The Authority Of Christ

Father in heaven, we thank you again for this morning, for the word preached, for the great Savior that is Christ Jesus, that He is a Savior that He reaches to the lowest sinner, to the most vile sinner, Father, and saves them completely.

We just thank you for that. We just pray that you would bless the remainder of our day, bless the Sunday school now, and focus our minds and our hearts on Christ and on His word here. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

John 2 and the Temple Cleansing

So, Pastor Dave last week, he taught from John chapter 2, and interestingly enough, I prepared some material before that for the very next passage. So, it's John chapter 2, verse 13. The first part of the chapter, Jesus was at the wedding of Cana, and His first miracle, turning the water into wine, and now we're moving to the very next scene in the book.

And if I can get two readers with strong voices, we'll break this up. Bruce, if you can do 13 through 17, nice and loud. Second reader. Mark Westcott, if you can do 18 through 22. All right, thank you.

Passover, Obedience, and the Corruption of Temple Worship

So, hopefully no one's sick of John. We have Pastor Steve preaching John. Pastor Dave last week did John, and I'm going to do John again here in chapter 2. So, we're getting our fill of that, and that's a good thing.

It's a great book. So, this scene here, it takes place right at the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry. There's some other, the other gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, had presented a temple cleansing as well, but many scholars and many of the commentaries I read feel that these are completely separate.

John, many times, he didn't write in chronological order, but in this case, there's good reason to believe that this probably came right after, or shortly after, the miracle at the wedding. It says in verse 12, after this, He went down to Capernaum, and His mother and His brothers and disciples, they stayed there for a few days.

And again, the chapter divisions weren't there in the original, and it says, the pastor of the Jews is at hand. It seems to flow right in, and it seems that it was probably shortly after that. So, there's a good reason to believe that this is a separate temple cleansing, different context than what happened at the end of Jesus' ministry in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, right before the crucifixion.

And so, here it is, Jesus coming right off this great miracle at Cana, kind of off-Broadway, if you will, and now He's on the big stage. He goes, He's down to Jerusalem, and He's right in the temple, and this temple cleansing happens.

And in this passage, I think some good things to highlight, I'd like to highlight it. Number one, we see the obedience of Christ, the obedience of our Savior, His zeal for the things of God, and also the authority that He demonstrates as the Messiah.

So, I'm going to look to highlight those three things. The first, number one, the obedience of Christ. It says, the Passover of the Jews is at hand, in verse 13, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. So, Passover time.

What is Passover? What is Passover? Russ? All right. So, Passover, there was what? And so, it kind of represents God. He had delivered the people to, it was the 10th plague, the angel of death that God sent upon Egypt to set His people free, to loosen Pharaoh's hold on them and let them go to worship their God.

And so, after the nine plagues, the water turning to blood, the frogs, the gnats, the flies, all that, God sent His angel of death, and He provided deliverance to His people. He made a distinction between His people, those who had the blood of the lamb over the door who obeyed God.

He saved them. And so, it was a great deliverance that they were to celebrate. It was kind of a, they were to celebrate in perpetuity. They were to continue to celebrate this as long as there was a Jewish nation, they would remember the deliverance that God had given them.

And so, Passover was also a picture of the perfect lamb that was to come, the perfect savior that was to come. And so, yes, that's what it represented. And it's a high holy day, was it not, for the Jewish religion?

And it continues to be for the Jewish religion. And they were celebrating that. And Jesus was, well, I'll ask you, how do we see Christ's obedience here in this passage? He says He's going up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

How do we see Him obeying? Wes? So, God had commanded this. Wes said they had to go up. They were mandated in Scripture to go up to Jerusalem, celebrate the Passover. Every male over the age of 12, I read, had to go up and go to the Passover feast in Jerusalem, offer their sacrifices, pay their temple tax, do their duty in Christ, was not exempt.

He went up. As a good Jew, he went and he obeyed God perfectly. He always loved his neighbor as himself, always loved God with his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and he always obeyed Him in what he said in Scripture.

And Jesus, growing up under the law and being under the law at that time, obeyed. He went up. He celebrated the Passover. So even the sinless Son of God, He perfectly obeyed in all things. And that's why He could be our perfect Savior, our perfect substitute.

So we see in that Jesus going up to Jerusalem, obeying God, obeying God in all things, and, again, being our perfect Savior. So He gets to Jerusalem, takes the journey probably from Capernaum up in Galilee.

