Jesus Cleanses the Temple.

  19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. [John here records this saying, and Matthew ( Matthew 26:61 ) and Mark ( Matthew 14:58 ) tells us how at the trial it was twisted into a charge against Christ; thus the Evangelists supplement For the temple in this sentence uses the word "naos," or sanctuary, the structure which was peculiarly the seat of God's presence. The sanctuary was a figure or symbol of the body of Christ, and the words of Jesus were a covert prediction that as they were desecrating the symbol so would they destroy his body, which it symbolized. They reverenced the Spirit of God neither as it dwelt in the sanctuary nor as it dwelt in the body of Christ. The body of Jesus was a temple ( Colossians 2:9 ), and Christians and the church are also temples ( 1 Corinthians 3:16 1 Corinthians 3:17 ; 6:19 ; 2 Corinthians 5:1 ; 2 Peter 1:13 ). God's temples can not be permanently destroyed. They are "raised up."]

  20 The Jews therefore said, Forty and six years was this temple in building [The temple which then stood upon Mt. Moriah was the third structure which had occupied that site. The first temple, built by Solomon (B. C. 1012-1005), was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The second temple, built by Zerubbabel and Jeshua (B. C. 520), had been torn down and rebuilt by Herod the Great, but in such a manner as not to interfere with the temple service. The sanctuary was completed in one year and a half, while the courts required eight years. Josephus says eighteen thousand workmen were employed in its erection. Additional outbuildings and other work had been carried on from that time, and the whole was not completed until A. D. 64], and wilt thou raise it up in three days? [To put before him the difficulty of what he apparently proposed to do, they merely mention one item--time. They say nothing of the army of workmen, nothing of a variety and cost of material, nothing of the skill required in the process of construction. How impossible seemed his offer! Yet by no means so impossible as that real offer which they misunderstood. A man might rear a temple in three days, but, apart from Christ Jesus, self-resurrection is unknown to history.]

  21 But he spake of the temple of his body [John differs from the other three Evangelists, in that he frequently comments upon the facts which he records. Both history and commentary are inspired.]

disciples remembered that he spake this [It was three years before they understood this saying. Thus truth often lies dormant for years before it springs up in the heart and bears fruit-- 1 Corinthians 15:58 ; Ecclesiastes 11:1 ]; and they believed the scripture [several passages foretell the resurrection-- Psalms 16:9 Psalms 16:10 ; 68:18 ], and the word which Jesus had said. [They believed that Jesus had meant to predict that the Jews would kill him, and that he would rise again on the third day.]

  23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, during the feast [the seven days' feast of unleavened bread-- Leviticus 23:5 Leviticus 23:6 ], many believed on his name, beholding his signs which he did. [We have no description of the miracles wrought at this time. See John 4:45 ; 20:30 .]

  24 But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men [The word here translated "trust" is the same as that translated "believe" in the preceding verse. They trusted him, but he did not trust them, for he knew them. He did not tell them anything of his plans and purposes, and the conversation with Nicodemus which follows is a sample of this reticence],

  25 and because he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man. [John gives us many examples of this supernatural knowledge which Jesus possessed. See John 1:42 John 1:47 John 1:48 ; 3:3 ; 4:29 ; John 6:61 John 6:64 ; John 11:4 John 11:14 ; 13:11 ; 21:17 . This chapter itself gives us a faithful picture of "what was in man." We find in it temple, profaners, money-makers, sign-seekers, opposers of reform, false and weak professors of faith, etc., but none to whom Jesus could trust himself.]