I Will Raise it in Three Days

Notes: 1) All Scripture quotations are from the New International Version.

2) This is a summary of a Wascana Fellowship message on Sep. 14, 2025.

God’s Promise to David

The discussion began with reading Second Samuel 7:10-13, focusing on God’s promise to King David. We read verses 10-11, emphasizing God’s promise to establish a “house” for Israel and a descendant of David to build “a house for My Name.” This descendant’s throne would be “established forever.” It would also usher in a time of Israel being at peace and completely free from oppression from wicked people.

We turned to John 2:13-22, where Jesus overturns tables in the temple, quoting Psalm 69:9,

In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”

His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?”

But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. “Zeal for your house will consume me.” After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples understand that “the temple had spoken of was His body.” We tend to assume that because the resurrection is mentioned in the following verse, the body referred to is Jesus’ physical body. What if we have misread the context?

Jesus’ Zeal for the House of God and Its Implications

John says the temple Jesus referred to was His body, citing Psalm 69:9. Our discussion touched on the Messianic nature of Psalm 69 and the rejection of Jesus by His family.  David, is asking God to ensure that those who believe and hope in him will never be disgraced because of him. This redemption of God’s people from disgrace by God’s opponents becomes part of the context of Jesus’ words.

There is great significance in the events of the dedication of the original tabernacle and the dedication of the temple by Solomon. Each one resulted in fire from heaven devouring the offring and the glory of the Lord filling the tabernacle/temple. This indicated that God was “dwelling” in that particular “house.”

The Second Temple and the Ministry of Reconciliation

The conversation then moved to the Second Temple set up by Ezra and Nehemiah, and we noted the lack of both fire from heaven and the glory of the Lord filling the temple. . 

We moved to references of what witnesses believe Jesus meant when he said “destroy the temple,” such as Matthew 26:61. This where Jesus is accused of saying He would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. “Finally, two came forward and declared. This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’”

Why would Jesus, who had just purged the temple of its impurity, be speaking of destroying and rebuilding it in three days? Well, He did destroy the physical building almost 40 years later, and even said that He would do that in the Olivet Prophecy. The parallel passage in Mark provides another clue that something else is going on here.

Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree.  Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’ ” Yet even then their testimony did not agree. (Mark 14:56-59)

After the resurrection, His disciples understood what “temple” Jesus was referring to. And so now that Jesus is raised from the dead, let’s understand what he’s getting at.

They understood the context of the Psalm 69 passage about zeal for God’s house. David was praying that God would rescue him so that those who believed in both him and God would not be put to shame because their faith would seem to be misplaced. Jesus’ resurrection vindicates the people who trust in Jesus and Jesus’ Father. They are no longer at risk of being ashamed of Jesus.

The discussion highlights the ministry of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5:13-21, emphasizing the new creation in Christ.

If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus, the Temple, and the Church

Peter knew Jesus as well as John did. Peter seems to have made the connection between Psalm 69 and Jesus’ “temple.” You can see how he makes the connection in 1 Peter 2:4-4-6.

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house [temple of the Spirit] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”

Notice how the theme of never being “put to shame” appears in this passage. Isaiah, whom Peter is quoting, also gets the message of Psalm 69. Notice that he likens chosen people to “living stones” being built into a “spiritual house.” Remember that David’s “son” would build “a house for My name.”

The expression “not made with hands” is not unique with Mark. The expression is used in different forms in Hebrews 9:11 and Daniel 2:34-35. Hebrews 9 refers to a temple “not made with hands” and Daniel refers to a stone “not cut by hands,” signifying divine origin. Even the Apostle Paul refers to a circumcision “not made by hands” in Colossians 2:11.

Other passages that show the Apostle Paul understood the “body of Christ” as the new temple include

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.”

2 Corinthians 6:16 ‘What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”’

Ephesians 2:19-21 “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.”

Jesus had already gathered a body of believers – the raw materials, as it were, to begin the building. When Jesus spoke of “raising” the temple in three days, He meant that His Church would arise and begin spreading the word about God’s plan of redemption through Him. This would begin the “third day” after His death. His resurrection would signal a new creation (His temple) “in which righteousness dwells.”

After three days of the disciples being “scattered” and leaderless, Jesus returned and put the breathed the Spirit into them, building the temple “not made with hands,” whose praise would expand at the day of Pentecost.

While the Temple has been raised, it is still being beautified with additional precious living stones. Jesus plans to return when His Father’s beautification plan is complete. He will physically dwell in the midst of His people, the living “House for God’s Name,” forever.