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Joh_2:18-19. The same question as in Mat_21:23, but how totally different an answer! It cannot therefore be used to confirm the supposed identity of the two events.
ἀπεκρίθ .] As in Mat_11:25 (which see), and often, denoting what is said upon occasion of Christ’s act, and with reference thereto.
τί σημεῖον ] If what He had done was to he recognised as appropriate to Him, it must be based upon a really prophetic ἐξουσία , and consequently upon divine authorization; in proof of this, they desired a special miraculous sign or act, accrediting Him as a divine messenger, and which was to be wrought by Him before their eyes, àåÉú , σημεῖον τῆς αὐθεντίας , Euthymius Zigabenus; comp. Joh_6:30.
δεικνύεις ] dost thou bring before us, lettest us see; comp. Hom. Il. v. 244: Κρονιων
δεικνὺς σῆμα βροτοῖσιν . Od. γ . 174.
ὅτι ] εἰς ἐκεῖνο , ὅτι , on, Joh_9:17, Joh_11:51, Joh_16:9; Mar_16:14; 2Co_1:18; 2Co_11:10. See Fritzsche ad Matt. p. 248. Consequently in the sense of quatenus, see Ast, Lex. Plat. II. 485.
ποιεῖς ] The present denotes the act just performed, but which is still regarded as present.
Joh_2:19. λύσατε τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον , κ . τ . λ .] refers, according to the apostle’s explanation in Joh_2:21, to the death and resurrection of Jesus, so that he consequently means His body as the dwelling-place of God, who was in Christ (Joh_10:38, Joh_14:10-11; Joh_14:20, Joh_17:21, Joh_1:14), i.e. as the antitype of the temple,[142] and, in conformity with this, His violent death as the pulling down, and His resurrection as the rebuilding of it. We must therefore, according to John, suppose that Jesus, with the temple buildings before Him, to which He points (this temple here), sees in them the sacred type of His body, and with that directness of expression characteristic of the old prophets (such as we often see, e.g., in Isaiah), straightway substitutes the image for that which it represented, so that these sharp, vivid strokes, dashed down without any explanation, contain, as in a pictorial riddle, a symbolic and prophetic announcement of His resurrection,[143] as in Mat_12:39; Mat_16:4, and in keeping with what we are to assume throughout, viz. that He never foretold His resurrection in so many words, but only by figures and in obscure terms. The thought accordingly, divested of this figurative envelope, is, according to John, no other than this: kill me, and within three days ( ἐν , see Bernhardy, p. 209; Winer, p. 361 [E. T. p. 482]) I will rise again. The imperative in the protasis is not permissive merely, which weakens the emotion, but contains a challenge; it springs from painfully excited feeling, as He looks with heart-searching gaze upon that implacable opposition which was already beginning to show itself, and which would not be satisfied till it had put Him to death. Comp. πληρώσατε , Mat_23:32. John’s explanation is adopted by the ancients, and among modern expositors by Kuinoel, Tholuck, Hildebrand (in Hüffell’s Zeitschr. II. 1), Kling (in d. Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 127), Krabbe, Klee, Olshausen (at least as to their inner meaning, while the words, he thinks, were apparently simply a repelling paradox), Maier, Hasert (Ueb. d. Vorhersagungen Jesu von seinem Tode, Berlin 1839, p. 81), Hauff in the Stud. u. Krit. 1849, p. 106 ff.; Brückner (against De Wette), Laurillard, de locis ev. Joh. in quibus ipse auctor verba J. interpretat. est, Lugd. B. 1853, p. 1 ff.; Baumgarten, Maier, Baeumlein, Godet, even Luthardt (though bringing in a double meaning; by putting Jesus to death, Israel destroyed itself as the house of God, while the resurrection was the setting up of God’s spiritual house; comp. Ebrard, Lange, Riggenbach, Hengstenberg); similarly Baur, p. 137 ff., who, however (and with him Hilgenfeld), traces the expression to synoptic elements much later in point of time. But John’s explanation is abandoned, since the time of Herder (vom Sohne Gottes) and Henke (Programm 1798, in Pott, Sylloge, I. p. 8 ff.), by Eckermann, Paulus, Lücke, Schweizer, Bleek, B. Crusius, Ammon, Strauss, Gfrörer, De Wette, Ewald, Weizsacker, Schenkel, Scholten, and many others, who, with various modifications, explain the pulling down of the temple of the decay of the old temple religion, and the setting up in three days of the new spiritual theocracy so soon to be established; thus the imperative is taken by some as a challenge (as above) (Herder, Henke, Ewald), by some again as a concession (Schenkel), and by some as an hypothesis (Lücke, B. Crusius, De Wette: “Granted that ye destroy”)—according to De Wette, with allusion perhaps to the late partial pulling down of the temple by Herod. But (1) before we can assume that John of all men, who yet elsewhere was so deeply imbued with the mind of Jesus, wholly misunderstood Him, and that too at the time when he wrote his Gospel, when, consequently, the old degenerate religion had been long ago overthrown, and the new spiritual sanctuary long ago set up,—the most decisive evidence of such a misunderstanding is requisite. If this be not forthcoming, we are bound to seek the true, interpretation of any saying of Jesus from him, and especially in this case, where he distinctly gives his own explanation in opposition to the misconception of the Jews, and gives it not only as his own, but as that of the rest of the disciples likewise. (2) The accusation in Mat_26:61, Mar_14:58 (comp. Act_6:13) is no argument in favour of the modern interpretation, for it is based only upon the Jewish misunderstanding of the saying. (3) The place and occasion alike suggested the temple as an illustration, but they determined nothing as to the subject-matter of the comparison; a σημεῖον in general was asked for, not one bearing