Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 2:19
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
19. Destroy this temple ] It is S. Matthew (Mat 26:61) and S. Mark (Mar 14:58, see notes) who tell us that this saying was twisted into a charge against Christ, but they do not record the saying. S. John, who does record the saying, does not mention the charge. Such coincidence can scarcely be designed, and is therefore evidence of the truth of both statements. See on Joh 18:11. The word used in these three verses for ‘temple’ means the central sacred building ( naos), whereas that used in Joh 2:14 means the whole sacred enclosure ( hieron). The latter is never used figuratively.
raise it up ] In the charge His accusers turn this into build, a word not appropriate to raising a dead body. There is no contradiction between Christ’s declaration and the ordinary N.T. theology, that the Son was raised by the Father. The expression is figurative throughout; and ‘I and My Father are one.’ Comp. Joh 10:18. This throwing out seeds of thought for the future, which could not bear fruit at the time, is one of the characteristics of Christ’s teaching.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Destroy this temple – The evangelist informs us Joh 2:21 that by temple, here, he meant his body. It is not improbable that he pointed with his finger to his body as he spoke. The word destroy, used here in the imperative, has rather the force of the future. Its meaning may thus be expressed: You are now profaners of the temple of God. You have defiled the sanctuary; you have made it a place of traffic. You have also despised my authority, and been unmoved by the miracles which I have already performed. But your wickedness will not end here. You will oppose me more and more; you will reject and despise me, until in your wickedness you will take my life and destroy my body. Here was therefore a distinct prediction both of his death and the cause of it. The word temple, or dwelling, was not unfrequently used by the Jews to denote the body as being the residence of the spirit, 2Co 5:1. Christians are not unfrequently called the temple of God, as being those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells on earth, 1Co 3:16-17; 1Co 6:19; 2Co 6:16. Our Saviour called his body a temple in accordance with the common use of language, and more particularly because in him the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily, Col 2:9. The temple at Jerusalem was the appropriate dwelling-place of God. His visible presence was there especially manifested, 2Ch 36:15; Psa 76:2. As the Lord Jesus was divine – as the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him so his body might be called a temple.
In three days I will raise it up – The Jews had asked a miracle of him in proof of his authority that is, a proof that he was the Messiah. He tells them that a full and decided proof of that would be his resurrection from the dead. Though they would not be satisfied by any other miracle, yet by this they ought to be convinced that he came from heaven, and was the long-expected Messiah. To the same evidence that he was the Christ he refers them on other occasions. See Mat 12:38-39. Thus early did he foretell his death and resurrection, for at the beginning of his work he had a clear foresight of all that was to take place. This knowledge shows clearly that he came from heaven, and it evinces, also, the extent of his love that he was willing to come to save us, knowing clearly what it would cost him. Had he come without such an expectation of suffering, his love might have been far less; but when he fully knew all that was before him, when he saw that it would involve him in contempt and death, it shows compassion worthy of a God that he was willing to endure the load of all our sorrows, and die to save us from death everlasting. When Jesus says, I will raise it up, it is proof, also, of divine power. A mere man could not say this. No deceased man can have such power over his body; and there must have been, therefore, in the person of Jesus a nature superior to human to which the term I could be applied, and which had power to raise the dead – that is, which was divine.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 19. Destroy this temple] , This very temple; perhaps pointing to his body at the same time.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Our Saviour refuseth to give them any sign, but that of his resurrection the third day from the dead. This was the sign to which he afterwards refers the Pharisees, Mat 12:39; Luk 11:29. Our Saviours words must not be understood as commanding or licensing them to destroy him, but as foretelling what they would do. It is in Scripture very ordinary to use the imperative mood for the future tense of the indicative; see Gen 42:18; Deu 32:50; Isa 8:9,10; 54:1; Joh 13:27.
Destroy, is as much as, I know you will destroy, or, If you do destroy this temple, I will build it up in three days. The resurrection of Christ from the dead is ordinarily in Scripture attributed to the Father; but here Christ saith he would do it; and the Spirit, by whom he is said to have been quickened, equally proceedeth both from the Father and the Son. Nor is this the only text where it is attributed to Christ; see Joh 20:17,18. It was the work of the Trinity, out of itself, and so the work of all the three Persons. These words were three years after this made a great charge against Christ, Mat 26:61; but they reported them thus, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. He said only, this temple, meaning his body.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
19. Destroy this temple,&c.(See on Mr 14:58, 59).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Jesus answered and said unto them,…. In a dark and enigmaticai way, though very properly and pertinently; since it was with respect to the temple, and his power over it, and right to purge it, that a sign was required of him:
destroy this temple; pointing, as it were, with his finger to his body; for of that he spake, as appears from Joh 2:21, the dissolution of which, by death he means, the separation of his soul from his body, though not of either from his divine person: and it is to be understood, not as a command, or a grant, or as an exhortation, and advice to them, to kill his body; but rather as a prophecy of what they would do; or as putting the case, that should they, as he knew they would, destroy his body, then says he, as a sign of having a power to do what I have done,
in three days I will raise it again; by which he would appear to be the Son of God, with power, that had power of laying down his life, and taking it up again; and is the very sign, namely, his resurrection from the dead on the third day, he gives the Jews, when they sought one of him at another time, and upon another occasion.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Destroy this temple ( ). First aorist active imperative of , to loosen or destroy. It is the permissive imperative, not a command to do it. Note also , not , the sanctuary, symbol of God’s , in our hearts (1Co 3:16f.). There is much confusion about this language since Jesus added: “And in three days I will raise it up” ( ). Those who heard Jesus, including the disciples till after the resurrection (verse 22), understood the reference to be to Herod’s temple. Certainly that is the obvious way to take it. But Jesus often spoke in parables and even in enigmas. He may have spoken of the literal temple as a parable for his own body which of course they would not understand, least of all the resurrection in three days.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “Jesus answered and said unto them” (apekrithe lesous kai eipen autois) “Jesus replied and said to them,” directly, face to face, in confrontation, affirming His Divinity and right to see what His Father’s earthly Spiritual residence was an Holy place, an Holy hill, there on Mt. Zion, Psa 9:9.
2) “Destroy this temple,” (lusate ton naon touton) “You all destroy this shrine,” this Messianic body shrine of mine, or “kill this body temple,” if you may, if you will, if you must, as you want to do, as recounted on a similar occasion later, Mar 11:17-18; Mat 26:61; Mat 27:40.
3) “And in three days I will raise it up.” (kai en trisin hemerais egero auton) “And in three days of time I will raise it.” This was the sign He gave to them both on their demand, Joh 2:18, at this early hour, and at a later hour of His ministry. Yet, they did not accept the sign; When He came forth, they hired men to lie about His resurrection, Mat 16:1-4; Mat 28:11-15.
