Anchor My Faith

Which Temple?

Scripture: John 2:18-19

After Jesus cleansed the court of the temple, “the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”’ (John 2:18 ESV). In cleansing the temple, Jesus displayed the character of a prophet, which reminded the Jews of former prophets and their authority. Those prophets often performed miracles to validate their office of prophet. It was such a miracle the Jews were looking for as evidence, or a sign, that Jesus was a prophet and under that authority he had cleansed the temple.

“Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”’ (John 2:19 ESV). Again and again, Jesus will make statements like this that make absolutely no sense at the time to those he is having conversation with, and usually he doesn’t clarify his position until a later event. When Jesus said, “Destroy this temple,” the Jews would naturally think of the temple they were standing in, not the temple of his body. Through these statements, that were meaningless to those who heard, Jesus was introducing spiritual concepts that would fall into place at a later time. These kinds of statements make little sense this side of salvation, but become powerfully meaningful after one’s salvation.

The Jews were thinking of the physical temple and Jesus was thinking of the spiritual temple of his body. As believers, each of us is a temple of the Holy Spirit and should understand what Jesus was saying. The “three days” Jesus is speaking of refer to his time in the grave. This reference to three days will come up again in a much later study when we cover Matthew 12:40 (ESV): “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” If Jesus died on Friday and rose from the dead before sunrise Sunday morning, then how does one get the three days Jesus is speaking of? To answer that question, look at this link and this one. Are you able to understand the possibility that Jesus died on Thursday instead of Friday? We will say more on this at a much later time.

The temple Jesus was going to raise up in three days was his body. There is another problem here we should look at. In Acts 2:24 – God raised him up; in Romans 6:4 – Christ was raised up by the glory of the Father; and in Galatians 1:1 – God the Father raised him up. It seems that the Father, the Spirit and Jesus all had a part in the resurrection of Jesus. The exciting thing is that the power that raised up Jesus will also raise us up if we are in Christ.

We will stop here and rest from our day’s journey, along the gospel path, and will pick up at this point in the next lesson as we journey on.

Prayer

Father, when Jesus said he would be raised up in three days and if he died on Friday and rose before sunrise on Sunday, you have only two days. Later, Jesus refers to Jonah and his three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish and said he would likewise spend three days and three nights in heart of the earth. Father, it appears to me that tradition established the death of Jesus on Friday, because of a misunderstanding of special Passover events, and has been accepted as truth to this day. The two links in this study show that Jesus died on Thursday, not on Friday. (What do you think of that possibility?)