Where Is the Temple?
5 min read
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
Jesus must have known that the Jewish authorities would not understand what He was talking about, but He made a reference to His crucifixion and resurrection anyway. Even His disciples didn’t understand what He was talking about until after the resurrection. Why would Jesus say something that He knew would be nonsensical to His listeners?
If we know someone to be of sound mind and they say something that is nonsensical, we probably want to probe more deeply into what the person said. It is easy enough to ask what they meant. And when we ask questions about anything, that is when we have a greater opportunity for understanding.
At the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry, He confronts and challenges not only the temple authorities but also His followers with why the Word became flesh.
What was at stake was nothing less than the presence of God with His people. The earthly temple was meant to be a beacon of God’s presence that the Jewish people were supposed to point the world to. But the Jewish authorities occupied the temple and used it for their own selfish agenda. And so the presence of God was no longer in the temple. It was no longer a beacon of God’s presence for the world.
In that way, the Jewish authorities had already destroyed the temple. By circumventing the holy purpose that God had intended for the temple, they had “snuffed out” the shekinah glory (the indwelling presence) of God, metaphorically speaking.
Basically, what the Jewish authorities had already done to the physical temple, they would also try to do to the True Temple—that is, Jesus Christ. But the resurrection of Christ sends an irrevocable, eternal message to all the world: The shekinah glory of God is found fully in Jesus Christ, and it will never be snuffed out.
We tend to make villains of the Pharisees, but they provide a very important lesson for us. Christians today sometimes (and often) act in exactly the same ways that the Pharisees did. Am I trying to “occupy” the church and use it for my own selfish agenda?
The great tragedy is that whenever we find ourselves doing that, the presence of God never leaves the church. The presence of God just moves on and leaves us behind.
Christ is with us only if we go with Christ.
Father, You have told us that in Christ, You are building us up to be a holy temple. Lord, give us understanding and a heart of simple obedience so that we do not leave Your presence. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
