The account of Jesus cleansing the temple (Matt. 21:12–13; John 2:13–17) is often used to justify anger and wrath. But with prayer and reflection and the help of God, I’ve come to see its deeper nature. Christ was not acting out of rage, but administering medicine. His rebuke was like an oncologist giving chemotherapy: harsh in appearance, yet rooted entirely in love, meant to kill the disease while saving the patient.
Our Lord, the Perfect Man, never fought hatred with hatred. To do so would be like fighting cancer with cancer. Instead, as the sinless Physician, He treated the soul’s disease with the exact prescription it required. What looked outwardly like severity was inwardly love—love for those enslaved by sin, and compassion for those blinded by it.
Christ’s soul was spotless. The Spirit’s light shone perfectly through Him, so He saw creation as it truly is: wholly good, but obscured by the smudges of sin. Reality flows not from the outside in, but from the inside out. A clean soul illumines the world; a stained soul casts shadows over everything.
Consider the soul as glass. Before glass is glass, it is stone. The hardened heart blocks all light until it is placed in the furnace of God’s love. Under obedience, the stone is purified, melted, and remade as glass. Then the dirt clinging to it becomes visible. What once seemed harmless is revealed as an obstruction to the light.
This is what Christ did in the temple. He was not overcome by passion, as we so often are. His was the clear, detached prescription of a physician treating disease, the zeal of perfect love. Where we would be angry, He was loving. Where we would lash out, He gave medicine. His cleansing of the temple was not wrath unleashed, but order restored, that the light of God might shine more clearly through His people.
To Christ our true Physician, who heals every soul and illumines all creation, be glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.