TEXT: John 2:13-17

SUBJECT: Humanity of Christ #5: Zeal

With this sermon, we’ll complete our short study of Humanity of Jesus Christ.

Before we get to that, however, let me tell you a little story. The time is about 1830; the place is the University of Heidelberg, in Germany. There’s a professor named G.W.F. Hegel. He’s an ambitious man who aims to craft a philosophy that comprehends, well, everything.

Near the back of the lecture hall, there’s a student from Denmark with a sad look on his face. Later, he would become a famous man—Soren Kirkegaard. The other students were mesmerized by Hegel’s brilliant self-confidence. But the young Dane wasn’t so moved. In a sarcastic letter home, he said,

In other words, it explained nothing.

What it is to be a man cannot be explained. He has to be seen. And that is what God has done by taking on a human nature. He has shown us what it is to be a Man.

What we see all around us are shadows of men, bits and pieces, something like a Picasso painting—most of the parts are there, but they’re all mixed up and it’s hard to tell what you’re looking at. But look at Christ and you see Humanity as it once was in the Garden and will be some day in heaven. But for now, fully-developed manhood is in the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

Pontius Pilate didn’t mean it this way, but I urge you to take his words at face-value, and

Thus far, we’ve seen the Lord as a generous, brave, and wise Man; now we’ll look at Him as a Man of zeal—

The story is well known, but its purpose is often missed. What do we see in the cleansing of the Temple? We see a flash of anger that seems so out of character from a Man who is "meek and lowly of heart". Was the Lord mad? Sure He was. But that’s not what the disciples saw in the outburst.

What they saw was zeal. A burning passion for the sacred honor of God.

The leaders of Israel had turned the Temple into a shopping center—and a crooked one at that! And the Lord Jesus Christ would not take it sitting down! There is a time for patience, for prayer, and for doing nothing. But this was not the time! The House of God—where the Lord sat enthroned on the Cherubim—the symbol of hope to Israel and a promise to the whole world that the Infinite God is pleased to dwell with men. The Holy Place had been made common and even corrupt.

And the Lord Jesus Christ did something about it! Making a whip of cords, He burst into the Temple, overturned the money tables, drove out the livestock and chided the men—how dare you…

His was not blind rage or bigoted violence. It wasn’t low blood sugar, a bruised ego, or a party spirit that drove the Lord on that day. It was zeal.

What He had a lot of, we hardly have at all. Most of us, at least. I, for one, am much closer to lukewarm than I am to zealous. And I’m not alone.

Describing the world of eighty years ago, the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, wrote,

You think of the worshipers of Baal, bleeding half to death to win the favor of their god; you think of Jews who would cross land and sea to make one proselyte; you think of the suicide bombers, willing to glorify Allah or to save their people from the decadent West; you think of the cults, going door-to-door, and the families that hunkered down with in Waco, believing in David Koresh.

There’s a lot of zeal in the world—great passion for every unworthy object. But what Christian is on fire for God? And what church is willing to do whatever it takes to glorify Him in the world and to bring sinners to His Son?

The Laodiceans were not the only—or the last—believers to be "neither hot nor cold".

Should you be a fanatic for God—or what used to be called "A Jesus Freak"? I pass no judgment on their motives, but it seems to me that they do more harm than good. No one was more zealous than the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet at the same time, no one was more balanced, moderate, and reasonable than He.

Godly zeal is quite different than fanaticism of any kind—including the Christian variety.

Godly zeal is set on the right object.

The object of our Lord’s zeal was God! Not Himself, not His party, not His prejudices, and not secondary issues of theology.

The churches I grew up in cared about God—there’s no doubt about that. They wanted men to be saved; they witnessed and they prayed and they set good examples for the lost. Yet their red meat was something else: you could hear it in their sermons, read it in their books, and feel it in their churches. What they cared about most—it seemed to me—was Baptist Church Distinctives.

They talked about Christ—and I think they love Him. But what got them excited—what they would soonest fight for—were other things. Not necessarily bad things. But still, not God Himself.

When I became a Calvinist in 1979, I got away from all this! I never heard a Reformed Baptist excited about Limited Atonement, Amillennialism, or Plurality of Elders!

For what it’s worth, I believe in all of the above. But I don’t want to pour may passion into them; I’d rather be zealous for God Himself.

We must beware of confusing zeal for God with a party spirit. Or passion for the Lord with the warmth I feel for winning an argument.

If this sounds like a watered-down Christianity or a doctrinal apathy, let me quote a man who cannot be thought of that way. His name is Thomas Manton, one of the great Puritans. Speaking of the whispering and backbiting that often occur in theological disagreements, he says,

In another place (I couldn’t find the quote), Manton reminds us that zeal for God and zeal for ourselves often feel the same.

In short, Paul says to the Galatians who were being stirred by passionate, but false, teachers:

When the Lord saw the leaders of Israel desecrating the House of God, He got mad—plenty mad. But He didn’t lose His mind or jump over the ropes of God’s justice and mercy.

He upset the money tables, but He put nothing in His pocket; He whipped the livestock out of the place, but He didn’t stamp on them. He tore into the crooked sellers, but He didn’t abuse them with His words or tell them they had no hope of salvation.

In other words, He did what Paul tells us to do:

Whenever your "zeal for God" is tainted with pride and impatience and comes out in harsh words and ugly faces, you can be sure it’s the

In fact, it’s worse than the wrath of man. James says it is

Godly zeal doesn’t hold a grudge.

It may act with great boldness, but it doesn’t fester and become bitter. It seems likely that some of the men who sold livestock in the Temple that day later "Became obedient to the faith". The Lord was mad at them, but He didn’t hold a grudge.

Godly zeal doesn’t do that because it is against sin, not sinners. The sinner’s sin upset the Lord—not because He hated the sinner, but because He loved him. And sin marred God’s Image in Him. Thus…

Godly zeal is full of hope.

It may correct the sinner, but it does so as gently as possible because it hopes that God will give him repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, so that he might escape the snare of the devil.

This is the zeal our Lord had and has. And this is the zeal He wants you to have—a real and holy passion for God and His honor in the world.

If you’re anything like me, your zeal needs to be improved on. How do you do it? How do you shake off the sluggishness we’re all subject to and replace it with something more lively for God?

Positive change always starts with confession mixed with hope. To one church in Asia Minor, the Lord said,

H wants us to think back on the times we were more zealous than we are now. Maybe there was some immaturity mixed in it, but still, we cared for God and wanted to see Him glorified in the world! Confess that your passion for God is not what it used to be.

But don’t leave it there—with an admission of failure. For, to another church in the area, the Lord reminded them that—though they were lukewarm, He still wanted their fellowship,

This is a dear promise to backsliders who want to regain their zeal!

But most of all, if you want to become zealous for God, mediate on God.

Think of how worthy He is of your zeal! How shallow and vain people are to pour their energies into an array of nothingness! The things they care about perish with the use.

The gods of politics and materialism and pleasure are not worthy of your zeal. But the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is! Why would Isaiah accept the thankless job of preaching to people who would not listen to him?

It’s because "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and lifted up".

That’s what makes a Christian zealous! Not motivational sermons or loud music, but a vision of the Majesty of God—the God who cannot be ignored or met with yawning. In a flash of sacred feeling, the Israelites cried,

But that wore off as the memory of heavenly fire faded. That’s why you must not let the memory of God fade. But keep it up by regular Bible reading, prayer, sermons and sacraments. These are the things God has appointed to keep Himself in your mind and stir your heart with zeal for His glory.