“We heard him saying, ‘I will tear down this temple made by hands, and in three days I will build another, not made by hands.’”
They distort the words of Christ. The Lord had spoken about the temple of His body, which after death was to rise in three days, but they present His word as a threat against a material temple. False testimony often takes a part of the truth and twists its meaning. The contrast between “made by hands” and “not made by hands” unintentionally reminds us that the worship of the old temple had to find its fulfillment in Christ. By His death and resurrection, the true place of God’s presence was to be revealed not in a stone-built building, but in the person of Christ and in His saving work.