He had made the trip down, and now He's getting to Jerusalem. And what does He find there? And in this section, we see kind of the zeal of Christ. He says, in the temple, in verse 14, He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there.

So some people might read this and say, okay, so there's money changers, there's people selling lambs and sheep and that sort of thing. What's the big deal? But the thing that you have to note is what was really happening in the temple.

What was going on there? Was it just selling and buying that infuriated Him, that got Christ angry, that made Him make a whip out of ropes? It wasn't just the selling and buying. It wasn't just what He saw there, but the profaning of the temple, the profaning of a place of worship.

Again, every faithful Jew over the age of 12 was supposed to go down and celebrate the Passover, so people were coming from all over the Roman Empire. And wouldn't it make sense, you know, to, if you were going to offer a sacrifice, and you were a sheep herder, and you had obeyed what it says in Exodus chapter 12, it talks about how you're supposed to celebrate the Passover, and you're supposed to keep that lamb, you're supposed to select the perfect lamb from your flock, they'll live with you for four days in the house.

If you're a good Jew and you obeyed that, and you brought this perfect lamb that you would examine, and you brought your best, wouldn't it make sense if you're a shepherd or a lamb sheep herder to bring your lamb down to Jerusalem?

Wouldn't that make a lot of sense? You're saving money, right? You don't have to buy a lamb. But what would happen when they would get there? Go ahead, Wes. What would happen? They'd be inspected. They would fail.

They would fail for whatever reason. They would bring them to the priest. The priest had to inspect the lambs, and sure enough, that perfect lamb that you picked your best, you wanted to worship God with your best, you walk all the way to Jerusalem from some far reach of Israel or other parts of the Roman Empire, you get there, you make this pilgrimage, and you have your best lamb, you bring it to the priest, and the priest says, sorry, no good.

What do you mean? There's no arguing at that point. You can't offer your sacrifice to God. You brought the lamb. It's no good. It's blemished. Well, what's the matter with it? It doesn't matter. Blemished.

Sorry. You've got to get another lamb. So then what would they have to do? What would they have to do? They had time to get another lamb. So there's people buying and selling. And so you have the first level of corruption, and the priests, they get the lambs, they inspect them, and they say, sorry, no good.

And so then they've got to go, hey, you know, certified temple lambs over here on the left. And so you'd have to go. And of course, of course, these merchants, understanding that people, they were faithful worshipers, they were tired from a long journey, they were going to offer a service to their brothers, right?

They were going to sell them a lamb at a good price, right? They were here to serve their brothers and give them a lamb so they could offer their sacrifice, right? They were there to help them out. Excuse me?

Price gouging. Price gouging. It's like when you go to the movie theater, you know, you go, you want to buy popcorn, you want to have a soda, all right? You're going to pay $8 for a popcorn, $4 for the soda, because you can't bring your own, all right?

But you have a choice. You don't have to get the popcorn. You don't have to get the soda. But they didn't have a choice. They had to get a lamb. They had to offer their sacrifice. And so first level of corruption, priests say, nope, lamb no good.

Second level, you know, you have to go buy one, and they gouge you. They stab you at the price. And again, you have no choice. You're tired. You're weary. You've traveled a long way. You just want to worship God and do what you're supposed to do and honor God with your sacrifice.

And so you buy it. But that's not where it ends. So we also have the money changer sitting there, correct? Well, you know, it wasn't enough to just take out your money, right? You traveled from, maybe you're from Asia Minor.

You'd come that far. You know, Saul was of Tarsus, which was up in the kind of the eastern part of Asia Minor. So he could bring his Tarsus money, right, and buy the lamb, right? No problem. He had brought his lamb, rejected.

Fine, I'll go buy that one at an exorbitant price. By the way, I was reading pigeons. They gave the example in one of the commentaries. They had a pigeon that would sell, usually two pigeons would sell for five cents.

They were being sold in the temple for what would be the equivalent of $4. So I did the math. That's a 7 ,900 markup. Just to give you an idea of what they were doing to these people, how they were exploiting them and taking their money.

7 ,900 markup on two pigeons. So imagine what they were doing on lambs and the cost of those to these people that were traveling. So again, you have somebody coming like a Saul of Tarsus. He would come and he'd celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem.

He was a faithful Jew. And so he would come down and he'd pull out his wallet and he would pay for the lamb and his money from Tarsus, correct? You can only use temple money. So not only could they have to buy this lamb, but they couldn't even use their money.