Jesus therefore predicted at His first passover, as an adult in Jerusalem, what would come to pass at His last passover. The raising up of the temple, after being destroyed by these Jews, referred to His resurrection, the raising up of His body, Joh 2:21.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
19. Destroy this temple. This is an allegorical mode of expression; and Christ intentionally spoke with that degree of obscurity, because he reckoned them unworthy of a direct reply; as he elsewhere declares that he speaks to them in parables, because they are unable to comprehend the mysteries of the heavenly kingdom, (Mat 13:13.) But first he refuses to them the sign which they demanded, either because it would have been of no advantage, or because he knew that it was not the proper time. Some compliances he occasionally made even with their unreasonable requests, and there must have been a strong reason why he now refused. Yet that they may not seize on this as a pretense for excusing themselves, he declares that his power will be approved and confirmed by a sign of no ordinary value; for no greater approbation of the divine power in Christ could be desired than his resurrection from the dead. But he conveys this information figuratively, because he does not reckon them worthy of an explicit promise. In short, he treats unbelievers as they deserve, and at the same time protects himself against all contempt. It was not yet made evident, indeed, that they were obstinate, but Christ knew well what was the state of their feelings.
But it may be asked, since he performed so many miracles, and of various kinds, why does he now mention but one? I answer, he said nothing about all the other miracles, First, because his resurrection alone was sufficient to shut their mouth: Secondly, he was unwilling to expose the power of God to their ridicule; for even respecting the glory of his resurrection he spoke allegorically: Thirdly, I say that he produced what was appropriate to the case in hand; for, by these words, he shows that all authority over the Temple belongs to him, since his power is so great in building the true Temple of God.
This temple. Though he uses the word temple in accommodation to the present occurrence, yet the body of Christ is justly and appropriately called a temple. The body of each of us is called a tabernacle, (2Co 5:4; 2Pe 1:13,) because the soul dwells in it; but the body of Christ was the abode of his Divinity. For we know that the Son of God clothed himself with our nature in such a manner that the eternal majesty of God dwelt in the flesh which he assumed, as in his sanctuary.
The argument of Nestorius, who abused this passage to prove that it is not one and the same Christ who is God and man, may be easily refuted. He reasoned thus: the Son of God dwelt in the flesh, as in a temple; therefore the natures are distinct, so that the same person was not God and man. But this argument might be applied to men; for it will follow that it is not one man whose soul dwells in the body as in a tabernacle; and, therefore, it is folly to torture this form of expression for the purpose of taking away the unity of Person in Christ. It ought to be observed, that our bodies also are called temples of God, (1Co 3:16, and 1Co 6:19; 2Co 6:16) but it is in a different sense, namely, because God dwells in us by the power and grace of his Spirit; but in Christ the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, so that he is truly God manifested in flesh, (1Ti 3:16.)
I will raise it up again. Here Christ claims for himself the glory of his resurrection, though, in many passages of Scripture, it is declared to be the work of God the Father. But these two statements perfectly agree with each other; for, in order to give us exalted conceptions of the power of God, Scripture expressly ascribes to the Father that he raised up his Son from the dead; but here, Christ in a special manner asserts his own Divinity. And Paul reconciles both.
If the Spirit of Him, that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you, (Rom 8:11.)
While he makes the Spirit the Author of the resurrection, he calls Him indiscriminately sometimes the Spirit of Christ, and sometimes the Spirit of the Father.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(19) Here, as in Mat. 12:38, a sign is given referring to His resurrection. The sign is in its nature an enigma, meaningless to him who does not seek to understand it, but full of meaning for him who earnestly examines into the thing signified, and in such a form as impresses itself on the memory and educates the moral powers. We have had an example of this enigmatic teaching in Joh. 1:15; Joh. 1:27; Joh. 1:30. We shall meet with others. (Comp. John 4, 6; Joh. 16:25.) The enigma turns in the present case upon the double sense of the word temple. It meant the sacred shrine of the Deity, the Holy and Most Holy place, as distinct from the wider Temple area. But the true shrine of the Deity was the body of the Incarnate Word. The Temple of wood and stone was but the representative of the Divine Presence. That Presence was then actually in their midst. They had no reverence for the one; for, like its outer courts, it had become a house of merchandise, and was fast becoming a den of thieves. This very demand for an outward sign, while all around them feel a spiritual power, shows they have as little reverence for the other. They will destroy the real shrine; the shrine of wood and stone even will not be left to represent a Presence no longer among them. He will raise up the temple of His body the third day, and in that resurrection will be the foundation stone of the spiritual temple for the world. The use of the word temple by the Jews in this double sense is attested by their interpretation of the Old Testament. We have an example of the use of tabernacle in a parallel sense in Joh. 1:14 (comp. 2Pe. 1:13-14), and the full idea of a spiritual worship and presence in Joh. 4:21-24. The sign may have been suggested by the double thought then presentthe Jews destroying the sanctity of the material Temple, the disciples seeing in Him one consumed by zeal for it. (Comp. 1Co. 3:16-17.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
19. Destroy this temple Our Lord gives them a sign, and at the same time a test. They are welcome to try the experiment. It was a suitable sign too; for as his mastery over the temple was the very point in question, he tells them he can rebuild the temple in a much shorter time than they can destroy it. Herein he asserts, as the eternal Son of God, his absolute omnipotence. It is this they understand; and they are so deeply impressed with the utterance that it meets him afterwards as a charge, namely, at his trial before their tribunal! That this was a true but not the only meaning will soon appear.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy the Temple and in three days I will raise it up”.’
Jesus’ reply is straight and simple, ‘Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up.’ This enigmatic reply brings them up short. They had not expected Him to tell them to destroy the Temple in order that He might give them a sign. They were not, of course, aware that within forty years the Temple would actually be destroyed as a result of their activities. Nor were they aware that for multitudes the crucified and risen Jesus would by then have replaced the Temple and its sacrifices. That the statement was generally remembered comes out in the fact that Jesus would later be charged with having said such things as, ‘I am able to destroy the Temple of God and rebuild it in three days’ (Mat 26:61) and ‘I will destroy this Temple that is made with hands and in three days I will build another made without hands’ (Mar 14:58), both of which appear to be distorted repetitions of these words. Here is one example where the Synoptics assume material contained in John’s Gospel.
