JOHN 2: 18-25
The ENTRUSTING OF YOUR LIFE
The commotion caused by Jesus and the quick report of His unheard of action brought the authorities down on Him. They demand some proof of His right to challenge the existing procedure of worship. John is not concerned with the telling of that dramatic event but only in the great testimony extracted from Jesus. After the veiled saying of our Lord being the temple of God John gives both the Jewish misunderstanding and the right interpretation. As usual he concludes with the effect of all this on the faith of the disciples.
Not only were the disciples made wiser, many people were touched by the signs Jesus worked. But the people made no deep commitment to Jesus and thus Jesus did not commit Himself to them.
I. THE SIGN OF JESUS’ AUTHORITY, 18-19.
II. THE SCRIPTURE REMEMBERED, 20-22.
III. THE SEEING INTO ALL, 23-25.
Verse18 states; The Jews then said to Him, "What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?"
The hostile Jewish authorities ask Jesus to vindicate His drastic actions. He has acted as a reformer of worship and condemned the temple traders, but it was also a messianic action. Now let Him prove that He had the right to act as He did.
Interestingly they do not want to question the rightness of His action just questioning what authority or right He had to do it. They wanted Him to prove Himself by some sign.
Still today we want Jesus to prove Himself to us by showing us His power instead of testing the rightness of His Word and the righteous of His actions. We ask like they did for Jesus to authenticate Himself with a sign that compels belief.
[This incident is a manifestation of Christ’s unique power. How did it come that all these miserly hucksters had not a word to say, and did not lift a finger in opposition, or that the Temple Guard offered no resistance, and did not try to quell the unseemly disturbance, or that the very officials, when they came to reckon with Him, had nothing harsher to say than, "What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?" No miracle is needed to explain their deference. We see in lower forms many instances of a similar thing. A man ablaze with holy indignation, and having a secret ally in the hearts of those whom He rebukes, will awe a crowd even if he does not infect them. But that is not the full explanation. I see here an incident analogous to that strange event at the close of Christ’s ministry, when, coming out from beneath the shadows of the olives in the garden, He said to the soldiers ‘Whom seek ye?’ and they fell backwards and wallowed on the ground. An overwhelming impression of His personal majesty, and perhaps some forth putting of that hidden glory which did swim up to the surface on the mountain of Transfiguration, bowed all these men before Him, like reeds before the wind. And though there was no recognition of His claim, there was something in the Claimant that forbade resistance and silenced reprimand.]
So in verse19 Jesus tells them of the ultimate sign He will give, which they would not believe when it happens either. Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
Jesus’ word which is translated temple denotes sanctuary, the dwelling place of deity. Though it may be applied to the believer (1 Cor. 6:19), Jesus is stating in a definitive way God dwelt in Him.
The irony here is that the Jews themselves will be the means of initiating this sign when they kill Him or His earthly body. Though pre-told and pre-told they still would not recognize it when this great sign takes place.
Jesus was doing far more than responding to the corruption he saw. So while we’ve already seen some of the reasons why Jesus cleansed the temple – Israel was failing in its mission to the Gentiles and true worship had degenerated into self-serving religion – Jesus is doing something much more radical and all-encompassing: Jesus is challenging the very system of the temple itself, its religion, its authority, and its worship.
Further, we have here our Lord’s claim to be Himself the Agent of His own resurrection. ‘I will raise it up in three days.’ Of course, in Scripture, we more frequently find the Resurrection treated as being the result of the power of God the Father. We more ordinarily read that Christ was raised; but sometimes we read, as here, that Christ rises, and we have solemn words of His own, ‘I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.’ Think of a man saying, ‘I am going to bring My own body out of the dust of death,’ and think of the man who said that doing it.
II. THE SCRIPTURE REMEMBERED, 20-22.
We see the explosive misunderstanding in verse 20. The Jews then said, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?"
One purpose of Jesus’ baffling sayings was to puzzle the hearers who opposed Him. He desired that His hearers ponder the saying in order to perceive its significance an give God opportunity to speak with them.
The Jews understood Jesus to mean the temple which he had just driven the merchants and money changers. This was the temple Zerubbabel had built over 500 years earlier, but Herod the Great had begun remodeling it, making it much larger and far more beautiful. It had been 46 years since the remodeling had started (20 B.C.) and it still wasn’t completely finished. They understood Jesus’ words to mean that this imposing building could be torn down and rebuilt in three days, and they were incredulous.
[Think that there has been a Man who said, ‘In this place is One greater than the Temple.’ And people have believed Him, and do believe Him, and have found that the tremendous audacity of the words is simple verity, and that Christ is, in inmost reality, all which the Temple was but in the poorest symbol. In it there had dwelt, though there dwelt no longer at the time when He was speaking, a material and symbolical brightness, the expression of something which, for want of a better name, we call the’
presence of God.’ But what was that flashing fire between the cherubim that brooded over the Mercy-seat, with a light that was lambent and lustrous as the light of love and of life — what was that to the glory, molded in meekness and garbed in gentleness, the glory that shone, merciful and hospitable and inviting — a tempered flame on which the poorest, diseased, blind eyes could look, and not wince — from the face and from the character of Jesus Christ the Lord? He is greater than the Temple, for in Him, in no symbol but in reality, abode and abides the fulness of that unnameable Being whom we name Father and God. And not only does the fulness abide, but in Him that awful Remoteness becomes for us a merciful Presence; the infinite abyss and closed sea of the divine nature hath an outlet, and becomes a ‘river of water of life.’ And as the ancient name of that Temple was the ‘Tent of Meeting,’ the place where Israel and
God, in symbolical and ceremonial form, met together, so, in inmost reality in Christ’s nature, Manhood and Divinity cohere and unite, and in Him all of us, the weak, the sinful, the alien, the rebellious, may meet our Father. ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.’ ‘In this place is One greater than the Temple.’]