It's not like they could break out their wallet and pay with whatever they have. That money usually was Roman money. It had a Caesar or some kind of image on it, which would be idolatrous to the Jews.

And so they couldn't even use that money within the temple grounds. And so they had to change their money. So there's money changes there. They're providing a service. They're willing to serve their brothers as well, right?

Bad enough, they're going to get gouged in the price. I'll just change their money for them. No questions asked. No problems, right? No. They would exploit them as well. They would charge a fee. They would charge their own tax on top of changing the money.

All right? So they're being exploited at every level. They had to buy this Jewish currency that was a very refined silver. It was made for only business in the temple. Buying and selling and paying your temple tax, you had to use this special money.

And so just being exploited on every level by people just with bad intentions. They had no intention of helping their brother. They had no intention of assisting them. After their long journey to come to worship, they were there to exploit them.

They were there to make their own money. This had become a corrupt system and kind of out of my notes, but there's a great message by MacArthur where he talks about the woman with the two mites. And if you can look that up on Google somehow, forget the name of the message, but he talks about what they were doing.

Many people look at the woman with the two mites and say, oh, she gave all she had. Well, the verse says she gave all she had to go home and die. They were exploiting the old women, the widows. It says right there in the passage how they would exploit the widows, and they were exploiting her.

They didn't care that she was going to go home and die. This system had become completely corrupted, and they were exploiting them at every level, whether it was to change the money or to buy the lambs and the sacrifices there or to pay the temple tax.

They were going to exploit them and just wring every bit of money out of them that they could. And again, so this has become just a completely corrupt system, Judaism. And this is what Jesus encounters.

He goes to the temple. He thinks he's going to worship. He had made the trip as well. And he wanted to go, and he wanted to worship his Father, worship the God of the universe just like everyone else, and do it faithfully and do it from a pure heart and sincere heart and to see others doing the same.

And what does he come upon? Put yourself in his shoes. Instead of entering the temple and see people worshiping God with holy reverence and just being in awe of this God, you walk into a barnyard. You walk into a place.

You hear the bleeding of sheep, the lowing of cows. You just see animals everywhere. For sure there was a stench. Animals do what animals do, and it probably stunk. Instead of smelling the aroma of incense and burnt sacrifices that you're supposed to smell, it had become it was a barnyard.

It was a farm. They had moved what probably should have been taking place outside, this marketplace, this kind of bazaar. They had moved it right into the temple, into the court of the Gentiles. You see the money changers exploiting people.

You probably heard haggling over money. You say, come on. Seriously, you would do that? You would say, come on, you're exploiting me. You're stealing my money. Surely there was argument. Surely there was contention right there in the temple.

So instead of reverent worship, you're observing all of this. And so what did gentle Jesus, meek and mild, decide to do? How did he react? Seeing this in righteous anger. You and I, we talk about righteous anger, but it's usually not very righteous, is it?

It's tainted with sin. It's tainted with these preconceived notions, that sort of thing. But Jesus, the Savior, the Messiah, God incarnate, when he had righteous anger, it was righteous anger. He was coming from his Father, and he saw this, and it says in verse 15, making a whip of cords, he drove them out of the temple with the sheep and oxen.

And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away. Do not make my Father's house a house of trade. So with animals tied up all over, it probably wasn't hard to find some cords.

And so he found some. It probably must have been interesting seeing him there making his little whip. People probably wondered what he was doing. But again, it was probably very calculated. He wasn't flying into a rage, but it was very calculated.

It was a righteous anger. And again, just picture him grabbing a few ropes. Maybe he was like, hey, do you need that? I don't know what he did. But he found some rope, and he weaved a whip. So the whole time he's observing this, he's making his whip.

He's observing all of this, and this righteous anger rising up inside of him. And he just acts. He acts. He starts to drive out those sheep. And with it, the money changers, the tables get flipped over.

It must have been quite the scene. What are some of the reasons? Okay, we've already touched on it, but let's outline it again. What are some of the reasons? Christ was so angry. What drove him to do what he did?

That's a great point. So Christ knew it was in the heart of man. So it wasn't just that he saw the buying, the selling, the barnyard. It wasn't that he just saw it. He knew it was in man. And people were there to offer a sacrifice for the remission of sins.

Very serious time of the year, time on their calendar. And this is what it had turned into, exploitation. Bruce. So they were ripping people off in the name of God. What about, again, where they had set up the marketplace?

