BIBLE LESSON

“Jesus answered them, `Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”

— John 2:19, 22

During the first Passover that Jesus celebrated with His disciples, He cleansed the temple by driving out money changers, sheep and cattle. When the religious leaders questioned Jesus' authority to cleanse their temple, He told them that if they destroyed “this temple” (speaking of His body) that He would raise it up in three days. During the last Passover that Jesus celebrated, the religious leaders arranged His crucifixion and destroyed “this temple.”

Notice that Jesus said He himself would raise up “this temple,” “His body,” from the dead. As the Son of God, Jesus had the power to raise up His dead human body without help, glorify His body and make His body the temple of God once again. Before the disciples saw the resurrected Jesus, John said, “for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (John 20:9).

Throughout Jesus' ministry, He taught the disciples some truths about His destiny that they only understood after He rose from the dead. They remembered many facts about Jesus and His applications of the Scriptures to himself only after they received the Holy Spirit as Jesus promised. Christians grow in faith as they study the scriptures Jesus studied (the Hebrew Scriptures), and as they seek to understand Jesus' words, His life, death and resurrection, and the Apostles' writings in the New Testament.