We may also see in this an indication of Jesus’ sense of humour. We can almost see Him saying it, with tongue in cheek. They had asked for a sign so He would offer them one. ‘Let them but destroy the Temple and He would rebuild it within three days.’ And then waiting to observe what their reaction would be. If they took Him literally they would then have to destroy their Temple in order to prove whether He was genuine or not. If they did not He could point to their unwillingness to cooperate with Him as removing from Him any obligation to provide a sign. But it did mean that they could not accuse Him of refusing them a sign. On the other hand it also had a deeper meaning, and He knew exactly what He meant. He was referring to His own coming death and resurrection.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 2:19. Destroy this temple, The miracle which our Lord had already performed, in driving the buyers and sellers out of the temple, was sufficient to convince them of the authority by which he made this reformation, if they were to have been convinced by any miracle at all. Therefore our Lord, instead of satisfying their unreasonable demands, refers them to the great miracle of his resurrection; but refers them to it in such obscure terms, as prejudiced minds could not understand, till the prophesy itself was cleared and explained by the event; yet, if he either pointed to his body, or alluded to their commonly received opinions, one would wonder that they should have mistaken his meaning so far, as to suppose that he meant the temple in which they were at that time assembled. The temple itself was supposed to be inhabited by the Divinity, and to derive its holiness from that circumstance; but as the Divinity dwelt in the body of Christ, that body deserved the name of temple more justly than the building made with hands. One of the rabbies says expressly, that the Messiah, the holy Son of David, is the Holy of Holies; and if that opinion existed in the time of Christ, as probably it might, there could be no great obscurity in the application of this term then. By a similar figure of speech, the apostle calls the bodies of believersthe temple of God, on account of the inhabitation of the Holy Ghost. See Mar 14:58. Instead of destroy this temple, Dr. Heylin reads, ye will destroy. In the prophetic stile, says he, the imperative is often used for the future.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
Ver. 19. Destroy this temple ] This was the same in effect with that sign of the prophet Jonah, Mat 12:39-40 . His resurrection was a plain demonstration of his Deity, Superas evadere ad auras, hic labor, hoc opus est, befitting a God, Rom 1:4 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
19. ] This answer of our Lord has been involved in needless difficulty. That [in uttering the words ] He pointed to His own Body, is inconceivable; for thus both the Jews and His own disciples must have understood Him, which (see Joh 2:20 ; Joh 2:22 ) neither of them did. That He implied [in saying . . .] that their lawless proceedings in the temple would at last bring it to an end , is equally inconceivable; both on account of the latter part of His declaration, which would thus have no meaning, and because of the use of the word , which was the holy and the holiest place , the temple itself , as distinguished from , the whole enceinte of the sacred buildings. Stier has well remarked (i. 48, 49, edn. 2) that our Lord in this saying comprehended in the reality , His own Body, its type and symbol , the temple then before them. That temple, with all its ordinances and holy places, was but the shadow of the Christian Church; that, the type of the Body of the Lord, represented the Church, which is veritably His Body . And so the saying was fulfilled by the slaying of His actual Body, in which rejection of Him the destruction of the Jewish temple and city was involved, and the raising of that Body after three days, in which resurrection we, all the members of His new glorified Body, are risen again. It is for want of keeping in mind this width and depth of the Lord’s sayings, that so many Commentators have fallen into error here and elsewhere in interpreting them. Most of the best German expositors, e.g. Lcke, Neander (L. J. 283), and even Olshausen, find insuperable difficulty in the exposition given by the Evangelist of these words , and even contend that it could not have been the right one . But surely those who believe the Apostles to have been under the special influence of the Holy Spirit in their work of witnessing to and bringing out the truth of the sayings and doings of the Lord, cannot take this ground. It is a wholly distinct matter from a chronological inaccuracy, or a report of the same occurrence varying in minor details; such things the Spirit may have, and has as matter of fact, for special reasons permitted in the Evangelists; but we have here, assumed the genuineness of our Gospel, on which none of these writers have a doubt, the positive declaration of an Apostle (and what an Apostle) of the meaning of the Lord’s saying; which I do not think we are at liberty to question, on any, even the most moderate view, of the inspiration of the Scriptures. The difficulties attending the interpretation are, besides the double meaning which I have treated above, (1) the use of the imperative, as applied to the death of Christ . Olshausen contends that it must be mandatory, and cannot be hypothetical. But surely Mat 12:33 is an instance in point, as adduced by De Wette, for the hypothetical meaning: and usages exactly like that in our text are found in the reff. (v): see Winer, Gram. edn. 6, 43. 2. (2) The words , seeing that the resurrection of the Lord is ever spoken of as the work of the Father . Yes, but by power committed to Christ Himself: see ch. Joh 10:18 , where this is distinctly asserted; and ch. Joh 6:39-40 ; Joh 6:44 , where it is implied, for He is the first fruits of them that sleep, and (though the whole course of His working was after the will of the Father, and in the Spirit, which wrought in Him) strictly and truly raised Himself from the dead in the sense here intended. (3) The utterance of such a prophecy at so early a period of His official life . But it was not a prophecy known and understood, but a dark saying , from which no one could then draw an inference as to His death or resurrection. The disciples did not understand it; and I cannot agree with Stier that the Jews could have had any idea of such being His meaning. Chrys. (Hom. xxiii. in Joan. p. 134) says, , . ; , , . Lcke remarks, that the circumstance of the words being spoken so long before his trial by the Sanhedrim, would make it more easy for the false witnesses to distort them. This they did, but not so as to agree with one another. They reported it, ‘I can destroy,’ &c., which makes a wide difference, and represents our Lord as an enemy of the temple ( Mat 26:61 ), and some added to . ., . , and that He would raise another ( Mar 14:58 ).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
John
THE DESTROYERS AND THE RESTORER
Joh 2:19
This is our Lord’s answer to the Jewish request for a sign which should warrant His action in cleansing the Temple. There are two such cleansings recorded in the Gospels; this one His first public act, and another, omitted by John, but recorded in the other Gospels, which was almost His last public act.
It has been suggested that these are but two versions of one incident; and although there is no objection in principle to admitting the possibility of that explanation, yet in fact it appears to me insufficient and unnecessary. For each event is appropriate in its own place. In each there is a distinct difference in tone. The incident recorded in the present chapter has our Lord’s commentary, ‘Make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise’; in that recorded in the Synoptic Gospels the profanation is declared as greater, and the rebuke is more severe. The ‘house of merchandise’ has become, by their refusal to render to Him what was His, ‘a den of thieves.’ In the later incident there is a reference in our Lord’s quotation from the Old Testament to the entrance of the Gentiles into the Kingdom. There is no such reference here. In the other Gospels there is no record of this question which the Jews asked, nor of our Lord’s significant answer, whilst yet a caricatured and mistaken version of that answer was known to the other Evangelists, and is put by them into the mouths of the false witnesses at our Lord’s trial. They thus attest the accuracy of our narrative even while they seem not to have known of the incident.
