Jesus Power Of Resurrection

The empty tomb is the greatest proof of who Jesus is.

John 2:18-22  But the Jewish leaders demanded, "What are You doing? If God gave You authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it."

19  "All right," Jesus replied. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

20  "What!" they exclaimed. "It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and You can rebuild it in three days?"  21  But when Jesus said "this temple," He meant His own body.

22  After He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered He had said this, and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said. 23  Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in Him.

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In the previous verses we saw that Jesus cleaned out his Father's house, well, he said that the temple was his Father's house but the religious leaders are not so sure. In today's verses they ask Jesus why he thinks that he has the right to undermine their authority.

Have you ever noticed who was always looking for a sign from Jesus? (Matthew 12:38-40) It wasn't the demons that Jesus interacted with and it wasn't the Gentiles either. It was the Jews that always needed a sign but for the most part it was the religious leaders that were looking for validation of Jesus true identity. The people that should have known were the most clueless.

The fact that this one man was able to drive thousands of people out of the temple without being stopped by the temple guard or by a few strong men shows that Jesus had power and authority that was more than human. This is just one more sign that the prophets of the Old Testament gave that the Jews missed.

Three things that show us that Jesus is God:

✔  Jesus passion for reverence, John 2:13-17
✔  Jesus power of resurrection, John 2:18-22
✔  Jesus perception of reality, John 2:23-25

-John MacArthur "Jesus Displays His Deity"

Jesus ministry is just getting started and they have already missed so many signs. The predictions surrounding Jesus birth were all missed, the prophecies concerning John the Baptist and now the prophecies about Jesus passion for his Father's house are all being ignored.

They kept searching for answers to their questions but they could not decide for themselves who Jesus is. In response to their question Jesus told them about the most powerful proof that they will ever get. (John 8:24-25, 8:52-53, Luke 22:67-70)

They will have to wait three years for it to happen but they will get the best evidence ever to prove that Jesus is the Son of God. Of course they didn't understand what he was saying, they couldn't know that they were going to hate Jesus so much that they would have him crucified.

Matthew 27:40 "Look at You now!" they yelled at Him. "You said You were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, if You are the Son of God, save Yourself and come down from the cross!"

They couldn't let go of these words, they brought them up at Jesus trial and again at the cross, three years later they are still burning in their ears yet they still don't understand. Jesus predicted many times that they would kill him (John 8:27-28), he knew that they would reject his claims to be the Son of God and they would not believe as a result of his miracles. (Matthew 16:1-4, John 2:23) They wanted a sign in the heavens but wasn't there one of them already? (Matthew 2:1-10, 12:24)

Some People Will Never Believe
Luke 16:29-31 "But Abraham said, 'Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.' 30 "The rich man replied, 'No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.' 31 "But Abraham said, 'If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen even if someone rises from the dead.'"

Jesus' parable about Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) ends with the rich man begging for somebody to go to his brothers and warn them about their eternal destiny. Abraham tells the rich man an important truth, one that we will see played out in real life, someone will rise from the dead and yet millions of people will not believe.

The resurrection is a well documented fact, the Romans made sure that he was dead before he was placed in the tomb, the spear in his side and the fact that they did not break his legs says that he was a dead man.

Why would Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus bury a man that is not dead? Given the fact that women were not credible witnesses in court then if the disciples were making up a story about the resurrection why would their witnesses for the empty tomb be women? Why would the disciples leave the safety of their locked room and risk preaching boldly in the streets?

The sign that they asked for came and most of them still didn't believe. The resurrection changed everything for the disciples and later for many thousands of new believers but to the religious leaders that were demanding more proof it changed nothing.