What did Jesus mean by, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19)?

"The Temple of His body" (verses 18-22). The Jews ask for a sign, giving fresh occasion to show what is in the heart of man. The Lord, in His reply, indicates that as having become incarnate His body was now the true Temple or dwelling place of God. The Temple at Jerusalem was empty, and very soon would be pronounced to be their house and given over to destruction. (Matthew 23:38; 24:2). The temple at Jerusalem could be corrupted; with the Temple of the Lord's body no corruption was possible, though men could with violence seek to destroy His body. Again, and again, they sought to stone the Lord, and at last, when the hour was come, they were permitted to "destroy" the temple of His body. Man's wickedness becomes a further occasion for the manifestation of His glory as the Son, as well as His superiority over all others. Man may destroy, but he cannot raise the dead. Christ says, as it were, "When you have done your worst, when you have destroyed the temple of My body, I will raise it up". His resurrection will be the declaration in power that He is the Son of God.

Now there is another scripture in John 2:18, "Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing thou doest these things?" Now, mark, He had purged the temple, His Father's house, which they had turned into a scene of merchandise, He had asserted His right to clear that house, His Father's house, He turned out of it every defiling thing, and He was challenged at once by those money-making, wretched Jews in these terms, What sign do you show us if you do these things? He could not do it. in any other character except as the Son of God. As the Son, His zeal vindicated His right to cleanse that house from all defilement, and they challenged Him at once, What authority have you to do that? Now mark His answer, "He said unto them, Destroy this temple," that is, His body, "and in three days I will raise it up." There He is a divine Person. And there is the proof, observe, of the divinity of His Person, that He was the Son of God. Just as the Epistle to the Romans shows that He was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection from amongst the dead, so in John 2, when He took that place as the Son of God to cleanse His Father's house of all the defilement that was there, and He is challenged as to His title and right to it, He says, Here is this temple — His own body — destroy it, lay your hands upon it, and in three days I will raise it up again. "He spake of the temple of his body."

The disciples needed no sign. The unbelievers asked for one. He gave them what they asked, yet not what they expected. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." He must die, therefore, and rise again, ere the sign could come to pass. But who has power of resurrection save God? Man may, if God permits it, kill the body. There his power stops. To raise the dead belongs to God, not to man. Yet He who was a man would exercise that power, and that as regards Himself. To His questioners His reply appeared simply preposterous. "Forty and six years was this Temple in building, and wilt Thou rear it up in three days?" * (20). With feelings of triumph, we may well conceive, was this answer returned. Which of His questioners, wise and prudent as they thought themselves, could accept such an answer as conclusive? Was the laborious work of forty and six years to be taken in hand afresh, and completed in three days? Let the ignorant multitude believe that but how could the educated, the learned of Jerusalem, receive it? The quiet remark of the Evangelist sets at rest the meaning of His reply. "He spake," he tells us, "of the temple of His body." God then was on earth, God incarnate, and they knew Him not. He died, and He rose. Then to His disciples His meaning became plain. Very likely at the time no one understood it. Afterwards it became clear to them. When He was risen, "they remembered that He had said this, and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said" (22). This prophetic announcement of His resurrection they could then see had come true. Scripture, which had predicted it, they then believed. So His word on this occasion, when subsequently remembered, must have deepened their confidence in Him. For all that, however, they had to wait.

Difficulties in Divine teaching are not, we know, always cleared up in a moment. In time the meaning is discovered, as we carefully observe the form of the communication. We say form advisedly, because many a difficulty is cleared away, when we take the Divine Word simply, neither putting our own construction on it, nor translating it into language of our own selection — otherwise the point may be missed, and the teaching be perverted. Of this, these very words of the Lord are an illustration. When first uttered, the Jews thought that He was referring to the building in the precincts of which they were. Later on, when upon the cross, He was taunted with His supposed declaration: "Thou that destroyest the Temple, and buildest it in three days, save Thyself" (Matt. 27:40). Still continuing to think that He had spoken of the material structure of the Temple, they attributed to Him that which He had never said. "Destroy this temple," He did say. "Thou that destroyest the Temple," etc., they assumed that He had said, thus misquoting His words, and so getting thoroughly wrong. The disciples, on the other hand, though they too had to wait for the Resurrection to get the key to His meaning, remembered then what He had said, and found their confidence in His words fully justified and strengthened. So will it be, when we are simple over the Word of Revelation.