All these things being taken into account, I think that we have to do with a double, of which there are several instances in the Gospels, the same event recurring under somewhat varied circumstances, and reflecting varied aspects of truth. But it is to our Lord’s words in vindication of His right to cleanse the Temple rather than to the incident on which they are based that I wish to turn your attention now: ‘Destroy this Temple,’ said our Lord, as His sufficient and only answer to the demand for a sign, ‘and in three days I will raise it up.’
Now these words, enigmatical as they are, seem to me to be very profound and significant; and I wish, on this Easter Sunday, to look at them as throwing a light upon the gladness of this day. They suggest to me three things: I find in them, first, an enigmatical forecast of our Lord’s own history; second, a prophetic warning of Israel’s; and last, a symbolical foreshadowing of His world-wide work as the Restorer of man’s destructions. ‘Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’
I. First then, I think, we see here an enigmatical forecast of our Lord’s own history.
And so this Jewish Peasant, at the very beginning of His earthly career, stands up there, in the presence of the ancestral sanctities and immemorial ceremonials which had been consecrated by all these ages and commanded by God Himself, and with autocratic hand sweeps them all on one side, as one that should draw a curtain that the statue might be seen, and remains poised Himself in the vacant place, that all eyes may look upon Him, and on Him alone. ‘Destroy this Temple . . . . He spake of the temple of His body.’
Still further, notice how here we have, at the very beginning of our Lord’s career, His distinct prevision of how it was all going to end. People that are willing to honour Jesus Christ, and are not willing to recognise His death as the great purpose for which He came, tell us that, like as with other reformers and heroes and martyrs, His death was the result of the failure of His purpose. And some of them talk to us very glibly, in their so-called ‘Lives of Jesus Christ’ about the alteration in Christ’s plan which came when He saw that His message was not going to be received. I do not enter upon all the reasons why such a construction of Christ’s work cannot hold water, but here is one-for any one who believes this story before us-that at the very beginning, before He had gone half a dozen steps in His public career, when the issues of the experiment, if it was a man that was making the experiment, were all untried; when, if it were merely a martyr-enthusiast that was beginning his struggle, some flickering light of hope that He would be received of His brethren must have shone, or He would never have ventured upon the path-that then, with no mistake, with no illusion, with no expectation of a welcome and a Hosanna, but with the clearest certitude of what lay before Him, our Lord beheld and accepted His Cross. Its shadow fell upon His path from the beginning, because the Cross was the purpose for which He came. ‘To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world,’ said He-when the reality of it was almost within arm’s length of Him-’to bear witness to the Truth,’ and His bearing witness to the truth was perfected and accomplished on the Cross. Here, at the very commencement of His career, we have it distinctly set forth, ‘the Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many.’
And, brethren, that fact is important, not only because it helps us to understand that His death is the centre of His work, but also because it helps us to a loving and tender thought of Him, how all His life long, with that issue distinctly before Him, He journeyed towards it of His own loving will; how every step that He took on earth’s flinty roads, taken with bleeding and pure feet, He took knowing whither He was going. This Isaac climbs the mountain to the place of sacrifice, with no illusions as to what He is going up the mountain for. He knows that He goes up to be the lamb of the offering, and knowing it, He goes. Therefore let us love Him with love as persistent as was His own, who discerning the end from the beginning, willed to be born and to live because He had resolved to die, for you and me and every man.
And then, further, we have here our Lord’s claim to be Himself the Agent of His own resurrection. ‘I will raise it up in three days.’ Of course, in Scripture, we more frequently find the Resurrection treated as being the result of the power of God the Father. We more ordinarily read that Christ was raised; but sometimes we read, as here, that Christ rises, and we have solemn words of His own, ‘I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.’ Think of a man saying, ‘I am going to bring My own body from the dust of death,’ and think of the man who said that doing it. If that is true, if this prediction was uttered, and being uttered was fulfilled-what then? I do not need to answer the question. My brother, this day declares that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. ‘Destroy this Temple’-there is a challenge-’and in three days I will raise it up’; and He did it. And He is the Lord of the Temple as well as the Temple. Down on your knees before Him, with all your hearts and with all your confidence, and worship, and trust, and love for evermore ‘the Second Man,’ who ‘is the Lord from Heaven!’
II. Now let us turn to the other aspects of these words. I think we see here, in the next place, a prophetic warning of the history of the men to whom He was speaking.
If any one had said to any of that howling mob that stood round Christ at the judgment-seat of the High Priest, and fancied themselves condemning Him to death, because He had blasphemed the Temple: ‘You, at this moment, are pulling down the holy and beautiful house in which your fathers praised; and what you are doing now is the destruction of your national worship and of yourselves,’ the words would have been received with incredulity; and yet they were simple truth. Christ’s death destroyed that outward Temple. The veil was ‘rent in twain from the top to the bottom’ at the moment He died; which was the declaration indeed that henceforward the Holiest of All was patent to the foot of every man, but was also the declaration that there was no more sanctity now within those courts, and that Temple, and priesthood, and sacrifice, and altar, and ceremonial and all, were antiquated. That ‘which was perfect having come,’ Christ’s death having realised all which Temple-worship symbolised, that which was the shadow was put away when the substance appeared.
And in another fashion, it is also true that the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, inflicted by Jewish hands, was the destruction of the Jewish worship, in the way of natural sequence and of divine chastisement. When the husbandmen rejected the Son who was sent ‘last of all,’ there was nothing more for it but that they should be ‘cast out of the vineyard,’ and the firebrand which the Roman soldier, forty years afterwards, tossed into the Holiest of All, and which burned the holy and beautiful house with fire, was lit on the day when Israel cried ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’
Oh, brethren! What a lesson it is to us all of how blind even so-called religious zeal may be; how often it is true that men in their madness and their ignorance destroy the very institutions which they are trying to conserve! How it warns us to beware lest we, unknowing what we are about, and thinking that we are fighting for the honour of God, may really all the while be but serving ourselves and rejecting His message and His Messenger!
And then let me remind you that another thing is also true, that just as the Jewish rejection of Christ was their own rejection as the people of God, and their attempted destruction of Christ the destruction of the Jewish Temple, so the other side of the truth is also here, viz. that His rising again is the restoration of the destroyed Temple in nobler and fairer form. Of course the one real Temple is the body of Jesus Christ, as we have said, where sacrifice is offered, where God dwells, where men meet with God. But in a secondary and derivative sense, in the place of the Jewish Temple has come the Christian Church, which is, in a far deeper and more inward fashion, what that ancient system aspired to be.
