Matthew 27:40

40 and said, "You were going to tear down God's temple and build it again in three days. Save yourself! If you're the Son of God, come down from the cross."

Matthew 27:40 Meaning and Commentary

Matthew 27:40

And saying, thou that destroyest the temple
The Vulgate Latin, and Munster's Hebrew Gospel, read, "the temple of God"; and add "ah!" here, as in ( Mark 15:29 ) , and so Beza says it is read in a certain copy. They refer to the charge of the false witnesses against him, who misrepresenting his words in ( John 2:19 ) , declared that he gave out that he was able to destroy the temple of Jerusalem, and rebuild it in three days time; wherefore it is added,

and buildest it in three days, save thyself.
They reproach him with it, and suggest, that these were vain and empty boasts of his; for if he was able to do any thing of that kind, he need not hang upon the tree, but could easily save himself:

if thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.
The Jews themselves say F1 that the following words were said to Jesus on the cross,

``if thou be the Son of God, why dost thou not deliver thyself out of our hands?''

As Satan before them, they put an "if" upon the sonship of Christ: and seeing his followers believed in him as the Son of God, and he had owned himself to be so before the sanhedrim, they require a sign of it by his power, and to do that which they believed no mere man in his situation could do; which shows, that they had no other notion of the Son of God, but that he was a divine person: but his sonship was not to be declared by his coming down from the cross, which he could have easily effected, but by a much greater instance of power, even by his resurrection from the dead; and no other but that sign was to be given to that wicked and perverse generation.


FOOTNOTES:

F1 Toldos Jesu, p. 17.

Matthew 27:40 In-Context

38 At that time they crucified two criminals with him, one on his right and the other on his left.
39 Those who passed by insulted him. They shook their heads
40 and said, "You were going to tear down God's temple and build it again in three days. Save yourself! If you're the Son of God, come down from the cross."
41 The chief priests together with the scribes and the leaders made fun of him in the same way. They said,
42 "He saved others, but he can't save himself. So he's Israel's king! Let him come down from the cross now, and we'll believe him.
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