zeal for rectitude and
honourable dealing or for the glory of God, than the man who can stand
and be a spectator of wrong because it is no business of his to see that
injustice be withstood, who can connive at unrighteous practices because
their correction is troublesome, invidious, hazardous. He who lays a
sudden hand on wrong-doing may have no legal authority to plead in his
defence when challenged, but to all good men such an act justifies
itself. It was a similar zeal which at all times governed Christ. He
could not stand by and wash His hands of other men's sins. It was this
which brought Him to the cross, this which in the first place brought
Him to this world at all. He had to interfere. Zeal for His father's
glory, zeal for God and man, possessed Him.

It was therefore no concern of Jesus to make Himself very intelligible
to those who could not understand the action itself and demanded a
sign. They did not understand His answer; and it was not intended they
should. Frequently our Lord's answers are enigmatical. Men have
opportunity to stumble over them, if they will. For frequently they
asked foolish questions, which admitted only of such answers. The
present question, "What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou
doest these things?" was absurd. It was to ask for a light to see light
with, a sign of a sign. His zeal for God that carried the crowd before
it, and swept God's house clean of the profane, was the best proof of
His authority and Messiahship. But there was one sign which He could
promise them without violating His principle to do no miracle merely for
the sake of convincing reluctant minds. There was one sign which formed
an integral part of His work; a sign which He must work, irrespective of
its effect on their opinion of Him--the sign of His own Resurrection.
And therefore, when they ask Him for a sign of His authority to reform
the abuses of the Temple, He promises them this sign, that He will raise
the Temple again when they destroy it. If He can give them a Temple He
has authority in it. "Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will
raise it up."

What did He mean by this enigmatical saying, which not even His
disciples understood till long afterwards? We cannot doubt that in their
resistance to His first public act, righteous and necessary, and welcome
to all right-hearted men, as it was, He plainly saw the symptom of a
deep-seated hatred of all reform, which would lead them on to reject