Christ has builded up the Church on His Resurrection. On His Resurrection, I say, for there is nothing else on which it could rest. If men ask me what is the great evidence of Christ’s Resurrection, my answer is-the existence in the world of a Church. Where did it come from? How is it possible to conceive that without the Resurrection of Jesus Christ such a structure as the Christian society should have been built upon a dead man’s grave? It would have gone to pieces, as all similar associations would have gone. What had happened after that moment of depression which scattered them every man to his own, and led some of them to say, with pathetic use of the past tense to describe their vanished expectations, ‘We trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel’? What was the force that instead of driving them asunder drew them together? What was the power that, instead of quenching their almost dead hopes, caused them to flame up with renewed vigour heaven-high? How came it that that band of cowardly, dispirited Jewish peasants, who scattered in selfish fear and heart-sick disappointment, were in a few days found bearding all antagonism, and convinced that their hopes had only erred by being too faint and dim? The only answer is in their own message, which explained it all: ‘Him hath God raised from the dead, whereof we are all witnesses.’
The destroyed Temple disappears, and out of the dust and smoke of the vanishing ruins there rises, beautiful and serene, though incomplete and fragmentary and defaced with many a stain, the fairer reality, the Church of the living Christ. ‘Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’
III. Lastly, we have here a foreshadowing of our Lord’s world-wide work as the Restorer of man’s destructions.
My brother! what have you done with your heart? ‘Destroy this temple.’ Christ spoke to men who did not know what they were doing; and He speaks to you. It is the inmost meaning of the life of many of you. Hour by hour, day by day, action by action, you are devastating and profaning the sanctities of your nature, and the sacred places there where God ought to live.
Listen to His confident promise. He knows that in me He is able to restore to more than pristine beauty all which I, by my sin, have destroyed; to reconsecrate all which I, by my profanity, have polluted; to cast out the evil deities that desecrate and deform the shrine; and to make my poor heart, if only I will let Him come in to the ruined chamber, a fairer temple and dwelling-place of God.
‘In three days,’ does He do it? In one sense-Yes! Thank God! the power that hallows and restores the desecrated and cast-down temple in a man’s heart, was lodged in the world in those three days of death and resurrection. The fact that He ‘died for our sins,’ the fact that He was ‘raised again for our justification,’ are the plastic and architectonic powers which will build up any character into a temple of God.
And yet more than ‘forty and six years’ will that temple have to be ‘in building.’ It is a lifelong task till the top-stone be brought forth. Only let us remember this: Christ, who is Architect and Builder, Foundation and Top-stone; ay! and Deity indwelling in the temple, and building it by His indwelling-this Christ is not one of those who ‘begin to build and are not able to finish.’ He realises all His plans. There are no ruined edifices in ‘the City’; nor any half-finished fanes of worship within the walls of that great Jerusalem whose builder and maker is Christ.
If you will put yourselves in His hands, and trust yourselves to Him, He will take away all your incompleteness, and will make you body, soul, and spirit, temples of the Lord God; as far above the loftiest beauty and whitest sanctity of any Christian character here on earth as is the building of God, ‘the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,’ above ‘the earthly house of this tabernacle.’
He will perfect this restoring work at the last, when His Word to His servant Death, as He points him to us, shall be ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Destroy, &c. The Lord’s enemies remembered His words, and perverted them: saying, “I will destroy”, &c. See Mat 26:61; Mar 14:58.
this. See on Mat 16:18.
Temple. Greek. naos. See note on Mat 23:16.
raise . . . up. Greek. egeiro. App-178.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
19.] This answer of our Lord has been involved in needless difficulty. That [in uttering the words ] He pointed to His own Body, is inconceivable;-for thus both the Jews and His own disciples must have understood Him, which (see Joh 2:20; Joh 2:22) neither of them did. That He implied [in saying . . .] that their lawless proceedings in the temple would at last bring it to an end, is equally inconceivable; both on account of the latter part of His declaration, which would thus have no meaning,-and because of the use of the word ,-which was the holy and the holiest place, the temple itself,-as distinguished from , the whole enceinte of the sacred buildings. Stier has well remarked (i. 48, 49, edn. 2) that our Lord in this saying comprehended in the reality,-His own Body, its type and symbol,-the temple then before them. That temple, with all its ordinances and holy places, was but the shadow of the Christian Church;-that, the type of the Body of the Lord, represented the Church, which is veritably His Body. And so the saying was fulfilled by the slaying of His actual Body, in which rejection of Him the destruction of the Jewish temple and city was involved,-and the raising of that Body after three days, in which resurrection we, all the members of His new glorified Body, are risen again. It is for want of keeping in mind this width and depth of the Lords sayings, that so many Commentators have fallen into error here and elsewhere in interpreting them. Most of the best German expositors, e.g. Lcke, Neander (L. J. 283), and even Olshausen, find insuperable difficulty in the exposition given by the Evangelist of these words, and even contend that it could not have been the right one. But surely those who believe the Apostles to have been under the special influence of the Holy Spirit in their work of witnessing to and bringing out the truth of the sayings and doings of the Lord, cannot take this ground. It is a wholly distinct matter from a chronological inaccuracy, or a report of the same occurrence varying in minor details; such things the Spirit may have, and has as matter of fact, for special reasons permitted in the Evangelists; but we have here,-assumed the genuineness of our Gospel, on which none of these writers have a doubt,-the positive declaration of an Apostle (and what an Apostle) of the meaning of the Lords saying;-which I do not think we are at liberty to question, on any, even the most moderate view, of the inspiration of the Scriptures. The difficulties attending the interpretation are,-besides the double meaning which I have treated above,-(1) the use of the imperative, as applied to the death of Christ. Olshausen contends that it must be mandatory, and cannot be hypothetical. But surely Mat 12:33 is an instance in point, as adduced by De Wette, for the hypothetical meaning: and usages exactly like that in our text are found in the reff. (v): see Winer, Gram. edn. 6, 43. 2. (2) The words ,-seeing that the resurrection of the Lord is ever spoken of as the work of the Father. Yes,-but by power committed to Christ Himself: see ch. Joh 10:18, where this is distinctly asserted; and ch. Joh 6:39-40; Joh 6:44, where it is implied, for He is the first fruits of them that sleep,-and (though the whole course of His working was after the will of the Father,-and in the Spirit, which wrought in Him) strictly and truly raised Himself from the dead in the sense here intended. (3) The utterance of such a prophecy at so early a period of His official life. But it was not a prophecy known and understood,-but a dark saying, from which no one could then draw an inference as to His death or resurrection. The disciples did not understand it; and I cannot agree with Stier that the Jews could have had any idea of such being His meaning. Chrys. (Hom. xxiii. in Joan. p. 134) says, , . ; , , . Lcke remarks, that the circumstance of the words being spoken so long before his trial by the Sanhedrim, would make it more easy for the false witnesses to distort them. This they did, but not so as to agree with one another. They reported it, I can destroy, &c., which makes a wide difference, and represents our Lord as an enemy of the temple (Mat 26:61), and some added to . .,-. , and that He would raise another (Mar 14:58).
