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THE KING’S BUSINESS
which Jesus offered them was the most appropriate that could be of fered; for His resurrection is the su preme proof of His authority, and that He is the Messiah, the Son of God (Acts 2:36; Rom. 1:1). It is all the more significant because the Jews themselves believed that the,Messiah would be called a temple. Even at this early day in our Lord’s ministry, we have an indication of the exact time that Jesus would be in the grave —three days (cf. 1 Cor. 15:4; Matt. 12:40). V. 20 gives us the exact year when Jesus, beginning His public ministry, spoke these things. It was forty-six years after the beginning of the res toration of the temple by Herod. This, according to Josephus, was in the eighteenth year of his reign, namely, 20-19 B. C., which would make the date of this conversation to be 26-27 A. D., and as it was at the Passover time (v. 13) this would make it in March or April, A. D. 27. This fits exactly with the most com monly accepted theories as to the length of our Lord’s ministry and the date of His crucifixion. It is, there fore, inconceivable that John’s Gospel is a fictitious story of our Lord’s life, written somewhere in the second cen tury or later, as some would-be critics would have us believe that it is. This is one of the many illustra tions of the minute accuracy of John’s Gospel. This conversation could not have been made up, even in the first century. Things are recorded as they actually, occurred. V. 22. When therefore he was risen (rather, raised ) from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said (rather, spake ) this unto them (omit, unto them); and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.” Even the disciples did not take in
bitter will be the opposition of the Jews to Himself, and how it will cul-' minate in His own death. From the very beginning He lived under the shadow of the cross. In His predic tion here of His resurrection, Our Lord says, I will raise it up.” Every where else the resurrection of our ‘Lord’s body is referred to the action of the Father through the Holy Spirit, and not to the action of the Son Himself (Acts 2:24, 32; 10:40; 13: 30; Col. 2:12; Eph. 1:19, 20; Rom. 8:11). But the Son and the Father are one (ch. 10:30) ; and the Word who became incarnate in our Lord Jesus not only was with God, but was God (ch. 1 :1). And, though the resurrectiorf of His humanity is appropriately and necessarily attrib uted to the Father, it was an act of His own Divinity, and in this connec tion where the Jews demanded a sign of His claims, it was necessary that His own activity as God should be set forth. It is one of those micro scopically minute points in which the exact accuracy of Bible writers ap pears. If our Lord Jesus had not been Divine His claim to resurrection power would have been blasphemous (cf. ch. 6:40). It was a cjaim to Deity and He is either God or a blas phemer. The time came when the Jewish authorities themselves got a glimpse of the real meaning of our Lord’s words uttered ori this occasion and saw in it the.prediction of His resurrection after three days (Matt. 27:63). Here again it is notable that this is recorded not in the Gospel of John who mentions the prediction, but in the Gospel of Matthew who omits entirely the incident in connection with which the prediction occurred. It is one of the countless undesigned coincidences of the Gospels which can reasonably be accounted for only upon the ground that the Gospel stories are exactly true. The sign
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