destroy this temple

"And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: and when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.  And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

"Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?  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."  John 2:13-21

The apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 1:22-24, wrote: "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God."

On that day, long ago in Jerusalem, when the Jews inquired of Jesus concerning a "sign;" and, meanwhile, the Greeks blindly sought after wisdom, by entertaining every new idea that came down the road: Christ stood openly before them all and proclaimed that both the wisdom and the power of God was manifested in himself.

The wisdom of God.  Few evidently think very deeply about the profound dilemma which followed upon Adam's rebellion and the resulting Fall of humanity.  The whole future of mankind was, in the act of Adam's sin, "lost" to God ~ in the sense that God had forewarned Adam and Eve that death would be the result of their disobedience (Gen. 2:17); and, because that "in Adam all die" (1 Corinthians 15:22): therefore, when Adam "died" (he was separated from God's Presence, because of Adam's sin), the entire human race~which was then as yet in Adam's loins, as it were, died with Adam.  Where, then, was there any one who could atone for the sin of any human being?  Death was the penalty for sin, and all were guilty "in Adam:" and God's holiness demands that justice must be served: the guilty must be duly punished.

Christ was God's solution to that otherwise insoluble dilemma.  God the Son would condescend from His lofty station above His own Creation, and miraculously enter ~ in every way both physically and spiritually, into the realm of His own Creation, in order that He could then offer His own sinless life to bear the punishment, of death, in His own body, in the place of all mankind.  Only thus could God then be merciful to forgive the guilty sinner (on condition of the sinner's repentance and submission to Christ), and God's holiness would not thereby be compromised.  God could furthermore raise up Christ from the dead, because, Christ Himself had not sinned; thus, He did not merit death unto Himself.  Christ, the wisdom of God.

And the power of God.  In the course of human history, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was the preeminent display of God's power.  What made that great event even more eventful was the context in which Christ's Resurrection occurred.  The crucifixion of Christ represented ~ to the understanding of everyone but God alone (excepting, perhaps, the holy angels), the darkest of all crises until that time.  The powers of darkness had seemingly prevailed over the very Son of God.  And the only "light of the world" was extinguished in the death of Christ.

"Destroy this temple," Jesus said (as if a command), and in three days I will raise it up."  It was as though Jesus taunted the devil, saying, "Go ahead devil, do your very best to try to stop me: but you cannot win!"  Jesus even told the devil just what He (Christ) would do, in the event that the devil would kill him.  The devil, of course, must haven taken great delight in destroying the "temple" of Jesus's body.  But, oh, foolish devil!  He could not perceive the high wisdom of God which was unfolding right before the devil's own eyes.  Neither could the devil perceive that he was in fact being used as a pawn to help to accomplish the salvation of the world!
In his second letter to the church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 1:3-7), Paul got right down to business expressing what was in his heart toward that church:

"Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.  For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.  And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.  And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation."

The Greek word there repeatedly translated as "consolation," is derived from the same Greek word which is given in Scripture as one of the divine names of the Holy Ghost, i.e., the "Comforter."  "As ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the para¿klhsiß (paraklesis ~ consolation, comfort, solace)."  What is our "consolation, comfort, solace" ~ in the face of trouble?  Is it not the assurance, as is promised in Psalm 128:2, that "...happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee" ~ according to the wisdom and power of God in Christ?  Our consolation ~ from God, is, the assurance that God "always causeth us to triumph in Christ" ~ as Paul also wrote, in direct connection with the passage just quoted, in 2 Corinthians, above.  Our consolation is the wisdom and power of God in Christ ~ which was and is manifested in our behalf!

"Destroy this temple...."  And I (God) will use that very thing to reveal my wisdom and power toward my beloved.

"Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.  I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.  I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.  For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.  I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.  If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.  Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?"

Now, hear God's answer to His own question: what is it that God desires of, and for, His people?

"Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: and call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me."  (Psalm 50:7-15)

Selah.