Where were they set up in the temple? They were set up in the court of the Gentiles, the large court that surrounded the place of worship for the Jews. So they were supposed to be kind of a beacon. Jewish religion was never supposed to be insular, never supposed to be we have our God all to ourselves.

They were to be a beacon. They were to be a light, just as we're to be lights. And people were to see that they were different. And they were supposed to. And God made provision for the foreigner. God made provision for the Gentile to believe.

What's the phrase used in Acts where the people that believe but were not Jewish? God fears. They made provision for God fears, people that knew this was the true God, who saw in the example and the purity and the holiness of the things that he had instituted.

He had made provision then to go and worship. And here were the Jews setting up shop, shutting them out, closing the kingdom of God. As you heard Jesus say later on in his ministry at various times, you close off the kingdom of God.

These people coming to worship, people that fear me, you're supposed to be an example to them. You're supposed to welcome the foreigner in your midst. You're supposed to not exploit them. And that's exactly what you're doing.

Not only that, you're pushing them out. They came in worship. And I think just in general, anger the entire system. The entire system had been corrupted. And again, he had had enough. Any questions thus far?

Anything anyone wants to add? Charlie? Right. And isn't that, at the end, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, when you read about the other temple cleansing, wasn't it more kind of a judgment on the nation saying, this is coming to an end.

I'm going to put this to an end. But at the beginning of his ministry, it's more of a wake-up call saying, wake up. This is not how you worship God. Again, he went from kind of off-Broadway in Canaan.

He goes right down, and now he's on the big stage. And he's saying, wake up. Wake up, people. This is not how to worship God. And so, yeah, a different context than a later cleansing temple. But, yeah, an act of mercy to say, wake up, people.

This is what God demands. And so let me get caught up in my notes here. So Jesus, he cleanses the temple. Again, any more comments? I'm sorry. Good. So he cleanses the temple. He makes his whip. He drives everyone up.

It must have been quite the scene to see Jesus turning over tables, driving out those animals, merchants yelling, probably trying to pick their money up off the ground, scrambling to get their merchandise, dust being kicked up, and just complete chaos.

And the passage says that he drove out all. He drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen. He spared no one, every money changer, every merchant, every animal that was there that was defiling and just making this place a marketplace instead of what it was supposed to be.

Jesus cleans house. He drives them out. And what does this demonstrate about? What do these actions demonstrate about Christ? What do they show us about him and about his character? He has the authority.

Exactly. He demonstrates authority of who he is. I think it demonstrates his zeal, his love for God. We see right in the passage that zeal for his house, it would consume and it would eat away at him.

He demonstrates that proper worship of God and proper treatment of the things of God is important. He demonstrates the need for treating the things of God in a holy manner, in a separate manner, and that God will not just accept any worship.

As Charlie mentioned in the Old Testament, you would be consumed immediately, Nadab and Abihu, offering strange fire, consumed immediately for strange fire, for worship that defamed and profaned God's house.

And so Christ demonstrated his zeal, his authority. And then verse 16 said,. And he told those who sold the pigeons, Take these things away. Do not make my Father's house a house of trade. What do you think we can glean from this passage where he says, Do not make my Father's house a house of trade.

What about his use of the word Father? Did Jews call their God Father? Did they refer to him as Father? What was he saying with that? The Son of God. So he's making a proclamation there. He's saying, If he's my father, I'm his son.

I have a relationship with this one. He has sent me. And not only does he identify him as God's son, but he shows that, like Peggy was saying, that he has full authority to do what he's doing. He was showing himself to be the Messiah, God's chosen one, the one that was to come, the one they were supposedly waiting for, probably should have recognized.

And, of course, they didn't. He was restoring purity to the temple. He was restoring the temple place as a place of worship to be used for spiritual purposes. He was doing all of those things. And, again, I think the most important thing, my Father's house.

This is my Father's house. And so he was identifying himself as the Son, as the one that was to come. And I think that's the most important thing we can glean from that. Moving on in verse 17, he says,.

His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for your house, for everyone. Let me stop. So he had driven everybody out, right? And we mentioned his authority. One thing, not only that he did it, that he was setting some kind of precedent, not only that he did it, who rose up against him?

How many hundreds of people must have been in there? How many hundreds of merchants and money changers were there? Probably hundreds and hundreds. Nobody stopped him. Just like when Jesus would escape through the crowds.

And it wasn't his time. He goes in and he drives out everyone. He ruins their business. Some big, burly farmer who's trying to sell at exorbitant prices, his sheep and stuff like that. He drives them out and no one stands up.

