"My Father's House.".
I. In this passage we find our Lord, in the first instance, disconnecting, jealously disconnecting, all temporal from spiritual things; endeavouring to do away with that worldly spirit which comes into our holy things. Now, in the letter of the thing, we are not in danger in the present day of any exact parallel to that which drew down our Saviour's indignant reproof upon those who kept the market, and came with beasts and money within the precincts of the Jewish Temple. Yet let us never forget that, before God, the inner life of thought is as real life as the outer life of action. Therefore, thoughts in the house of God are as real to our Heavenly Father as any act can be. If, when within the sacred walls, to think of secular transactions be reprehensible in the sight of God, which of us is not brought in guilty before His omniscient eye.
II. It was Christ's desire to purify His spiritual house. It is for the purity of that Church that our blessed Lord and Master is so anxious, and for which He prays, and for which He shed His Blood; and for which now, in heaven, He intercedes; and for the sake of which He looks to His Second Advent. There is a wonderful prophecy in Malachi 3:1 : "The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His Temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in... but who may abide the day of His coming?" In this verse you will notice that the Lord who is to come to His Temple is to come as the Jews' delight, and He is to come suddenly. The Lord did come suddenly on the occasion of my text. He appeared suddenly among the Jews, who then despised Him, but He did not come as the Lord in His glory. But He is to come again to His Church; and if, as we believe, in the restoration of the Jews to their own country, they shall rear again Ezekiel's temple, then in Ezekiel's temple literally the Lord Himself shall come, even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom they shall delight in. Not as the carpenter's son, but as the Lord in His glory; and He will come, and come to purify.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,2nd series, p. 171.
References: John 2:16. Homiletic Magazine,vol. vi., p. 262; Ibid.,vol. xi., p. 211; J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Christian Year,vol. i., p. 161.