When asked to justify His intervention in the temple, Christ announces His death and resurrection. In doing so He refers to His body as 'this temple' (verse 19). The reason for this is plain: Christ emphasises that, in fact, the One whom they challenge is none other but God dwelling among them as man.

The Lord did not yet disown the Temple. He treated it as God's house, and He was filled with zeal for it. No one could resist Him and His scourge of small cords, and the evil-doers had for the moment to go. The Jews, however, challenged what He did and demanded a sign, as though the irresistible authority of His action was not sign enough. In reply He gave them the great sign of His own death and resurrection, only couched in symbolic language. The fact was that the Temple, as God's dwelling-place, was about to be superseded by Himself. His body was a far more wonderful "Temple" than that which had stood on Mount Moriah. The Word dwelt among us in flesh, and hence "God was in Christ" in a far deeper and more intimate way. The fulness of the Godhead was dwelling in Him. The Temple had served a certain capacity in Israel, but He was now filling that capacity in an altogether new way.

From the outset of this Gospel He is viewed as rejected. So here Jesus takes their deadly animosity for granted. His words were a prediction that they would set their hands to His death; destroying, as far as in them lay, the temple of His body. They would destroy, and in three days He would raise it up. Mark how He says that He would do it. It is equally true, of course, that God raised Him from the dead, but in John 10 He again speaks of His resurrection as His own act. This is in keeping with the Gospel which presents Him as the Word who was God and became flesh. Of all the signs He showed, His own resurrection was the greatest.

"The Jews therefore answered and said to Him, What sign showest Thou to us that Thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple (ναὸν), and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore said, In forty and six years was this temple built,57 and wilt Thou raise it up in three days? But He spoke of the temple of His body. When, therefore, He was raised from among (the) dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus said " (verses 18-22)

The sign that He would give was His own Resurrection-power, raising not others merely but His own Body, the true Temple in which alone God was (for the Word was God).58 That of which they boasted had but a name without God, soon to be formally pronounced "their" house (Matt. 23), and given up to destruction (Matt. 24). It is resurrection that defines Him Son of God in power; and when He was raised, the disciples remembered His saying, as they yet more found the strongest confirmation of their faith in both Scripture58a and His word. His Resurrection is the fundamental truth both of the Gospel and of our distinctive place as Christians. No wonder that the Jews were jealous of it, and that Gentiles mock or evade it. May we ever remember it, and Him Who thus gives Scripture all its grace and power.

Then He spoke of His coming death and resurrection in a veiled form. The Jews and His disciples did not understand what temple He meant. He spoke of His own body. "In three days I will raise it up." His resurrection was both through the power of God and by Himself. God raised Him up and He raised Himself up. This statement properly belongs to this Gospel in which we behold Him as the Son of God. The same statement we find in chapter 10:18--"I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again."

Though unable to resist, the Jews question as to what credentials He had for doing such things. They cry for a sign, though they cannot deny the moral rightness of His action. But He will not satisfy this idle curiosity. The sign would be one (an infinitely powerful one) that they would not want. In their unbelief and hatred toward Him they would “destroy this temple,” but He would raise it up in three days.

They ignore His first words, as to their destroying the temple, but ridicule His raising it up in three days. He does not explain, but John does so for our benefit. Indeed His own body was the true temple of God, for God's glory had left the temple in the days of Ezekiel; but in Christ that glory dwelt in fullness. What a sign is the death and resurrection of Christ! Yet even this was blindly refused by the Jews. When it became fact, however, the disciples remembered His words, which then became deeply precious to them, confirming too the Old Testament scriptures. From that time we may be sure they searched the Old Testament much more ardently than they had ever done.

But there is another word used for temple (Greek, naos), indicating the inner or more sacred part of the temple, where only the priests could enter, especially the holiest of all, where only the high priest could enter once a year. It was this word the Lord used when He spoke of the temple of His body, referring to His flesh and blood condition as Man on this earth (John 2:21).

Afterwards, in judging the Jews and judicially cleansing the temple, He presents Himself as the Son of God. It is His Father's house. The proof of this which He gives is His resurrection, when the Jews should have rejected and crucified Him. Moreover He was not only the Son: it was God who was there — not in the temple. It was empty — that house built by Herod. The body of Jesus was now the true temple. Sealed by His resurrection, the scriptures and the word of Jesus were of divine authority to the disciples, as speaking of Him according to the intention of the Spirit of God.