No one stands up. Can you imagine the fury that was poured out at that point? Can you imagine what they observed in Christ as he was doing that and the authority that was demonstrated? Not that he was necessarily stronger than all of them, but that they were too awestruck to do anything.

They were too taken aback to even do anything. So that's one thing I wanted to point out before moving on, is that no one stood up. Roman soldiers did not react. The Jewish leadership that had Roman soldiers, but also the temple guard probably at their disposal, did not do anything.

Didn't do anything. And, again, it's almost like one of those things, Jesus escaping through the crowd. It wasn't his time. Jesus demonstrating this authority and everybody just standing back. One of the gospel writers say that when the guards came out to get him, I believe it was John, and when he said, Where is this?

Where is Jesus? He says, I am him. And they fell back. You know, and just these demonstrations of authority. And right here at the beginning of his ministry, identifying himself as God's son, but also demonstrating the authority to go along with it.

And, again, nobody being able to stand up and do anything about it. It should have been clear to them who he was and what he was there to do. So, verse 17, it says, His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for your house will consume me.

I doubt the disciples remembered right then. In the confusion and tables flying everywhere, I doubt Peter probably stopped. John, remember it said, Zeal for his house will consume him. You remember that?

Look at this. It's crazy. I doubt that happened, but probably later on. And where is he quoting from? Does anyone know where he's quoting from? Mark's got a study Bible, so I know he knows. Psalm 69. Psalm 69, verse 9.

If anyone wants to open there quickly. Psalm 69, verse 9. This is not, traditionally at that time, it wasn't thought of as a messianic psalm, so to speak. But in the New Testament, it was quoted no less than 15 times.

15 times in the writings of the New Testament, they would quote Psalm 69 in relation to Christ, in relation to the Messiah. So at that time, probably not thought of as a messianic psalm. They probably didn't remember that one.

It was more of a, relating very much to David. But later on, they recognized the significance of that psalm. And it was written about, again, mentioned no less than 15 times. Does anyone have that? Want to read it out quickly?

Mark? Right. So, Psalm 69. Zeal for your house will consume me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. So, Jesus cleansed the temple, and they probably didn't have that understanding at that time.

But maybe later on, as they were writing scripture, as the disciples reflected, they remembered. They said, yes, zeal for his house. And look at the zeal demonstrated, and the authority demonstrated. That being said, maybe that verse didn't come to mind, but, what do we know about the spiritual, kind of the cultural, religious climate of Israel at that time, of Palestine, that he was stepping into?

Were they waiting for a Messiah? Were they expecting that? Something they were eagerly looking towards? Yes, they were waiting for the Messiah. And they had the scribes, those who studied the scriptures, they had cataloged the scriptures of his coming.

They knew where he would come from. They knew all these different tidbits about him from the scriptures, and they were eagerly awaiting it. John 5, 39 -40 says, Jesus tells them, you search the scriptures.

They scoured the scriptures. They were trying to see the Messiah in them. And he all but told them, you totally missed the boat. You search the scriptures, because you think that in them, you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me.

Yet you refuse to come to me, that you may have life. And so again, rabbis, scholars, they were all studying the scriptures, scouring the scriptures, trying to get little tidbits of who the Messiah was, where he would come from, his lineage, the types of work he would do.

And of course, they badly missed Christ in all of it. They badly missed what he had actually come to do. But my point is that they knew the scriptures that spoke plainly about the Messiah and who this figure would be, what he would look like.

And maybe Psalm 69 doesn't come to their mind, but as I was going through study Bibles and commentaries, they mentioned two passages, and I think it would be good to read them. Who wants to find Malachi 3, verse 1 through 3?

Somebody else, if you could find Zechariah 14, 20 and 21. Which one do you want, Bruce? Malachi 3. Go ahead. All right, he will come suddenly to his temple. There he was, out of nowhere. Who is this guy from Galilee?

Probably had an accent. He probably sounded like we sound when we travel the country. From Galilee. He's there. He's in the temple. Appears suddenly. What is he doing? Appears suddenly. Who can endure the day of his coming?

No one. No one stood up to him. No one. And he would be a refiner and purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi. Who are the sons of Levi? The priests in the temple. He would purify those. So there's one verse that maybe came to mind.

A verse about the Messiah to come. Zechariah 14. Who has that? Mark Westcott. No longer a trader in the house of the Lord of hosts. He's there to purify the temple. And he drove them all out. He drove out all the traders, all the merchants, all the people there to do business.

