At one point she said, “Of course, I thought, atheism was true, but I hadn’t given quite enough attention to developing the proof of it. Someday, when the children grow older, I’d work it out.” But between marrying Bill and meeting C.S. Lewis, Joy met Jesus.

Bill was a workaholic, an alcoholic, and unfaithful. One day he called Joy from his New York office and told her he was having a nervous breakdown. Then he hung up. There followed a day of frantic telephoning. By nightfall Joy recalls, there was nothing to do but wait and see if he turned up, alive or dead. She put her children to sleep and waited. And in that silence, something happened:

For the first time in my life, I felt helpless; for the first time my pride was forced to admit that I was not calm after all, the master of my fate and the captain of my soul. All my defenses … all the walls of arrogance and cockiness and self-love behind which I’d hid from God … went down momentarily, and God came in … There was a person with me in that room, directly present to my consciousness—a person so real that all my previous life was by comparison, a mere shadow play, and I myself was more alive than I had ever been; it was like waking from sleep.

Source:

Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity (Crossway, 2019), p. 222-223

Is Jesus alive to me? Do I believe his word? Am I awake to the reality of Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible? Or am I worshipping a Jesus of my own imagination? Friends, when Jesus is alive to the church, when Jesus is alive to us, I mean really alive, this will be the condition of God’s people:

Before the final visitation of God’s judgments upon the earth, there will be, among the people of the Lord, such a revival of primitive godliness as has not been witnessed since apostolic times. The Spirit and power of God will be poured out upon his children.[2]

[1]Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes, electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000), 303–304. [2]Ellen Gould White, The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan; Great Controversy (Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1888), 464.