LISTEN TO JESUS: I WILL RAISE IT UP!

I WILL RAISE IT UP!

Destroy this temple, and in three days

I will raise it up.

John 2:19

John 2:18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?

Susie: The Jews questioned Jesus’s authority to cleanse the temple of them. 

Susan: They wanted Him to perform a miracle, sign, or wonder to authenticate Himself. I’m sure that some thought Jesus to be mentally unstable. 

Susie: In present day vernacular, they thought He had “gone postal.” 

Susan: Today they might call the people in the little white coats to pick up Jesus and take Him to a place where nice people would care for Him. 

Susie: Once again we have non-believers wanting to see a “sign” before they will accept Jesus’s authority. 

Susan: They wanted a sign, but they could not decipher the living billboard of Jesus before them. What makes them think a sign would make it any easier to believe?

John 2:19-22 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

Susie: Jesus tells them to destroy the temple, and He will raise it back up in three days. Now they really thought He was crazy. 

Susan: The Jews pompously, arrogantly explained that it had taken forty-six years to build the temple. They were incredulous and incensed that He would claim to be able to restore it in only three days! They were sure His elevator went nowhere near the top floor.  

Susie: They were blinded to the fact that He was prophesying about the destruction of His body and His resurrection on the third day which was an even more amazing miracle than rebuilding the temple, if you think about it. 

Susan: Those sitting in judgment of Jesus had no clue He was referring to His own physical body as the temple rather than the stone and mortar edifice before them. 

Susie: This statement was filed away in the disciples’ memory banks, and the Holy Spirit brought it to their minds after the Lord’s resurrection and used it to make their faith stronger.

John 14:26 (NIV) But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

Susie: There were many things the disciples did not understand at the moment they were happening . . .

Susan: . . . but after the gift of the Holy Spirit, these things became focused. 

Susie: Before I surrendered my life to the Lord, the Bible often seemed murky to me. After my conversion and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, I began to understand more clearly. The Holy Spirit illuminates—shines a light on—the word of God to make it easier to grasp. 

Susan: The Spirit makes it crystal clear because that is one of the Holy Spirit’s jobs.

Ways we can apply this to our lives:

·     People think witnessing a miracle would help them to believe. However, if that did not help them to believe when Jesus walked the earth, how can we think it would make a difference today?

·     The miracle of the resurrection was far greater than restoring a physical building. There is much evidence in the Bible proving the resurrection. Do we rejoice in its reality?

·     When the Bible is difficult to understand, we should pray asking the Holy Spirit to help us and continue to study.