Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. John 2:19
The structure known as Herod’s Temple was a magnificent complex. Herod had the temple rebuilt to replace the second temple that was built by the Jews who returned from the Babylonian exile. The temple proper had to be built to biblical dimensions and specifications, but even so, it was built lavishly. In the various courts and outer structures, Herod poured a fortune into the project to achieve a spectacular site that drew hundreds of thousands of tourists, not all of them religious, every year. To prevent a disruption in worship, the main temple was rebuilt in about a year, but it took many more years to excavate, expand, and construct the rest of the temple complex. Most of the Jews couldn’t imagine it ever being torn down, and they certainly wouldn’t do it just to prove Jesus’ identity. How shocked they would have been to learn the temple would last only another 40 years! How sad that they missed the real meaning behind Jesus’ words!
The context tells us that Jesus was referring to His own body, which the Jews determined to destroy. They wrongly condemned Him in their illegally constituted court, and dragged Him before the Roman governor to have Him crucified. They insulted, tortured, and rejected Him, and took full responsibility for their actions. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, they offered Him mockery and insults. The earthquake that accompanied Jesus’ death sent them scurrying home in alarm, but scheming to prevent any attempt by Jesus’ followers to steal the body. They wanted that body to rot in the grave. But it could not and did not!
One of the joyous anticipations we have of Heaven is that of seeing the Lord Jesus. We will actually see the One Who suffered for us, including the marks of His suffering. The Man in the Glory has a glorified body, but it is the same body in which He bore our sins on the tree. As He proved to His disciples and to many of His followers after His death and resurrection, the temple that the Jews sought to destroy was raised in three days. And He lives forever in the power of an endless life. Sin is also destroying our bodies today. But the resurrection of the Lord Jesus gives us confidence that we will also be raised.
Everything that we have and hope for as Christians is bound up in the reality of the resurrection of our Saviour. His power over death gives us promise of everlasting life. -Jim MacIntosh