Jesus
answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise
it up.” Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple,
and you will raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of
His body. John 2:19-21 (NKJV)
I once read an account of how a dying man told his family God would raise him from the dead three months after he died. Three months after his death his family had his body exhumed, fully expecting their loved one to be returned to them alive.
The story
sadly related them tapping on the casket with a shovel handle and calling to him to come out. He never did. The family left the cemetery that day with the finality of his death in their hearts as the cemetery personnel
reinterred the man’s mortal remains.
What is so
incredible about today’s verse is in His speaking of His bodily resurrection from
the dead, Jesus said, “I will raise this temple [His physical body] up.” The Power behind the
Pronoun is not merely a reflective radiance of the Profound God, it is the exact
nature and essence of the Father. If Scripture tells us God raised
Jesus from the dead (Ephesians 1:20, Acts 4:10) and Jesus said “I,”
will do it, then it appears there is a mutually symbiotic relationship with God
the Father that cannot be readily explained away nor denied. In spite of what
critics may say that Jesus never made any references to Deity, He in fact did, in this instance, and John 10:30-33, 17:5, Luke 22:70-71 to name a few. There are also the testimonies
of credible eyewitnesses (John 1:14, 2nd Peter 1:16-18, Revelation 1:13-18).
Everything
we believe about the Deity of Jesus of Nazareth revolves around the central and
historical event of His resurrection from the dead. If this hub of evidence is
removed the wheel of Christianity flies apart and it becomes just another religion
of rules and regulations.
Even though
many centuries have distanced us from that first Resurrection Morning, Jesus
Christ, the Profoundest Pronoun, continues to be as powerfully alive now, as when
He first stepped out of that tomb. He who says I am the only way
anyone can come to God, condescended to us to join us to redeem our fallen race.
This personal interest in us is about to culminate in Eternal Triumph. This
same Jesus will return for those that have put their trust in His redemptive
work (Acts 1:10-11).
The One that
said, “Behold, I am coming soon,” will do so, first for His church, then a
second time to rule in a righteous reign eternally on the throne of His
ancestor, David (2nd Samuel 7:16). On that day we who are alive will
rise to meet Him in the air, and none in the grave who have trusted on Him for
the forgiveness of their sins will leave the cemetery disappointed. They’ll
leave it in the flash of the eye to an eternity beyond description! Christ has
risen. Christ has risen indeed. And so shall all who have believed on Him,
living and dead. What a comfort that is (1st Thessalonians 4:18).
Happy Resurrection Day.
Ken
