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

Then the Jews demanded of Him. What miraculous 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. The Jews 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. John 2:17-22 When the Apostle John sat down to write his Gospel his approach to it was to share material which he had discovered was of great evangelistic importance with his readers so that they could come to share in the same faith that he had come to. His desire was not to repeat that which had been written by other writers, neither was it to give his readers a comprehensive description of everything that the LORD Jesus Christ had done and said. There was not sufficient space, and certainly time to do that. John leads us through those things which are essential if we are to come to saving faith in the LORD Jesus Christ. He tells us this at the end of the gospel. At the beginning of it he also gives us a clue as to the approach he will be taking. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) We have seen His glory. Johns gospel will describe what John and others saw so that we too will come to believe as they did. One of the reasons why Johns gospel is so helpful to many is because of this very thing. In what John has written here we have been brought to the point where we discover the glory of the LORD Jesus Christ as it was revealed to those first disciples. As John describes the first cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem in chapter two we are given a glimpse of the grace and truth that characterized Jesus ministry among us. This text reveals the fulfillment of Malachi 3:1ff, where the Messiah comes to His Temple in order to refine it. As Malachi describes it, and as each of the Gospel writers does as well, there is both an element of grace calling the people of God to repentance and of judgement for their refusal to respond appropriately. With the synoptic gospels as they describe what I believe is a second, later visit to the Temple the emphasis is on the judgement side of the prophets words. There is still time for grace but judgement is coming ever closer. Here is Johns Gospel to cleansing of the Temple is much earlier in the ministry of Jesus. There is here a strong call to repent and receive the grace that is being offered to them. That grace comes to them with a strong dose of the truth as well. I believe that grace always comes to us with truth. Gods purpose is to redeem us completely; therefore He brings us to the truth about ourselves and about His Son. John tells us that this encounter led to certain key discoveries for the LORDs disciples. It also led the Jews to ask a crucial question of the LORD. First he describes the discoveries that the disciples were making. The disciples began to see here that the LORD Jesus Christ was in fact fulfilling Scripture. Here specifically John points to Psalm 69:9 Zeal for your house will consume me. John tells us that the disciples remembered that this had been said about Him. What we see here is that these disciples have a working knowledge of the content of the Word of God, and of the basic principles upon which it should be interpreted. From a completely human point of view John tells us that it is of crucial

importance that we build a foundation in the lives of people of the basic teaching of the Scriptures. This pre-evangelistic work will be crucial in the LORDs later work in our lives. I believe that we neglect this work at our peril. Secondly, John records for us the crucial question which the Jews ask Jesus. This is, What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this? (John 2:18) This is the question that John wants each of us to ask. It is the question that leads us to discover that one sign that has the power to really convert us. Jesus answer to their question is to point them to His cross. If they destroy Him, killing Him, He will be raised up on the third day. This is the pre-eminent sign in the Bible. In the proclamation of Christ crucified we discover the power of God to save us.