specially upon the temple. (4) The setting up of the spiritual temple was an event not at all dependent upon a previous λύειν of the old economy; on the contrary, a beginning had already been made, the further development of which was not the effect but the cause (the fermenting element) of the dissolution of the old theocracy: hence the relation of the protasis to the apodosis of the sentence would be neither logically nor historically correct. (5) This spiritual building up was so far from being a momentary act, and was to so great a degree a gradual development, that neither the conception of a ΣΗΜΕῖΟΝ in general, nor the words ἘΝ ΤΡΙΣῚΝ ἩΜΈΡΑΙς , which belong essentially to this conception, have any corresponding relation thereto; the latter expression, even if taken in a proverbial sense (Hos_6:2, not Luk_13:32; but see Dissen ad Dem. de cor. p. 362), could only mean “in a few days,” and therefore would be quite unsuited to the comparison, and would even have the appearance of grandiloquence. Moreover, as the three days joined to the ἐγερῶ were always the fixed correlative of Christ’s resurrection, this ought itself to have excluded the modern explanation. (6) A new temple would of necessity have been spoken of as another (comp. Mar_14:58), but ἐγερῶ αὐτόν can only mean the same; and thus the Jews as well as John rightly understood it, for Jesus did not say ἐγερῶ ἄλλον or ἝΤΕΡΟΝ , or the like.[144] (7) It is only a seeming objection to John’s explanation, that according to N. T. theology Christ did not raise Himself from the dead, but was raised by the Father; comp. Joh_2:22; Act_2:24; Act_2:31 ff., Act_3:15; Act_4:10; Act_5:30, al.; Rom_4:24; Rom_8:11; 1Co_6:14; 2Co_4:14; Gal_1:1; Eph_1:21; Col_2:12; 1Th_1:10; 1Pe_1:21. Any such contradiction to the Christian mode of view, if real, must have prevented John himself above every one from referring the words to the resurrection. But the objection disappears if we simply give due weight to the figurative nature of the expression, which rests upon that visible contemplation of the resurrection, according to which the Subject that arises, whose resurrection is described as the re-erecting of the destroyed temple, must also be the Subject that erects the temple,—without affecting the further doctrine, which, moreover, does not come under consideration, that the causa efficiens, i.e. the actual revivifying power, is the father. Christ receiving His life again from the Father (Joh_10:17) and rising again, Himself raises up by His very resurrection the destroyed temple. See, moreover, Brückner, p. 57, and Godet. Comp. Ignat. Smyrn. 2 : ἀληθῶς ἀνέστησεν ἑαυτόν .
For ἘΓΕΊΡΕΙΝ as used of erecting buildings, see Sir_49:11; 3 Esdras 5:44, 8:81; Ael. V. H. 12, 23; Herodianus, 3, 15. 6; Jacobs ad Anthol. XII. p. 75
[142] Considering the oft-recurring representation of the indwelling of God in Christ, it is very far-fetched to derive the temple comparison here from the Valentinian Christology concerning a higher body of the Messiah appropriate for union with the Logos (in answer to Hilgenfeld, Lehrbegr. 247). Seeing, further, that Christ (ver. 16) calls the literal temple “His Father’s house,” how can the Demiurge be conceived of as the God of the Jews? How can we reconcile with that expression even “a milder Gnosticism” (Hilgenfeld, in the Theol. Jahrb. 1857, p. 516)? Simply to admit that “a weak reference to the highest God was not wanting even in Judaism,” is both incorrect in itself, and altogether unsuited to solve the palpable contradiction.
[143] It is assumed (with Bengel) still in my 4th edition, that Jesus indicated the reference to His body “nutu gestuve,” but that the Jews did not notice it. This is inadmissible, because thus the τοῦτον would have no reference whatever to the temple of stone, whereas the entire scene in the temple court shows that this reference is contained in it. Besides, such a gesture would be inappropriate while using an enigmatical word, for it would at once give the key to its solution. The intellectual point would be quite lost.
[144] Appeal is wrongly made to Mat_10:39, where ψυχήν denotes earthly life merely, and then αὐτήν life eternal. ψυχήν as well as αὐτήν there means nothing but the soul; and the enigma of the expression lies not in a different sense being applied to these two words, but in the different meaning as respects duration of εὑρών and ἀπολέσει .
Note.
It cannot perplex us in John’s explanation, that the answer which Jesus gave was rightly understood neither by the Jews nor by the disciples at the time. It was the manner of Jesus, as especially appears in John, to throw out seeds of thought for the future which could not take root at the time. Comp. Chrysostom: πολλὰ τοιαῦτα φθέγγεται τοῖς μὲν τότε ἀκούουσιν οὐκ ὄντα δῆλα , τοῖς δὲ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐσόμενα . Τίνος δὲ ἕνεκεν τοῦτο ποιεῖ ; ἵνα δειχθῇ προεισὼς ἄνωθεν τὰ μετὰ ταῦτα , ὅταν ἐξέλθῃ καὶ τῆς προῤῥήσεως τὸ τέλος ὃ δὴ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς προφητείας ταύτης γέγονεν . And that from His very first public appearance He foresaw the development of the opposition of this seemingly guileless party, onwards to its goal in the destruction of the temple of His body, can be regarded as an unhistorical presupposition of the Logos doctrine only by one who, on the one hand, can by critical doubts[145] get rid of the early references of Jesus to His death which are contained in the Synoptics (e.g. Mat_10:38; Mat_12:39; Mat_10:23), and, on the other hand, does not sufficiently estimate Christ’s higher knowledge, and especially His acquaintance with the heart which John unfolds, by virtue of which He apprehends the full intent (Joh_6:64) of this seemingly justifiable requirement of a sign.
[145] Comp. Keim, Geschichtl. Christus, pp. 35, 36, ed. 3.