Jesus, the Temple, and Resurrection

At Passover Jesus drives commerce out of the temple courts, and the disciples remember Psalm 69:9 about zeal for God’s house. When challenged for a sign, Jesus speaks of destroying “this temple” and raising it in three days; John explicitly explains that he was speaking about the temple of his body. This is one of the Gospel’s clearest inspired interpretations: Israel’s temple story is not discarded but concentrated in Jesus, the place where God’s presence and revelation are now encountered. Only after the resurrection do the disciples understand the saying, showing how later events disclose meanings they did not grasp at first.