THE ULTIMATE SIGN

ULTIMATE SIGN

“Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign showest 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 2:18-21

The Jews ask for a sign, the ultimate Sign. “For the Jews require a sign” (1 Cor. 1:22; Matt. 12:38). They thought this was required due to OT law to eliminate false claims from false prophets.  Deut. 18:20-22. For the interpretation of that designation we go back to the account of our Lord going up to Jerusalem, and cleansing the Temple. In connection with that He was challenged, "What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things?" They asked Him for a sign that would demonstrate His authority for the things He was doing. To that He replied in what to them must have been mysterious language. John tells us immediately after recording His answer, that the disciples did not understand Him then, but they came to understand Him afterwards. He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." On another occasion, not recorded by John, Jesus said, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." On both these occasions our Lord declared that the only sign which would completely and finally reveal Him and the secret of His authority, would be that which He referred at first as their destroying of the temple which He would raise; and on the other occasion, taking the similitude of Jonah's story, declaring that He would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. In other words, our Lord declared at the beginning, and again on one definite occasion at least, that the ultimate sign of His authority would be His death and His resurrection. He named the two things which, in the merging, would constitute the sign, the ultimate sign, the dissolution of the temple of His body at the hands of His enemies; and His raising of it again. Death and resurrection. The very heart of the gospel preached by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:1-4. “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” All foretold according to the scriptures.