THE KING’S BUSINESS
72
would be in the grave— three jiays (cf. 1 Cor. 15:4; Matt. 12:40). Verse 20 gives us the'exact year when Jesus, beginning His public ministry, spoke these words, forty-six. years after the beginning of the restoration of the temple by Herod, i.e., 20-19 B.G., which would make the date of this conversation to be 26-27 A.D., and as it was the Passover time this would make it in March or April A.D. 27. This fits exactly with the most commonly accepted theories as to the length of our Lord’s ministry and the date of His crucifixion. It is therefore incon ceivable that John’s Gospel is a fictitious story of our Lord’s life, written somewhere in the second century, as some would be critics would have us believe that it is. This is only one of the many illustrations of the minute accuracy of John’s Gospel. It would be absolutely impossible to make up a conversation like this, even in the first century. Things are recorded just as they actually occurred. Even the disciples did not take nFthe import of our Lord’s words at the time, but the words remained in their mind, and when this mysterious utterance of their Lord was fulfilled in His resurrection from the dead, they then saw the meaning of them “and they believed the Scripture.” The phrase “the Scripture” occurs ten times in John’s Gospel. In every case except in chapter 17:12 and 20:9 he refers to a definite passage of Old Testament Scripture given in the context, and in these passages refers to definite ful fillment of some definite Scripture not specifically cited, so the inevitable implica tion is that in this passage John had some definite Scripture in mind. The passage of Scripture he had in mind was probably Psalm 16:10 (cf. Acts 2:27; 21:36; Acts 13:34, 36). He may also have had in mind Isaiah 53:10, Hosea 6:2 (cf. Luke 24:25, 26).
at the timé it was made, but that it is the Synoptic Gospels that mention the per version of the utterance at the time of His trial (Matt. 26:61; Mark 14:58; cf. Acts 6:13, 14). Solomon’s temple and Herod’s temple were only types in so far as God dwelt in them, and Jesus Himself was the antitype; He alone fully realizing irt Him self the meaning of temple. The true tem ple is the seat of God’s presence among His people, and Jesus alone was fully that (ch. 1:14; Col. 2:9). Jesus , constantly insisted on.the Father’s indwelling in Him (ch. 10:38; 14:10, 11, 20; 17:21), «which of course involves the truth here so plainly set forth, that He was the real temple. There was still deeper meaning in Jesus speaking of the destruction of His body as the destruction of the temple, and leav ing the Jews to suppose He referred to the destruction of Herod’s temple; for “the rejection and death of Christ, in Whom dwelt all the fulness of God, brought with it necessarily the destruction of the tem ple, i.e., Herod’s temple.” When they rejected and killed their Messiah, they destroyed their temple, though it was forty years before the temple actually lay in ruins (see Matt. 23:37-24:2). Here in the very beginning of His ministry Christ sees how bitter will be the opposition of the Jews to Himself, and how it will culminate in His own death. From the very begin ning He lived under the .shadow of the cross. The sign which Jesus offered them was the most appropriate that could be offered, for His resurrection is the supreme proof of His authority, and that He is the Messiah, the Son of God (Acts 2 :36 ; Rom. 1 :4). It is Jill the more significant because the Jews themselves believed 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
Made with FlippingBook Online document