Some who read this story say, that it offends their notion of our Lord's dignity. Could He, with His own hand, chastise these traders? Some say, it offends their notion of His benignity. Could the All-Merciful exhibit such wrath against a tolerated, perhaps an unconscious, profaneness? Before we consider these opinions, it may be well to hear what the disciples felt, when they saw Him with the scourge by whom they had sat at the feast, whom they had hailed as the Giver of the marriage blessing, as the Inspirer of joy. '_They remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up._' These words came unbidden into their minds. His look, His voice, expressed all that they had ever heard of the vehement earnestness with which kings and prophets of old had felt the pollutions of God's Temple, and had sought to purge it of them. Josiah and Ezekiel revived in Him. He had forgotten Himself. He was possessed by the spirit that possessed the men of old. There was a fire burning in Him that could not be quenched, till it had consumed all the chaff from the threshing-floor. Such was their impression at the moment. Looking back upon it after all later events had interpreted it, St. John felt that this was a manifestation of grace and truth, as much as the making the water wine, or the healing the sick. For he had learnt that a gracious Being must be intolerant of that which is ungracious, that a true Being must seek to destroy falsehood--that falsehood most which is nearest the heart of a nation, the altar of God. He felt that this wrath must have reached its highest point in the most gracious, most true Being, in Him from whom all had received their portions of grace and truth. He felt that this wrath must have been least restrained in Him by any thoughts of what would look well in the eyes of men. What were all the notions which he had formed about dignity or comeliness? The Word made flesh was making it manifest that every punishment of every wrong doer was administered by Him; that whatever agents He may employ to purify his Church, to inflict vengeance upon those who have defiled it, the rod is really in His hand,--that it is He who directs and measures every blow. But St. John saw more in the act than this. He had said in his former chapter, not only, '_We beheld Him who was full of grace and truth, Him of whose fulness we had all received_,' but '_We beheld His glory, as the glory of the only-begotten of the Father_.' He teaches us to recognise a manifestation of _this_ glory, also, in the driving the money-changers out of the Temple. '_Jesus said to them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise._'