John tells us the correct interpretation in verse 21. But He was speaking of the temple of His body.
Notice the consciousness of our Lord’s as to His own design and nature. He spoke of the temple of His body. Here is a man, in appearance just like us, walking among us, living the common life of humanity, who declares that in Him there abides the fulness of Deity.
This Jewish Peasant, at the very beginning of His earthly career, stands up in the temple where commanded ancestral sacrifices and innumerable ceremonials had been consecrated by God Himself, and with autocratic hand sweeps them all on one side, and then stands in its place that all eyes may look upon Him, and says ‘Destroy this Temple .... He speaking of the temple of His body.’
Jesus is the fulfillment of the OT temple. Thousands and thousands of sacrifices had been offered in this temple for the forgiveness of sins. With Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice of himself there would be no more need for temple sacrifice. Note that John has altered the reference to Psalm 69:9 in our passage – "Zeal for your house will consume me – by changing the verb tense from past to future, from "zeal for your house has consumed me" to "zeal for your house will consume me." Jesus knew that he would be consumed – killed and crucified – out of his zeal for and obedience to his Father. Through His death not only would Jesus replace the temple, Jesus would come and be the cleanse the temple it. He would fulfill its purpose. God’s purposes would be fulfilled in Jesus.
This is why He brought up His death and resurrection in the way he did. He was telling them that it was His body that is the true object of worship. Another scholar comments that "Since for Judaism the Temple is the locus [location] of God’s presence on earth, v.21 suggests that Jesus’ body is now the locus of God." No longer does the temple represent the presence of God – from now on Jesus represents the presence of God. Indeed, Jesus is the Word of God made flesh to dwell among us as God with us. In other words, it won’t be long – indeed in John’s Gospel the time had already come – when you won’t have to go the temple to worship God. Once Jesus is raised it is through Him that one will worship. It is through Him that we worship.
22 So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
Jesus’ own disciples did not understand His enigmatic or hidden saying at first. It took the light of the Resurrection to illuminate it. They did not see the need for His death, so they did not think along these lines until after the event. Nor did they understand the Scriptures which speak of the Messiah’s suffering and death (Isa. 52:12-53:12; Luke 24:25-27). It should be noted that the first disciples took Jesus’ words as equal with ancient Scripture.
If we understand the significance of His death & resurrection we will know what Jesus’ ministry was all about.
III. THE SEEING INTO ALL, 23-25.
Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing.
Many came to a decision about who He was, the long awaited Messiah, but they had no depth of commitment within them to follow Him as Lord and Savior. They saw correctly saw the signs but would not grapple with the truth which the signs pointed to (Jn. 6:26). Jesus is not satisfied with superficial faith even though it is genuine as far as it went. The signs He does are to cause us to look to Him, hear His Word, and become His disciples.
Jesus reaction to spectator faith is given in verse 24. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men,
[John provides a telling word play in 2:24. The same Greek word translated "believe" in verse 23 appears in verse 24:] Even though some of these people believed in Him … Jesus would not believe in them. The reason given is not that He knew all of them, not just those in the temple, but He was cognizant of all people. Jesus was looking for genuine discipleship not enthusiasm for the spectacular (6:15).
John is making a statement here about Jesus and humanity in general. Jesus understood about all of humanity and its capacity for deception and duplicity. No one needed to explain it to Him (2:24a). In 1:48 Nathanael is surprised that Jesus knew him without having met him. This section ends on the same note, but now John is making a sweeping theological affirmation about Jesus and divine knowledge. God alone knows the hearts of men and women — and now Jesus has this same capacity.
Verse 25 concludes our text. ... and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.
Jesus knew that a temporary excitement or a faith based on signs was not sufficient. Many of the early followers later turned back when He did not take up the role of a political king (6:15, 60, 66). Until His death and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the foundation for faith was not fully laid.
The Son of God in human flesh knew all about human nature. Having supernatural knowledge, Jesus does not need human help to evaluate men. As God, He sees beyond the superficial to people’s hearts (1 Sam. 16:; Ps. 139; Acts 1:24).
Jesus was well aware of the truth of Jer. 17:9 which states, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" Jesus knew the faith of some followers was superficial. Some of the same people claiming to believe in Jesus at this time would later yell, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" It is easy to believe when it is exciting and there is no cost in believing.
CONCLUSION
What does this passage say to us today, then? Be discerning and keep your faith firm even when it isn’t popular to follow Jesus. Jesus was not dependent on man’s approval. The master went God’s way unswayed by popular opinion which can be with you today and against you tomorrow.
The ministry of Jesus was a voluntary process toward a predetermined goal. The new temple is the crucified and risen Son of God who desires to live within each person who will acknowledge His claim as Lord of Life.
If the prediction "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" is true, and being uttered was fulfilled — what then? I do not need to answer the question. My brother, His resurrection declares that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. ‘Destroy this Temple’ — there is a challenge — ‘and in three days I will raise it up’; and He did it.
He is the Lord of the Temple as well as the Temple or place of worship. Worship Him. Bow down on your knees before Him, and with all your hearts and with all your confidence, worship, and trust, and love both now and forevermore, for He is the Lord of Heaven and earth!’