He drove them out. So maybe Psalm 69 didn't come immediately to mind. But maybe those who are watching that would think of these well-known passages that they were probably scouring the Scriptures to find out who the Messiah would be.

Maybe those things came to mind. And they should have recognized. They should have said, here is someone who is coming to cleanse the temple. He's coming to purify our worship once again. Well, again, it seems they missed it.

But to this point, we've seen the obedience of Christ. He's there to celebrate the Passover. He's there to obey His Father in all things. We see His zeal for the things of God, for the house of God, for the worship of God.

And then finally we see the authority that He demonstrates. And basically, again, He's stepping onto the big scene. He's showing Himself for who He is. And He's right there in Jerusalem, right in the temple.

And we see the revelation of Him through this authority, through this demonstration. Verse 18, So the Jews said to Him, What sign do You show us for doing these things? What do you guys think of that question?

What sign do You show us for doing these things? What comes to mind? What do you think about? Steve. Yeah. They always wanted signs. Erickson. Yep. Erickson, you're the only one who's heard this message before.

Wesley. Yep. What? I want a sign. What sign are you going to give you? I'm going to give you the sign of Jonah. That'll be a sign. How about that? You're going to see me dead and resurrected in three days.

One commentator I read, when they said, What sign do You show us for doing these things? Like Erickson said, he calls this a stupid question. Flat out stupid question. The very act of cleansing the temple was a sign in itself.

Again, how many... Not only did he drive out all these people, not only did he do this, did something unprecedented before their eyes, cleanse the temple, drove all the money changers, all the merchants, all these people out, no one stood up to him.

No one could do anything. They were just so in awe of what he was doing. Andrew. They should have known. And in this case, I think it's just willful unbelief. We're not going to believe in him. We're not going to trust in this guy.

No way. Look what he did. Look what he did to our system. Look what he did to our money-making scheme. So they're going to throw up any roadblock. But Jesus, not only was it a stupid question, it was a wicked question.

Because it was a question that demonstrated, again, their willful unbelief and their unwillingness to admit any guilt in what they were doing. Instead of being woken up... Yes, Charlie. You're right. Remember the old Jesus movies was the first thing that came to my mind.

When he passes through the crowd, everybody kind of freeze, freeze ray, and he just kind of sneaks away. That's exactly... You'd think that somebody would probably... I bet you there were people sitting there saying, anyone going to do anything?

Is anyone mad at... Have you seen this? And no one did anything. Right. Yep. Yes. So again, stupid question and a question that demonstrates just willful unbelief. They refused to admit their guilt. And again, as Charlie was saying, they were probably supernaturally floored at that moment.

They didn't know what to do. I've got to wrap up quick. Jesus answered them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it has taken 46 years to build a temple and will you raise it up in three days?

Andrew said, yes, they should have known. They should have recognized. They should have seen. They had studied the scripture. They had scoured them and yet they didn't recognize Jesus and who he was. They demand another sign even though what they saw before them was unprecedented and unbelievable and it took place and he demonstrated the authority of the Messiah.

He was purifying the temple as the Messiah would and they demand another sign and then they totally missed the boat on what he's saying. He says, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.

This was a teaching technique used at that time. He was using kind of double language. The language that he used for temple sanctuary could be used for the temple of the temple or the temple of the body.

It could mean the sanctuary of the body where the dwelling place of God and his Holy Spirit. It could be destroy, break down was another word he used. It could be destruction of a structure or the destruction or the death of a body and then raise up.

It could be the reconstruction of a building or it could also mean the resuscitation of a human being. He used very strange language that didn't convey a clear meaning but this was a teaching technique that was supposed to jog their minds.

That was supposed to cause them to reflect and say, what does he mean here? The rabbis would do this. Let's make them meditate upon what I'm saying. Think about what I'm saying and they didn't do that.

They had no inclination of listening to him. Think through what he was saying. But what Jesus said there, this kind of riddle, this kind of, I think they're called Mishal is the teaching technique. It's kind of a riddle, a statement that is very pointed but you're supposed to meditate on it and they didn't do that.

They took it very literally and we see that for those who would believe in verse 21 it says, but when he was speaking about the temple of his body, when therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this.

They remembered and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. It stuck in their minds. They meditated on it. They thought about it. When Christ was raised, they remembered that he had said that and they reflected on it.

They said yes. Remember he said that. Remember the authority he demonstrated. Remember Christ showing who he was right there in the temple. Remember that and they remembered that he had said that and they believed.