John 2:19

Ver. 19. “ Jesus answered and said unto them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. ” This answer of Jesus is sudden, like a flash of lightning. It springs from an immeasurable depth; it illuminates regions then completely unexplored by any other consciousness than His own. The words: Destroy this temple, characterize the present and future conduct of the Jews in its innermost significance, and the words: In three days I will raise it up, display all the grandeur of the person and of the future work of Jesus. This mysterious saying involves the following difficulty: on the one hand, the connection with what precedes prompts us to refer the words, this temple, to the temple properly so called, which Jesus had just purified; on the other, the evangelist's interpretation (John 2:21) obliges us to apply them to the body of Jesus. Some, as Lucke and Reuss, cut the Gordian knot by declaring that there is a conflict which cannot be settled between scientific exegesis and the apostle's explanation, and by determining that there is an advance of the first beyond the second. Baur administers a severe lecture to Lucke for irreverence towards the apostolic exegesis, of which this view gives evidence. In fact, according to Baur, this saying being partly the creation of the evangelist himself, he must know better than any one, better than Lucke, what is its true meaning!

The historical truth of this saying of Jesus is guaranteed: 1. By the declaration of the false witnesses (Matthew 26:61; Mark 14:57-58), which proves that, although the recollection of the circumstances in which it was pronounced may have been effaced, the expression itself had remained deeply engraved on the memory, not only of the disciples, but of the Jews. 2. By Acts 6:14, where Stephen's accusers said: “ We have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses gave to us. ” Stephen could not have spoken thus except on the foundation of a positive declaration of Jesus. 3. By the originality, the conciseness, and even the obscurity of the saying.

The first clause cannot contain an invitation to the Jews directly to destroy the temple, not even in the hypothetical sense of de Wette: “If you should destroy.” This supposition would be absurd; no Israelite would have thought of laying his hand on the sacred edifice. The word destroy should, therefore, be taken in the indirect sense: to bring about, by continuing in the course which you are following, the destruction of the theocracy and that of the temple. But what is the offense by which Israel can provoke this final chastisement? Modern interpretation, “scientific exegesis,” as Lucke says, answers: By continually increasing moral profanations, such as that against which Jesus had just protested. This answer is insufficient. Simple sins of this kind could prepare, but not decide, this catastrophe. The Old Testament assigns a more positive cause for the final ruin of Israel; it is the rejection and murder of the Messiah. Zechariah announces this crime, when describing (Zec 12:10) the mourning of the Israel of the last days, lamenting the murderous sin against Jehovah whom they have pierced. Daniel, Daniel 9, says: “ The Messiah shall be cut off....and the people of a prince who shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; ” a passage which Matthew (Matthew 24:15-16) applies to the circumstances of his time. The means for Israel of destroying its temple, are, to the view of Jesus, to put the Messiah to death. The appearance of the Messiah is the purpose of the theocratic institution. The Messiah being once cut off, it is all over with Israel and consequently with the temple. The people and the priesthood may indeed still exist for a while after this; but all this is nothing more than the carcase over which the eagles of the divine judgment gather themselves (Matthew 24:28). Why, at the moment when Jesus expires, is the veil of the temple rent? It is because, in reality, there is no longer a Most Holy place, no longer a Holy place, no longer courts, sacrifice, priesthood; the temple, as Jehovah's temple, has ceased to exist.

When He says “ Destroy this temple,” therefore, it is, indeed, of the temple properly so called, that Jesus speaks; but He knows that it will be in His own person, that this destruction, so far as it depends on the Jews, will be consummated. It is on His body that they will cause the blow to fall, which will destroy their sanctuary. The imperative λύσατε is not, then, merely concessive: “If it happens that you destroy.” It is of the same kind with that other imperative, “ What thou hast to do, do quickly ” (John 13:27). When the fruit of perversity, collective or individual, is ripe, it must fall. Comp. also the πληρώσατε, Matthew 23:32.

The meaning of the second clause follows from that of the first. If the death of Jesus is the real destruction of the temple, the restoration of the latter can consist only in the resurrection of Jesus Himself. Jesus once said: “ Here is more than the temple ” (Matthew 12:6). His body was the living and truly holy dwelling of Jehovah; the visible sanctuary was the anticipatory emblem of this real temple. It is, therefore, really, in Him, in His body, that this supreme crisis will be effected. The Messiah perishes; the temple falls. The Messiah lives again; the true temple rises again; in a new form, beyond doubt. For in the Kingdom of God, there is never a simple restoration of the past. He who speaks of rising anew speaks of progress, reappearance in a higher form. The word ἐγείρειν, to waken up, to raise up, is perfectly suitable here. For it may be applied at once to a resurrection and a construction (see Meyer). The expression: in three days, the authenticity of which is guaranteed in a very special way by the statement of the false witnesses (διὰ τριῶν ἡμερῶν, Matthew 26:61; Mark 14:58), receives in our explanation its natural meaning; for, in an historical situation so solemn as this, it is impossible to see only a poetic or proverbial form for saying: “in a very short time,” as Hosea 6:2, or Luke 13:31. A demonstrative miracle has been demanded of Jesus, as a sign of His competency. We know from the Synoptics that Jesus always rejected such demands, which renewed for Him the third temptation in the wilderness.

