His
whole work. He had meditated much on the tone of the authorities, on the
religious state of His country--what young man of thirty with anything
in him has not done so? He had made up His mind that He would meet with
opposition at every point, and that while a faithful few would stand by
Him, the leaders of the people would certainly resist and destroy Him.
Here in His very first act He is met by the spirit of hatred, and
jealousy, and godlessness which was at last to compass His death. But
His rejection He also knew was to be the signal for the downfall of the
nation. In destroying Him He knew they were destroying themselves, their
city, their Temple. As Daniel had long ago said, "The Messiah shall be
cut off ... and the people of a prince who shall come shall destroy the
city and the sanctuary."

To Himself therefore His words had a very definite meaning: Destroy this
Temple, as you certainly will by disowning My authority and resisting My
acts of reform, and at length crucifying Me, and in three days I will
raise it. As by denying My authority and crucifying My Person you
destroy this house of My Father, so by My resurrection will I put men in
possession of God's true dwelling-place, and introduce a new and
spiritual worship. "It is in Christ's person this great drama is
enacted. The Messiah perishes: the Temple falls. The Messiah lives
again: the true Temple rises on the ruins of the symbolical temple. For
in the kingdom of God there is no simple restoration. Every revival is
at the same time an advance" (Godet). A living Temple is better than a
Temple of stone. Human nature itself, possessed and inspired by the
Divine, that is the true Temple of God.

This sign was in two years given to them. As Jesus drew His last breath
on the cross the veil of the Temple was rent. There was no longer
anything to veil; the unapproachable glory was for ever gone. The Temple
in which God had so long dwelt was now but a shell, mocking and
pathetic in the extreme, as the clothes of a departed friend, or as the
familiar dwelling that remains itself the same but changed to us for
ever. The Jews in crucifying the Messiah had effectually destroyed their
Temple. A few years more and it was in ruins, and has been so ever
since. That building which had once the singular, wonderful dignity of
being the spot where God was specially to be found and to be worshipped,
and where He dwelt upon earth in a way apprehensible by men, was from
th