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 2:19. , destroy) On account of this very deed, namely, the cleansing of the temple, they afterwards destroyed the temple of His body. Mat 21:23 [see above], Mat 21:46, They sought to lay hands on Him; Mat 27:40, [They that passed by reviled, saying] Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save Thyself; Mat 26:61, [False witnesses said, in His trial before Caiaphas] This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. Destroy, i.e. if you destroy: or rather, you will destroy. A similar use of the Imperative [occurs] Sir 30:9; Sir 33:26, Soothe your little son, etc. [= you will soothe],- , the temple) The body of Jesus, about to be raised again, is the temple and dwelling-place of the Godhead. Therefore Jesus is the Lord of the temple at Jerusalem, which was the type of the body of Jesus.-, this) There is no doubt but that Jesus supplied that which the Evangelist adds, Joh 2:21, by the employment of a nod or gesture, unobserved by the Jews.-[47] , I will raise it up) A suitable word, [both] concerning the edifice of stone, and concerning the temple of His body. It recurs at verse 22. This is a grand declaration of His, I can do what I please with the temple of My body: ch. Joh 10:17-18, No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; and so also I can do what I please with this temple made of stone and wood. He puts off those demanding the sign: comp. ch. Joh 8:28, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself: nor, however, even in the time then being did He perform no signs; Joh 2:23, Many believed on His name, when they saw the miracles which He did.
[47] , in three days) From this very time, in which it first came into the Jews mind to destroy the temple of Christs body (Mar 14:58, We heard Him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands), down to His resurrection, by which He Himself raised the temple, is accounted, even in that sense, a three days period, if you take one day, and that the Passover day, in this figurative language, as one year: to wit, by including in the numeration the years of the prophecy and of its completion (which years are Dion. 28 and 30).-Harm., p. 162.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 2:19
Joh 2:19
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.-He pointed to his death, burial, and resurrection. Spoke of his body as a temple, which, when they destroyed it, would be restored in three days. They did not understand this reference. He more than once referred those refusing to be convinced by the evidences he gave of his divine mission to his resurrection as the great sign of his being the Son of God. He was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead; even Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom 1:4).
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Destroy: Mat 26:60, Mat 26:61, Mat 27:40, Mar 14:58, Mar 15:29
and in: Mat 12:40, Mat 27:63
I will: Joh 5:19, Joh 10:17, Joh 10:18, Joh 11:25, Mar 8:31, Act 2:24, Act 2:32, Act 3:15, Act 3:26, Rom 4:24, Rom 6:4, Rom 8:11, 1Co 15:3, 1Co 15:4, 1Co 15:12, Col 2:12, 1Pe 3:18
Reciprocal: 1Ki 6:1 – build 1Ch 17:12 – He shall 2Ch 7:16 – eyes Psa 56:5 – they Zec 6:12 – he shall build Mat 12:6 – General Mat 16:21 – and be Mat 17:23 – the third Mat 28:6 – as Mar 9:10 – what Mar 9:31 – The Son Mar 16:6 – he is risen Luk 9:44 – for Luk 24:8 – General Joh 11:17 – four Act 13:30 – General Heb 9:24 – the holy Rev 21:22 – the Lamb
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
9
The Jews pretended to think Jesus meant the literal temple that was the capitol of their national service. But their conversation with Pilate, recorded in Mat 27:62-63, shows they fully understood what temple was meant.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
[Destroy this Temple.] I. Christ showeth them no sign that was a mere sign; Mat 12:39. The turning of Moses’ rod into a serpent, and returning the serpent into a rod again; the hand becoming leprous, and restored to its proper temperament again; these were mere signs; but those wonders which Moses afterward wrought in Egypt were not mere signs; but beneficent miracles; and whoever would not believe upon those infinite miracles which he wrought, would much less have believed upon mere signs. And, indeed, it was unbecoming our blessed Lord so far to indulge to their obstinate incredulity, to be showing new signs still at every beck of theirs, who would not believe upon those infinite numbers he put forth upon every proper occasion.
II. Mat 12:39-40. When they had required a sign; Christ remits them to the sign of the prophet Jonah; and he points at the very same sense in these words, Destroy this Temple; etc.: that is, “My resurrection from the dead will be a sign beyond all denial, proving and affirming, that what I do I act upon divine authority, and that I am he who is to come (Rom 1:4). Further than this you must expect no other sign from me. If you believe me not while I do such works, at least believe me when I arise from the dead.”
He acted here, while he is purging the Temple, under that notion as he was the authorized Messiah, Mal 3:1; Mal 3:3, and expressly calls it “his Father’s house,” Joh 2:16. Show us therefore some sign; (say the Jews,) by which it may appear that thou art the Messiah the Son of God; at least, that thou art a prophet. I will show you a sufficient sign; saith Christ: destroy this temple; viz. of my body, and I will raise it from the dead again; a thing which was never yet done, nor could be done by any of the prophets.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Joh 2:19. Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple. The most important point for the understanding of this verse is the distinction between the two words which the English Bible renders temple. The word used in Joh 2:14-15 denotes generally the whole area within the walls, and here especially the outermost space in the sacred enclosure; while the latter signifies the holy place, and the holy of holies. The sanctity of the temple-court has been vindicated; the true temple, the sanctuary, the dwelling-place of Jehovah; has not been mentioned in the narrative until now. But even this very significant change of expression would not render the meaning plain, for the words were intended to be enigmaticalto be understood after, and not before, the event which fulfilled them. If we would understand them, we must take them in connection with Joh 2:21, But He spake of the temple of His body. To the English reader they seem merely to convey a warning that, if the Jews go on with such profanation as that which Jesus had checked, they will bring the temple to ruin. But it is of the sanctuary that He speaks, not of the temple-court which had sustained the desecration. When therefore He says, Go on in your present way, and by so doing destroy this temple, He means that their rejection of Himself shall culminate in their consigning to destruction the temple of His body. The essence of the temple is, that it is the dwelling-place of God: His body is Gods temple, for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The material temple had been for ages the type of His body, in which God first truly manifested Himself to man. The continuance of the temple was no longer needed when the living temple was reared; but it was by the destruction or the latter that the destruction of the former was brought about,its destruction, that is, as the dwelling-place of God. In the holiest place, behind the veil, Jehovah had dwelt: when the Lord Jesus was crucified, the veil was rent, the holy of holies was thrown open, and by being thrown open was shown to be Gods habitation no longer. Our Lord therefore might well use words which relate at once to His body and to the temple, such being the connection between the two.
