[4] Conybeare and Howson, pp. 438, 961, 964.
CHAPTER XVI.
HIS PREDICTIONS CONCERNING HIMSELF.
In the account of Christ’s crucifixion by Matthew and Mark, it is recorded that they which passed by railed on him, saying,—“Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself”; and that witnesses had testified to the same accusation, but did not agree. The disagreement seems to have been, that some (Mark xiv. 58) testified that he said,—“I will destroy this temple that is made with hands and in three days I will build another made without hands,” and the others (Matthew xxvi. 61) “I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.” The Evangelists properly characterize both classes as false witnesses. Jesus had not said, “I will destroy,” nor “I am able to destroy,” but, “Destroy (thou) this temple.” It was not a destroying by him, but by them; and it was the temple of his own body. It was the earliest, and in some respects the most striking of his predictions of his death and resurrection. It was on the occasion of his cleansing the temple at the first Passover. The Jews demanded of him, “What sign showest thou unto us, seeing thou doest these things?” Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews therefore said, “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 raised from the dead his disciples remembered that he spake this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.” (John ii. 13 to 22.)
It must have been soon after this Passover, and certainly before John the Baptist was cast into prison, that Jesus said to Nicodemus, that, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life. (John iii. 14, 15.) Nicodemus does not appear again, until his mild protest to the rest of the Sanhedrim,—“Doth our law judge a man except it first hear from himself, and know what he doeth?”[1] They answered and said unto him, “Art thou also of Galilee? Search and see that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” He was silent. (John viii. 45 to 52.) But when Jesus had been put to death as a malefactor, no longer afraid, he comes with Joseph of Arimathea, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight, and they gave the Crucified One a princely burial. (John xix. 39, 40, 41.) What had wrought this change in Nicodemus? The lifting up upon the cross, was to him assured proof that Jesus was a true “prophet, and more than a prophet.”
On more than one occasion in his early ministry, Jesus in reply to a demand for a sign from heaven had said, “There shall no sign be given but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew xii. 38 to 40; Luke xi. 29.) That he should be there only three days and three nights implied his resurrection. To any objection that he was not in the tomb any part of three nights, the customary[2] use of language among the Jews is a sufficient answer. In the Talm hieros, it is said that a day and a night together make up a period; and a part of such a period is counted as the whole. It is a received[3] rule among the Jews that a part of a day is put for the whole. Yet that the prediction was expressed in such terms, is strong evidence of the truthfulness of the record. As Godet well says, “Who would ever have dreamed of falsely putting in the mouth of Jesus the expression three days and three nights, when in actual fact the time spent in the tomb did not exceed one day and two nights?”
Jesus, when called to account for healing on the Sabbath day, answered: “My Father worketh even until now, and I work.” For this cause, therefore, the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God. In reply Jesus said: “For as the Father raiseth the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will ... Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.... Marvel not at this, for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tomb shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgment.” (John v. 1 to 29.)
In his discourse in the Synagogue at Capernaum, concerning the manna, he said to the Jews: “The bread which I give is my flesh (that is, my life), for the life of the world.... For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.... Many therefore of his disciples when they heard, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can hear it?’ But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said unto them, ‘Doth this cause you to stumble? What then if ye behold the Son of man ascending where he was before.’” (John vi. 30 to 63.)
His first distinct announcement that he should be put to death and be raised from the dead, was upon Peter’s confession,— “Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God;” and it doubtless was in consequence of this confession. It was after John the Baptist had been put to death, and after the third Passover, but before the time had come for a public declaration of his Messiahship; for he charged the disciples that they should tell no man that he was the Christ. The place was in the coast of Cesarea Philippi, near the sources of the Jordan. With verbal differences, the same account substantially is given by each of the Synoptics, and as follows: “From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go into Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and the third day be raised up.” (Matthew xvi. 21.) “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mark viii. 31.) “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and the chief priests and scribes and be killed, and the third day be raised up.” (Luke ix. 22.) Such is the testimony of these three witnesses. They agree also, that he warned the disciples not to anticipate worldly glory, but the reverse. Peter, from his conception of the Messiahship, treated Christ’s predictions of his death as but gloomy forebodings, and began to rebuke him, saying, “Be it far from thee, Lord; this shall never be unto thee.” But he turned and said unto Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art a stumbling block unto me: for thou mindest not the things of God but the things of men.” (Matthew xvi. 23; Mark viii. 33.)
Six or eight days after these transactions Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray; and he was transfigured before them. As they were coming down from the mountain “he commanded them to tell the vision to no man until the Son of Man be risen from the dead.” (Matthew xvii. 1, 2; Mark viii. 2 to 9; Luke ix. 28 to 36.) Mark adds (doubtless from Peter), that they kept that saying, questioning among themselves, what the rising again from the dead should mean.