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Humble Hero
fear, they went to Him and asked, “What sign do You show to us,
since You do these things?”
Jesus had shown them a sign. In doing the work that the Messiah
was to do, He had given convincing evidence of His character. Now
He answered them by a parable, showing that He read their evil
intent and saw where it would lead. “Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it up.”
In these words, He referred not only to the destruction of the
Jewish temple and worship, but to His own death—the destruction of
the temple of His body. The Jews were already plotting to kill Him.
As the priests and rulers returned to the temple, they had proposed
to kill Jesus and so be rid of the troubler. Yet they took His words
as applying only to the temple at Jerusalem, and they exclaimed
indignantly, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and
will You raise it up in three days?” Now they felt that Jesus had
justified their unbelief, and they were confirmed in rejecting Him.
Christ knew that His enemies would twist His words and turn
them against Him. At His trial and on Calvary, they would fling these
words at Him. But to explain them now would give His disciples
a knowledge of His sufferings and bring on them sorrow that they
were not yet able to bear. And an explanation would prematurely
reveal to the Jews the result of their prejudice and unbelief. They
had already entered on a path that they would steadily follow until
He would be led as a lamb to the slaughter.
Christ knew that these words would be repeated. Spoken at the
Passover, they would come to the ears of thousands who would
then carry them to all parts of the world. After He had risen from
the dead, their meaning would be plain. To many, they would be
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conclusive evidence of His divinity.
The Savior’s words, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I
will raise it up,” had a deeper meaning than the hearers grasped. The
temple services symbolized the sacrifice of the Son of God. The
entire plan of sacrificial worship foreshadowed the Savior’s death
to redeem the world. The ritual system had no value apart from
Him. When the Jews sealed their rejection of Christ by delivering
Him to death, they rejected everything that gave significance to the
temple and its services. Its sacredness had ended. It was doomed to
destruction. From that day, sacrificial offerings were meaningless.