John 2:19Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What He said to them, He says also to these, though with a slight change. For they, like those others, demand while tempting Him. Yet to people so disposed, even this sign of Jonah the prophet would certainly not have been given, if Christ's resurrection had not been for the salvation of us all.

It must be known that they made this saying a pretext for accusing Him. Before Pontius Pilate they falsely said what they had not heard: "This man said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God'" (Mt 26:61).

Therefore Christ also said of them in the prophets: "Unjust witnesses rose up against Me; they asked Me things I did not know" (Ps 34:11). And again: "Unjust witnesses rose up against Me, and injustice lied to itself" (Ps 26:12).

Of course, He does not incite them to murder when He says: "Destroy this temple." But since He knew that they would certainly do this, He covertly indicated the event that was to happen.

That Christ calls His own body the temple is stated plainly by the evangelist himself, who immediately adds: "But He spoke of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He rose from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them" (Jn 2:21-22).

Therefore nothing can be called a temple truly and in the proper sense unless God dwells in it. This is also true concerning us. The body cannot be called the temple of the soul dwelling in it. Rather, we are called temples when the Holy Spirit dwells in us through faith in Christ.

But Christ's body is rightly and truly called a temple, because in Him "all the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell bodily" (Col 2:9), as Paul says. It is evident that the One who dwells there is God the Word.

How then can He be created, when, as God by nature, He proclaimed as a temple the holy body in which He was?

Thus, adding one to forty-five days, this number signifies perfection. For six, nine, twelve, ten, and eight, joined together into one, give forty-five. Therefore, adding one, as was said, we receive forty-six.

When this number is multiplied by the number standing at the head of this order, six, it gives two hundred seventy-six, that is, nine months and six days.

This period is counted from the eighth day before the Kalends of April, the day on which the Lord is believed to have been conceived, for on that same day He also suffered. It extends to the eighth day before the Kalends of January, the day on which He was born.

Therefore it is reasonably said that the Temple was built in forty-six years, for it signified His body. The number of years occupied by the construction of the Temple was the same as the number of days in which the Lord's body was brought to completion (Jn 2:19-21).

Then the Jews answered Him: "What sign do You show us, seeing that You do these things?"

By the name Jews, the Evangelist John means not the Hebrews in general, but exclusively the party of Jewish leaders hostile to Christ. These were the high priests, priests, elders, and members of the Sanhedrin generally.

Therefore, when the Evangelist John says that the Jews answered Him, this means that, among all present, only the Jewish leaders objected to Christ.

The testimony of John the Baptist was not enough for them. His assurance was not enough that he had seen the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus and had heard the voice from heaven: "This is My beloved Son."

They wanted a sign from Christ Himself. In reality, they imagined the Messiah in a form quite different from the form in which Jesus appeared.

They needed an invincible conquering leader who would subject the whole universe to the Jews. He would make them, the leaders of the Jewish people, kings over the conquered nations.

They saw that Jesus of Nazareth was not the kind of man to fulfill their ambitious dreams. Therefore they did not believe John's testimony.

They did not even believe their own eyes, which had seen the countless crowd of traders obey the irresistible authority of Jesus. They approached Him with temptation and began demanding from Him a sign from heaven.

This was to prove that He had authority to act in this way. The Lord refused the devil a sign when he said, "If You are the Son of God, cast Yourself down."

In the same way He refused a sign to the Jews who tempted Him. He said to them, "You ask for a sign. It will be given to you, but not now."

"Later, when you destroy this temple and I raise it up in three days, then this will serve you as a sign."

The learned Jews did not understand the words of Jesus. As the Evangelist explains, He was speaking of His body as a temple in which God dwells.

He was foretelling His death, the destruction of His body, and His Resurrection on the third day. But the Jews understood His words literally and tried to turn the people against Him.

They suggested to the people that Jesus was saying something impossible. They said He wanted to destroy the temple, the pride of the Jews, which had been built for forty-six years, and raise it again in three days.

Their efforts were vain. They did not stir up the people against Christ, and they themselves went away with hidden malice against Him.

Some interpreters of the Gospels say that the Lord, in anger, drove the merchants from the temple with a scourge of cords. This interpretation is incorrect.

The scourge of cords was made to drive the cattle being expelled from the temple, not to beat the merchants with it. The merchants submitted without objection to Jesus' mighty and authoritative look upon them.

They themselves went out after their cattle. The cattle, however, needed another kind of action.

Therefore the scourge of cords, since it was not intended for people, cannot be considered an instrument of anger. In the Evangelist's whole narrative of this event, one cannot find even a hint that Christ drove the merchants from the temple in anger.

In His words, "Take these things away from here" and "Do not make My Father's house a house of trade," one hears an authoritative and commanding tone. Yet it is also calm, and in no way angry.

In His refusal to give a sign, again one hears not anger, but sorrow that "this wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign" (Mt 16:4) in order to believe.

It had already received many signs and had believed none of them. The feast lasted eight days. The Evangelist John testifies that during these days Jesus Christ performed many miracles.

The Evangelist does not say what miracles these were. His silence may be explained by the fact that he wrote his Gospel when the first three Gospels had already been written.

In them, many miracles performed by Jesus Christ had already been described. If the Savior had beaten the sellers of oxen, and not the oxen themselves, He would also have beaten the sellers of birds.

But of them it is said: "And He said to those who sold doves, Take these things away" (Jn 2:16).

On another occasion, when the Jews likewise asked Him for a sign, He pointed them to the same sign, only under another image (Mt 12:38-39). Thus, from the very beginning of His public ministry, the Lord foretold His death and resurrection.

"I will raise it up." By these words the Lord gives proof of His divine omnipotence, for no dead man can raise his own body by his own power and authority.

"He did not say, 'The Father will raise it,' but 'I will raise it,' using His own power and not needing another's power" (Theophylact).

Therefore let Jesus provide a sign proving that He has the right to alter the arrangements of temple worship. So they did.

"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," was the Savior's answer. Philo, the prophets (Isa 38:12), and the Apostle Paul (1 Cor 3:16-17; 1 Cor 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16) called the body a temple or house of the soul.

This designation is common in all languages, except the Epicurean. Thus, when a sign is demanded of Him, the Savior points to the most important one, His resurrection from the dead. He points to this sign on another occasion as well (Mt 12:39).

Some take the Savior's answer as a promise to establish a new religion in place of the old sensory one, and not as the apostle explains it in verses 21 and 22. But everything said in defense of the new explanation does not defend it, but accuses it.

They say that if Jesus Christ had pointed with His finger to His body, the Jews would not have referred His words to the temple in Jerusalem. But many could very well have failed to notice what the Savior was pointing to when He spoke about the temple.

For this reason alone they could have referred His words to the temple. Others maliciously distorted the meaning of the Savior's clear words (Mt 26:61; 27:40).

They say that only after the resurrection did the disciples think, according to verse 22, that He was speaking of the resurrection of His body. But this is not entirely so.

Before the resurrection, the apostles did not trust the Lord's prophetic words about the resurrection, οὐκ ἐπίστευσαν τῷ λόγῳ. Likewise, they did not want to believe that their Lord would die a shameful death (Mt 16:21).

His word about the resurrection of the body lay in their soul as though buried, and it rose with His resurrection (Lk 24:45-46). Even if they had not understood the Savior's words before the resurrection, but understood them after the resurrection, we must follow the explanation of the God-illumined apostles and not invent our own interpretations.