John 2:18-22 18So the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign do you show us that you do these things?” 19Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
The question of verse 18 is really about who Jesus was.. The Jews in this passage likely included the members of the ruling council called the Sanhedrin, the religious leaders of the temple area, or those who were chased out with the animals and money. They recognized some power or authority in Jesus but wanted to know the source. What was driving him to do this? In modern terms, we might says they asked, “Who gave you the right to destroy our setup?” In a way, they had a legitimate concern because they did not want anyone disturbing the peace. They wanted a sign (sēmeion) that proved Jesus’ identity. This word is important in this Gospel as used to prove Jesus’ identity. The Jews wanted a sign to see if Jesus was indeed a prophet of God who had the authority to do what he had just done.
Verses 19-22 contain four interrelated ideas. First, Jesus responds to the question by providing a sign, but it is one that can be understood only by faith. On the literal level, his statement is beyond imagination. The temple could not be easily destroyed, and there is no way it could be rebuilt in three days. The way Jesus said his statement is significant. He used the second person plural command you destroy followed by the first person singular I will raise up. These verbs are significant prophecies of how he would die and rise from the dead.
Second, the Jews who confronted Jesus were thinking on the literal level and could not fathom Jesus’ illogical response. They were thinking about how much effort it took to rebuild and refurbish the second temple. The temple was built by the returned exiled Jews in about 516 B.C. Herod the Great rebuilt and expanded in beginning in 18 B.C. By the time of Jesus, it was still under construction and was not completed until A.D. 65. The Romans under Titus and his soldiers totally destroyed it in A.D. 70. Herod’s temple was one of the ancient wonders of the world.
It was beyond imagination to destroy it in three days. It should have been obvious to the Jews that Jesus was not speaking about the literal temple but something else. The third point comes from John as the author and narrator in verse 21 who helps the reader know that Jesus was speaking about his body as the temple. This statement has several significant theological assumptions. One is that Jesus’ body was his flesh (1:14). The Son of God became human, with flesh and blood like everyone else. His body could be destroyed. Another idea is how his body was the holy dwelling of the Creator. As John the Baptist testified in 1:32, the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus, who became the living temple of God’s presence among people. Third, the place to find God was not in the Jerusalem temple but in relationship with Jesus. John connects many images to Jesus. Jesus as the temple of God is significant to show the source of relationship with God.
The last idea from this passage is how the disciples finally saw the significance of the event and what Jesus had said after he was raided from the dead. This is the first reference in John to Jesus’ resurrection. The reader has now been clued in that Jesus would die and rise from the dead. No Scripture is mentioned about Jesus’ resurrection. The discples had to go through the events to see how the dots fit together and to make sense of what Jesus said. The reader by this point is alerted to important themes with the growing need to make a decision about who this Jesus of Nazareth truly is.
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