Consider the cleansing of the Temple. Once the Lord God Jesus Christ went into the Temple in Jerusalem and cast out those who sold and bought, overthrowing the tables and seats of the money-changers and sellers of doves (Matt. 21:12). Was He angry? To those present, He must certainly have appeared angry. If you had been one of those merchants, going about your everyday business, and a man had come up to you and turned over your table before throwing you out, you would certainly have thought that he was angry, very angry. Why else would somebody act this way?
Why indeed did the Lord act so forcefully in cleansing the Temple? Was He perhaps pretending to be angry, so as to scare these evil-doers into submission? Yet the Lord was not simulating an affection; He was expressing one. He was acting from love, from a strong, powerful, zealous, and burning love, a love that was as a fire within Him. He cared. He cared, more intensely than we could ever begin to imagine, for the salvation of the human race.
. . . so it was that, from love for the human race, the Lord wept.
This is something that the Gospel makes clear. We read that before the Lord went into the Temple, while He was still approaching the city of Jerusalem, He wept (Lk. 19:41). He wept over the city and over all that this city stood for. Here was a center of worship. Yet the worship was so external, so far removed from the truth. How could the people He loved with such intensity ever receive His blessings if they were unable to worship Him?
And so it was that, from love for the human race, the Lord wept. And from the same love, the Lord went into His Temple, and cleansed that Temple of those who were profaning it. In so doing, He showed us something. He showed that His love is not a weak love. It is not a love that will stand back indefinitely while the evil oppress the good.
The Lord most certainly loves even those in evil. He yearns to bless them, and He does everything possible to soften the effects of their self-chosen misery. But the Lord also loves those in good. He has to help the good. He has to bring order, an order which allows those in good to live in freedom, free from the dominion of evil. This the Lord does, with strength, with power, and with zeal. The Lord’s love is not merely an emotion or affection: it is not merely a feeling of warmth towards the human race. In essence, the Lord’s love is pure spiritual fire, a fire full of mercy, a fire which goes forth to help those who are oppressed, to protect people from those who would harm them. The Lord’s love confronts the evil; it confronts those who would harm others; to them, therefore, He appears angry. But there is no anger, only love . . . a love which reaches out to protect and save . . . a love which yearns to bring happiness and peace to all.