JOHN 2:18-22 PODCAST
18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” 20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. ~ John 2:18-22
It does not appear that anyone challenged the Lord Jesus when He chased the greedy out of the Temple. As our text indicates, afterward the Jews said to Him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Instead of seeking the truth, they wanted to enter into a debate with God Himself. This is why mankind is mired in sin, we would rather flaunt our intellect rather than bow our knees to the God who made us.
In Malachi 3:1, not only was John the Baptist predicted to come and prepare the way for the Messiah, also the Lord Jesus was predicted to come to the Temple in this fashion. After the Lord Jesus went into the Temple and cleared it out, the Jews did not recognize Him. The Lord Jesus' answer to their request for a sign was the sign of His resurrection. But everyone missed it, even the disciples. The real temple that He spoke of was not the building, it was His body!"
The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, "12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied."
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ stands as the pivotal event in all of human history. It undergirds and validates the prophecies of and claims by the Lord Jesus Christ about Himself. It is the basis for the hope of the Gospel. Many skeptics have tried to put it to rest by dismissing it as hallucination, or explaining it away. Yet when the evidence is faced squarely, it towers above its challengers.
In response to the request of the religious, the Lord Jesus, in John 2:19, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” The response of the Lord was a veiled response. Standing near the physical Temple, aided their short-sighted answer in v.20, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?”
They did not understand that the Lord Jesus was not speaking of the physical building but of His resurrection from the dead. The Jews were already destroying the purpose of the Temple by their desecration of it into a market place. It is ironic that when they crucified the Lord Jesus, they ended the need for the temple.
The Gospel accounts make clear that the Sunday following Jesus’ crucifixion was unlike any other. On that first day of the Jewish week, “an angel of the Lord” appeared “like lightning” and with clothing “white as snow,” rolling the stone away from Jesus’ tomb and causing the earth to quake and the Roman guards to “become like dead men” out of fear (Matt 28:2-4).
The Lord Jesus hung on the cross for six hours. He was buried in a tomb for parts of three days. The disciples for parts of three days listened to sermon after sermon from their fives senses that this Jesus thing was over. BUT, after His resurrection the disciples remembered what He had said and they understood it. The result was a greater understanding and trust in what the Scriptures and Jesus had said. The result was the changed lives of cowards. This is my story. Is it yours?
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