Third Sunday of Lent 2018

What Does Jesus Mean?

He was answering at two levels. First, he meant, You are destroying this temple. When you desecrate the worship of my Father with your white-washed greed, you destroy what this temple is, and you expose it to the wrath of God. It will indeed be destroyed. And that happened 40 years later when the Romans leveled it in A.D. 70.

But at another level he was saying: That same materialistic deadness to spiritual reality that destroys this temple will destroy me. Just like you kill worship in the temple with your consumerism and materialism, you will kill me. I and my Father are one. If you destroy his house, you destroy me. If you treasure money more than my Father, you will treasure my destruction-and buy it with 30 pieces of silver.

So he is speaking at two levels: Destroy this temple, the building; and Destroy this temple, my body.

“In Three Days I Will Raise It Up”

And what does Jesus mean when he says, “And in three days I will raise it up”? Same two levels. I will raise up my body in the resurrection after three days. Remember what he says in John 10:17-18? “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” He lays it down for our sin. He takes it up again. When they destroy it, he builds it again in three days.

But there is another level of meaning. The material temple that would be destroyed, Jesus builds again in three days in the sense that he now replaces this temple and becomes the new “place” where everyone may meet God and fellowship with God. Remember what he said in Matthew 12:6, “I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.” And he meant himself.