And in three days I will raise it up.His crucifixion involved the total destruction of the Jewish temple and polity. No longer will there be a special place in which Gods glory will be revealed, to which Gods worshippers will come,-a place in which are national distinctions, a court of the Gentiles, a court of Israel, a court of the priests. His resurrection will establish a new temple, a new order of spiritual worship. He Himself, as raised and glorified Messiah, will be the Cornerstone of a spiritual temple, holy in the Lord. This is one of the many passages in the Gospel which show to us how perfectly all the future of His history was anticipated by our Lord (see chap. Joh 3:14, etc.). There is no real difficulty in the words, I will raise it up; chap. Joh 10:17-18, furnishes a complete explanation.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Ver. 19. Jesus answered and said unto them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. This answer of Jesus is sudden, like a flash of lightning. It springs from an immeasurable depth; it illuminates regions then completely unexplored by any other consciousness than His own. The words: Destroy this temple, characterize the present and future conduct of the Jews in its innermost significance, and the words: In three days I will raise it up, display all the grandeur of the person and of the future work of Jesus. This mysterious saying involves the following difficulty: on the one hand, the connection with what precedes prompts us to refer the words, this temple, to the temple properly so called, which Jesus had just purified; on the other, the evangelist’s interpretation (Joh 2:21) obliges us to apply them to the body of Jesus. Some, as Lucke and Reuss, cut the Gordian knot by declaring that there is a conflict which cannot be settled between scientific exegesis and the apostle’s explanation, and by determining that there is an advance of the first beyond the second. Baur administers a severe lecture to Lucke for irreverence towards the apostolic exegesis, of which this view gives evidence. In fact, according to Baur, this saying being partly the creation of the evangelist himself, he must know better than any one, better than Lucke, what is its true meaning!
The historical truth of this saying of Jesus is guaranteed: 1. By the declaration of the false witnesses (Mat 26:61; Mar 14:57-58), which proves that, although the recollection of the circumstances in which it was pronounced may have been effaced, the expression itself had remained deeply engraved on the memory, not only of the disciples, but of the Jews. 2. By Act 6:14, where Stephen’s accusers said: We have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses gave to us. Stephen could not have spoken thus except on the foundation of a positive declaration of Jesus. 3. By the originality, the conciseness, and even the obscurity of the saying.
The first clause cannot contain an invitation to the Jews directly to destroy the temple, not even in the hypothetical sense of de Wette: If you should destroy. This supposition would be absurd; no Israelite would have thought of laying his hand on the sacred edifice. The word destroy should, therefore, be taken in the indirect sense: to bring about, by continuing in the course which you are following, the destruction of the theocracy and that of the temple. But what is the offense by which Israel can provoke this final chastisement? Modern interpretation,scientific exegesis, as Lucke says,answers: By continually increasing moral profanations, such as that against which Jesus had just protested. This answer is insufficient. Simple sins of this kind could prepare, but not decide, this catastrophe. The Old Testament assigns a more positive cause for the final ruin of Israel; it is the rejection and murder of the Messiah. Zechariah announces this crime, when describing (Zec 12:10) the mourning of the Israel of the last days, lamenting the murderous sin against Jehovah whom they have pierced. Daniel, Daniel 9, says: The Messiah shall be cut off….and the people of a prince who shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; a passage which Matthew (Mat 24:15-16) applies to the circumstances of his time. The means for Israel of destroying its temple, are, to the view of Jesus, to put the Messiah to death. The appearance of the Messiah is the purpose of the theocratic institution. The Messiah being once cut off, it is all over with Israel and consequently with the temple. The people and the priesthood may indeed still exist for a while after this; but all this is nothing more than the carcase over which the eagles of the divine judgment gather themselves (Mat 24:28). Why, at the moment when Jesus expires, is the veil of the temple rent? It is because, in reality, there is no longer a Most Holy place, no longer a Holy place, no longer courts, sacrifice, priesthood; the temple, as Jehovah’s temple, has ceased to exist.
When He says Destroy this temple, therefore, it is, indeed, of the temple properly so called, that Jesus speaks; but He knows that it will be in His own person, that this destruction, so far as it depends on the Jews, will be consummated. It is on His body that they will cause the blow to fall, which will destroy their sanctuary. The imperative is not, then, merely concessive: If it happens that you destroy. It is of the same kind with that other imperative, What thou hast to do, do quickly (Joh 13:27). When the fruit of perversity, collective or individual, is ripe, it must fall. Comp. also the , Mat 23:32.
The meaning of the second clause follows from that of the first. If the death of Jesus is the real destruction of the temple, the restoration of the latter can consist only in the resurrection of Jesus Himself. Jesus once said: Here is more than the temple (Mat 12:6). His body was the living and truly holy dwelling of Jehovah; the visible sanctuary was the anticipatory emblem of this real temple. It is, therefore, really, in Him, in His body, that this supreme crisis will be effected. The Messiah perishes; the temple falls. The Messiah lives again; the true temple rises again; in a new form, beyond doubt. For in the Kingdom of God, there is never a simple restoration of the past. He who speaks of rising anew speaks of progress, reappearance in a higher form. The word , to waken up, to raise up, is perfectly suitable here. For it may be applied at once to a resurrection and a construction (see Meyer). The expression: in three days, the authenticity of which is guaranteed in a very special way by the statement of the false witnesses ( , Mat 26:61; Mar 14:58), receives in our explanation its natural meaning; for, in an historical situation so solemn as this, it is impossible to see only a poetic or proverbial form for saying: in a very short time, as Hos 6:2, or Luk 13:31. A demonstrative miracle has been demanded of Jesus, as a sign of His competency. We know from the Synoptics that Jesus always rejected such demands, which renewed for Him the third temptation in the wilderness.
But there was a miracle, one only, which He could promise, without condemning Himself to the role of a wonder-worker, because this miracle entered as a necessary element into the very work of salvation: it was His resurrection. Thus it is to this sign that He in like manner appeals, in similar cases, in the Synoptics (Mat 12:38-40; Mat 16:4). We come also here upon one of those profound analogies which, beneath the difference of the forms, blend into one whole the representation of the Synoptics and that of John. It is by the reparative power which He will display, when the Kingdom of God shall have sunk down, in a sense, even to nothing, that Jesus will prove the competency for reformation which He has just arrogated to Himself at this hour. This explanation answers thus to the natural meaning of the expressions of the text, to the demands of the context, and finally to the evangelist’s interpretation.
