John 2:18-21

Main Thought: This conversation with the Jews followed immediately after Jesus had turned over the tables of the money changers and driven them out of the temple area. They questioned His authority, asking for a sign that would validate His authority in performing this cleansing of the temple. He informed them that if they destroyed this sanctuary, He would raise it in three days. It must have seemed to them that He was a madman since it took forty-six years to build Herod’s temple. However, the Jews and the disciples both missed His meaning, for He was not speaking of the physical temple in Jerusalem, but He was speaking of the temple or sanctuary of His body. He was speaking prophetically of when he would raise up his body once again to life. The importance of the resurrection of Christ from the dead cannot be overstated, for as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:17, if Christ was not raised from the dead, then our faith is in vain. However, the multiple appearances of Christ to His apostles, and eventually to over 500 of His followers, is overwhelming eyewitness historical evidence that Christ did rise from the dead and that we have a living hope of eternal life. Besides that, the new life we possess as believers in Jesus Christ is evidence of the resurrection and the fact that He overcame the grave and is at the Father’s right hand even now. Paul states in Ephesians 1:19-20 that the power, or might, by which we have been saved is no less than the power by which Christ himself was raised from the dead. Our faith is not just in a crucified Christ, but a crucified, risen, and living Christ who paid our sin debt and is reigning now in Heaven. While the scoffers and the unbelievers may reject the idea of a substitutionary atonement and a resurrected Lord, we know by faith as His people that He has fully paid our sin debt and will return again for us one day. May we give our thanks daily for our resurrected and living Savior.