But there was a miracle, one only, which He could promise, without condemning Himself to the role of a wonder-worker, because this miracle entered as a necessary element into the very work of salvation: it was His resurrection. Thus it is to this sign that He in like manner appeals, in similar cases, in the Synoptics (Matthew 12:38-40; Matthew 16:4). We come also here upon one of those profound analogies which, beneath the difference of the forms, blend into one whole the representation of the Synoptics and that of John. It is by the reparative power which He will display, when the Kingdom of God shall have sunk down, in a sense, even to nothing, that Jesus will prove the competency for reformation which He has just arrogated to Himself at this hour. This explanation answers thus to the natural meaning of the expressions of the text, to the demands of the context, and finally to the evangelist's interpretation.

The following is the meaning at which modern exegesis has arrived, by following, as Lucke says, “the laws of philological art.” It is best set forth, as it seems to us, by Ewald (Gesch. Christi, p. 230): “All your religion, resting upon this temple, is corrupted and perverted; but He is already present, who, when it shall have perished as it deserves, shall easily restore it in a more glorious form, and shall thus work, not one of those common miracles which you ask for, but the grandest of miracles.” In this explanation, the temple destroyed is Judaism; the temple raised up is Christianity; the act of raising it up is Pentecost, not the resurrection. We shall not say that this sense is absolutely false; it is so only so far as it is given as the exact expression of the thought of Jesus at this moment. What condemns it is: 1. That the transformation of the economy of the letter into that of the Spirit is not a sign, but the work itself. It is necessary that the event indicated by Jesus should have an external character, in order to be adapted to the demand which was addressed to Him; 2. It is impossible, from this point of view, to interpret naturally the words: in three days. The passages (Hos 6:2 and Luke 13:31) do not sufficiently justify the figurative sense which must, in that case, be given to them here; 3. The temple raised up would be entirely different from the temple destroyed; but the pronoun αὐτόν (it), demands that there should, at least, be a relation between the one and the other (the body of Jesus destroyed and raised again). Objection is made to the meaning which we have proposed, that the Jews could not have understood so mysterious a reply. Assuredly, they did not see in the temple, of which Jesus spoke, anything but the material edifice, and they represented to themselves the sign promised by Him as the magical appearance of a new and supernatural temple (Mark 14:58). But we shall see that, in dealing with evil-disposed persons, the method of Jesus is to throw out enigmas and to reveal the truth only while veiling it; comp. the explanation of Jesus respecting the use of parables (Matthew 12:11-16). Here is a secret of the profoundest pedagogics.

Objection is also made, that Jesus could not, so long beforehand, know of His death and resurrection. But in the Synoptics, also, He very early announces the tragical end of His Messianic ministry. It is during the first days of His activity in Galilee, that He speaks of the time “when the bridegroom will be taken away, and when the disciples will fast” (Mark 2:19-20). Had Jesus, then, never read Isaiah 53; Daniel 9; Zechariah 12, etc.? Now, if He foresaw His death, He must have been assured also of His resurrection. He could not suppose that the bridegroom would be taken away, not to be restored.

Finally, it is objected, that, according to the Scriptures, it is not Jesus who raised Himself. But the receptivity of Jesus, in the act of His resurrection, was not that of passivity. He says Himself (John 10:17-18): “ I give up my life, that I may take it again...I have the power to give it up, and I have the power to take it again. ” He lays hold, as in all His miracles, of the divine omnipotence, and this becomes thereby active in Him.

Renan has seen in this utterance, so original and so profound, only a whim: “One day,” he says, “His ill-humor against the temple drew from Him an imprudent word.” He adds: “We do not know, indeed, what sense Jesus attached to this word, in which His disciples sought forced allegories” (Vie de Jesus, p. 367). Where Renan sees a proof of the ill-humor of Jesus against the temple, the immediate witnesses found one of the zeal for the house of God, which devoured their Master. Which has better understood Jesus? As for the explanation given by John (John 2:21), we shall hope that every serious reader will find in it something else than a “forced allegory.”

Weiss does not think it is possible to defend the complete authenticity of the expression of Jesus, as it has been preserved for us by John. If Jesus expressed Himself thus, he must, at the same time, have pointed to His body with His finger, and this gesture would have been sufficient to render the misapprehension of the Jews (John 2:20) impossible. Besides, the interpretation which Mark gives of the saying of Jesus (Mark 14:58), leads one to suppose that its real meaning was a little different from that which we find in John. To the demand of the Jews relative to His competency to purify the temple (John 2:18), Jesus is said to have answered, that for the outward temple He would substitute the habitation of God in the spirit. It was John, according to Weiss, who introduced afterwards into the quite simple answer of Jesus, the two ideas of His death and His resurrection. This hypothesis could be taken into consideration only if the difficulty presented by the saying of Jesus, as we have it, were insurmountable. But we believe that we have shown that it is not so. At the foundation, the true ground of this supposition is, that according to this author, Jesus must not have predicted beforehand His death and resurrection.

How did Jesus discover in this question, apparently so innocent: “ What sign showest thou? ” the prelude of the catastrophe which was to put an end to His own life, and, by that means, to the theocracy itself? We know from John 2:3-4, with what penetration Jesus seized upon the moral bearing of the words which were addressed to Him. We have also cited Luke 4:22, where it was enough for Jesus to hear the critical reflection on the part of the inhabitants of Nazareth: “ Is not this the son of Joseph? ” in order to His announcing to them His near rejection, not only on their part (John 2:23), but on the part of the whole people (John 2:24-25). In the most fugitive impression of His interlocutors, the perspicacious eye of Jesus discerned the principle of the great final decision. By this characteristic feature, also, we verify in the Jesus of the Synoptics and of John, one and the same Jesus.