The following is the meaning at which modern exegesis has arrived, by following, as Lucke says, the laws of philological art. It is best set forth, as it seems to us, by Ewald (Gesch. Christi, p. 230): All your religion, resting upon this temple, is corrupted and perverted; but He is already present, who, when it shall have perished as it deserves, shall easily restore it in a more glorious form, and shall thus work, not one of those common miracles which you ask for, but the grandest of miracles. In this explanation, the temple destroyed is Judaism; the temple raised up is Christianity; the act of raising it up is Pentecost, not the resurrection. We shall not say that this sense is absolutely false; it is so only so far as it is given as the exact expression of the thought of Jesus at this moment. What condemns it is: 1. That the transformation of the economy of the letter into that of the Spirit is not a sign, but the work itself. It is necessary that the event indicated by Jesus should have an external character, in order to be adapted to the demand which was addressed to Him; 2. It is impossible, from this point of view, to interpret naturally the words: in three days. The passages (Hos 6:2 and Luk 13:31) do not sufficiently justify the figurative sense which must, in that case, be given to them here; 3. The temple raised up would be entirely different from the temple destroyed; but the pronoun (it), demands that there should, at least, be a relation between the one and the other (the body of Jesus destroyed and raised again). Objection is made to the meaning which we have proposed, that the Jews could not have understood so mysterious a reply. Assuredly, they did not see in the temple, of which Jesus spoke, anything but the material edifice, and they represented to themselves the sign promised by Him as the magical appearance of a new and supernatural temple (Mar 14:58). But we shall see that, in dealing with evil-disposed persons, the method of Jesus is to throw out enigmas and to reveal the truth only while veiling it; comp. the explanation of Jesus respecting the use of parables (Mat 12:11-16). Here is a secret of the profoundest pedagogics.
Objection is also made, that Jesus could not, so long beforehand, know of His death and resurrection. But in the Synoptics, also, He very early announces the tragical end of His Messianic ministry. It is during the first days of His activity in Galilee, that He speaks of the time when the bridegroom will be taken away, and when the disciples will fast (Mar 2:19-20). Had Jesus, then, never read Isaiah 53, Daniel 9, Zechariah 12, etc.? Now, if He foresaw His death, He must have been assured also of His resurrection. He could not suppose that the bridegroom would be taken away, not to be restored.
Finally, it is objected, that, according to the Scriptures, it is not Jesus who raised Himself. But the receptivity of Jesus, in the act of His resurrection, was not that of passivity. He says Himself (Joh 10:17-18): I give up my life, that I may take it again…I have the power to give it up, and I have the power to take it again. He lays hold, as in all His miracles, of the divine omnipotence, and this becomes thereby active in Him.
Renan has seen in this utterance, so original and so profound, only a whim: One day, he says, His ill-humor against the temple drew from Him an imprudent word. He adds: We do not know, indeed, what sense Jesus attached to this word, in which His disciples sought forced allegories (Vie de Jesus, p. 367). Where Renan sees a proof of the ill-humor of Jesus against the temple, the immediate witnesses found one of the zeal for the house of God, which devoured their Master. Which has better understood Jesus? As for the explanation given by John (Joh 2:21), we shall hope that every serious reader will find in it something else than a forced allegory.
Weiss does not think it is possible to defend the complete authenticity of the expression of Jesus, as it has been preserved for us by John. If Jesus expressed Himself thus, he must, at the same time, have pointed to His body with His finger, and this gesture would have been sufficient to render the misapprehension of the Jews (Joh 2:20) impossible. Besides, the interpretation which Mark gives of the saying of Jesus (Mar 14:58), leads one to suppose that its real meaning was a little different from that which we find in John. To the demand of the Jews relative to His competency to purify the temple (Joh 2:18), Jesus is said to have answered, that for the outward temple He would substitute the habitation of God in the spirit. It was John, according to Weiss, who introduced afterwards into the quite simple answer of Jesus, the two ideas of His death and His resurrection. This hypothesis could be taken into consideration only if the difficulty presented by the saying of Jesus, as we have it, were insurmountable. But we believe that we have shown that it is not so. At the foundation, the true ground of this supposition is, that according to this author, Jesus must not have predicted beforehand His death and resurrection.
How did Jesus discover in this question, apparently so innocent: What sign showest thou? the prelude of the catastrophe which was to put an end to His own life, and, by that means, to the theocracy itself? We know from Joh 2:3-4, with what penetration Jesus seized upon the moral bearing of the words which were addressed to Him. We have also cited Luk 4:22, where it was enough for Jesus to hear the critical reflection on the part of the inhabitants of Nazareth: Is not this the son of Joseph? in order to His announcing to them His near rejection, not only on their part (Joh 2:23), but on the part of the whole people (Joh 2:24-25). In the most fugitive impression of His interlocutors, the perspicacious eye of Jesus discerned the principle of the great final decision. By this characteristic feature, also, we verify in the Jesus of the Synoptics and of John, one and the same Jesus.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Jesus gave them a sign but not the kind they wanted. They wanted some immediate demonstration of prophetic authority. Instead Jesus announced a miracle that would vindicate His authority after He died.
"As for ’the sign,’ then and ever again sought by an ’evil and adulterous generation’-evil in their thoughts and ways and adulterous to the God of Israel-He had then, as afterwards, only one ’sign’ to give: ’Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ Thus He met their challenge for a sign by the challenge of a sign: Crucify Him, and He would rise again; let them suppress the Christ, He would triumph. A sign this which they understood not, but misunderstood, and by making it the ground of their false charge in His final trial, themselves unwittingly fulfilled." [Note: Edersheim, 1:375.]
Why was Jesus not more cooperative? First, He controlled when as well as how He would act under the Father’s authority, and the time was not yet right for a dramatic sign (cf. Joh 2:4). Second, these Jews had already demonstrated that they had no real interest in justice, only in discrediting Jesus (Joh 2:18). They did not sincerely want a sign. They would not have acknowledged Jesus’ authority even if He had performed a miracle for them.
The Jews thought that Jesus was offering to rebuild Herod’s temple within three days if they would knock it down. His ability to do so would have been a miraculous enough sign for any of them. Furthermore it would have demonstrated His authority to regulate temple service. However they were unwilling to fulfill their part of the sign. By suggesting this action Jesus was also implying that the old temple and its service had served its purpose. He had come to establish a new temple and a new way of worship.
Why did Jesus answer enigmatically (with a riddle) rather than clearly? Why did He not say, Destroy my body, and I will raise it up in three days? Jesus was replying to unbelief the way He often did, in parabolic language. He wanted to hide revelation from the unbelieving but to reveal it to believers.
The Sanhedrin used Jesus’ words about destroying the temple as a capital charge against Him at His trial (Mat 26:61; Mar 14:58; cf. Mat 27:40; Mar 15:29). This was unfair, however, because Jesus had said, "You destroy the temple," not, "I will destroy the temple." Furthermore Jesus was speaking of His body primarily, not the temple.