The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 231

One holior and " greater than the templo." Nis11n, A.u.c. 731-735 and 735-736. The God ie manifeeted in the glory of tho.t holy forty-sixth year after this would make life, nnd man ie set forth also in Christ's the Passover at which this speech was perfect high-priestly npproe.ch to and com- delivered-the spring of A.u.c. 781 (Wie- merce with the excellent glory. The Lord seler, ' Chron, Synopsis of the Four GoPpels,' knows that ha is the Lnmb, and the only translation; e.nd Herzog, • Encyc.,' xxi. begotten Son of God, nnd he knows also that 546. The fact that Josephus, in hie his death is part of the awful method in 'Bell. J ud.,' i. 21, gives the fifteenth year which the vast designs of his righteous love of Herod's reign instead of the eighteenth, will be secnred. He has a b11ptiam to be is shown by Wieseler to be an error of the b11ptized with, and ha is etrnitened until it tra.necl'.iber, see p. 152, note), v.-hich, if we be ncoomplished. He anticipates the end. compare with the other hints, is a fixed As ho said afterwards to Judas," That thou point from which to reckon the birth-year doest do quickly;" so at this moment he 11nd death-year of our Lord. Tbe "about said, Destroy this temple (of my body), o.nd thirty yea.re old" of the Lord at bis ba.ptism you will destroy therein the temple character throws us to about A.U.c, 751, B.C. 2, for the of this historic embodiment of a grand yea.r of his birth, and if there he only one prophetic hope ; and I will raise it up, viz.- Passover mentioned in John's Gospel be- the .temple of my body-in three days (not, tween this and the last Passover, it gives I will raise it by quiet, unobserved, spirit- A.U.c. 783 for the year of hie death. Thie date processes in the souls of men, but) the very 1s at lee.et coincident with the dnte derived temple which you will bring down shall from the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cresar, as henceforth be the Ii ving and eternal temple that of the commencement of the mission of of all the glory of God and 11ll the possibili- John (see my examination of these dates ties of man. 'l'he great bulk of expositors in appendix to 'John the Baptist'). The of many types, who do not repudiate St. John's temple which Herod began to repair in the own words, ee" thus (with more or less of a eighteenth year of his reign was not com- double reference in it) _the first main signifi- pleted until A.D. 6-1, under Herod Agrippa cance of the enigma. Whether our Lord II., a very short period before iui utter de- pointed to his own Person a.s he uttered ' struction. The irony and scorn are mani- these words cannot be determined. It is fest : Wilt thou raise it np in three days l said bysome-Ifhehad done so,all ambiguity John shows, in ver. 21, that, in the deep would have been removed, and the misunder- sense in which our Lord used the words, he standing which followed would have been abundantly justified his promise. But he- impossible I Surely the Jews were not /,ce,vos, the Lord. not the people, not the usually ready to receive pa.re.bolic truth of dieciples--spake of the temple of his body. this kind so readily, and after their fashion Thie is the reflection which was made upon were almost sure to misconceive and falsely the word of Jesus by the evangelists in to misrepresent it. E\'Cn the disciples did after-da.ys. Even Mark (xiv. 58) reveals not see into its me11ning until after the the presence of a spiritual interpretation of Resurrection (ver. 22). How could they? the words by some of his unsympathetio Verily, then, and not till then, was it seen listeners. It must not be forgotten that, in that the sign of the Prophet Jone.a had been the synoptists, we find the presence of the given to thnt generation, idea. that his service was a temple-service, Vere. 20, 21.-The immediate reference of nnd th11t he was greater than the temple the words to the building before them wwi (Ma.tt. xii. 6; cf. also Heb. iii. 6; 1 Cor. xii. only one of o. thousand misapplications of 12, 27; vi. 15; Rom. :xii. 5; Epb. iv. 12; i. the words of Jesus. The seeds of truth 22, 23; with ii. 19-22). Nor must it be for- which his words contain would take root in gotten that the Logos itself was, in the figura- o.fter-dnye. Meo.uwhile the Jews answered tive lnnguage of Philo, spoken of as the house, and said-taking the obvious and literal or temple, of God. Loter rabbinical repre- sense of the words, and treating them with sentations also describe "the body of man o.u ill-concealed irony. if not scoff, to which 11s the temple in which the Shechino.h ope- our. Lord, made no reply-In forty and six rates" (W iinsche). A difficulty arises from years_was this temple built o.a we see it to- the Lord's having claimed in these words to day. This is one of the most important be on the point of raising himself from the chronological do.t11 for the life of our Lord. dead, wherens elsewhere his resurrection is Herod the Gree.t, according to Josephus referred to the mighty power of Got.I, as iu (' Ant.,' xv. 11. 1), commenced the rebuild- ver. 22; Acts ii. 2.-1; iii. 15; iv. I O; Rom. ing . of the eeoond temple in the autumn iv. 2-1; viii. 11 ; Gal. i. l ; Eph. i. 20, etc. of the eighteenth yenr of hie reign. We Without doubt, God and the Father, the find tho.t hie first ye11r reokoned from Nieo.n, Supreme Power, was thus seen in living A.u.o, '/17-718. Consequently, the eigh- activity: but the Divine no.lure. of Chri~t t.eenth yenr must havo oommenoed between not infrequently so steps fonnml iuto hi.\!  92 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO 5'1'. JOHN. [olt. II, 1-2110