and they said, “This man was saying, ‘I am able to tear down the temple of God and build it in three days.’”
Here it is seen how Jesus’ words were distorted and taken out of their true meaning. He had once said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will rebuild it” (John 2:19), and the witnesses present this as a threat, as if Jesus wanted to destroy the temple. In reality, however, Christ was not speaking about a stone building, but about His Body, prophetically pointing to His death and resurrection. Thus, those who tried to accuse Him, in their ignorance, became witnesses of the true fulfillment of His word: Jesus truly was to be “torn down” on the cross and after three days rise again, as the new Temple in which God lives among people. This episode also reveals the spiritual blindness of those who heard that word: people heard the saying, but did not grasp the depth of the mystery, and that very misunderstanding became the cause of their condemnation.