A 7 Day Journey with the Church FathersShembull

Day One of Holy Week zeroes in on the story of Jesus cleansing the temple: John’s account includes a challenge from Jesus, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days” (v. 20), clarifying later on in verse 21: “But he was speaking about the temple of the body.” John clarifies this point in order to reveal that God resided in both the physical temple and the temple that was Jesus’ body: “Destroy this temple,” which is much greater than the Jewish one. For the later held the law, but the former held the lawgiver; the latter had the letter that kills, but the former had the life-giving spirit. (Theodoret of Cyrus, Dialogue 3-61)