There is a lot of talk among Dispensationalists about a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem some time very soon, it's always soon. But in this text in John 2 our Lord tells us that the Temple has been rebuilt, and it is no longer a physical place, but a spiritual reality in Christ.
We looked last week at Christ's first miracle in Cana were He turned water into wine. The first miracle that Yeshua performed in His public ministry was a private miracle. Apparently only Yeshua's disciples, the servants present, and Yeshua's mother understood what had happened. It was a miracle of love and compassion toward the bride and groom; it saved them from a life of shame.
The signs that Yeshua performs are miracles in the natural sphere that are designed to express spiritual life. It seems to me that first and foremost the sign of turning water into wine is put in the beginning of the Fourth Gospel to indicate the inauguration of the New Age with the coming of the Lord Yeshua; the age of the Law is passing away, the age of the fulfillment of all anticipated by the Law is now come. The water pots that were used in the Jewish ritual are now transformed by the Lord Yeshua into the wine of the New Covenant grace with its forgiveness of sins.
As a result of this miracle in Cana Lazarus tells us:
This beginning of His signs Yeshua did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him. John 2:11 NASB
Because of this sign His disciples believed in Him. Their faith in Him grew. Hang on to this thought about signs and belief, we'll come back to this at the end of chapter 2.
After the wedding, Yeshua, His disciples, and His family make their way down to Capernaum:
After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and they stayed there a few days. John 2:12 NASB
The town of Capernaum was on the lake shore of the Sea of Galilee while Nazareth and Cana were on higher ground in the hills of the Galilee; therefore, they traveled "down to Caperanum."
From the Synoptics we learn that Capernaum was the center of Yeshua's Galilean ministry and that He moved there from Nazareth:
and leaving Nazareth, He came and settled in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. Matthew 4:13 NASB
Notice what our text says, "He and His mother and His brothers"—the most natural way to understand this phrase is as a reference to the children that Joseph and Mary had after the birth of Yeshua. Other views are that of Epiphanus (they were children of Joseph by a former marriage) or Jerome (they were cousins).
Yeshua had physical half brothers borne by Mary:
"Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? "And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" Matthew 13:55-56 NASB
So according to the Bible, Mary had given birth to at least four sons and two daughters.
So this shows that the idea of Mary's perpetual virginity is a myth. This idea first appeared in the second century. Those who try to propagate this myth try to twist the above passage in Matthew, claiming that those brothers and sister must have been from Joseph's previous marriage. But there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that Joseph had been married before he married Mary. Or they speculate that Yeshua's "brothers and His sisters" must have been either biological cousins or "spiritual" brothers and sisters; again without any evidence. The perpetual virginity is a myth.
Let me ask you something: What is the point of this verse? Why does Lazarus tell us this? Some say that the purpose of this verse in Lazarus' narrative is transitional. Yes, maybe, but why does he tell us about Yeshua's brothers? This is the first mention of them. Why tell us this? There is a reason; I'll show you a little later.
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Yeshua went up to Jerusalem. John 2:13 NASB
This is the first of the three Passover Feasts mentioned in this Gospel. Passover was one of the Seven Sacred Feasts decreed by Yahweh at Mt. Sinai. It was the feast which began the liturgical year and was to be celebrated yearly on the 14th of Nisan. The day after the Passover sacrifice began the 7 day Feast of Unleavened Bread. So eight days were spent in celebration and remembrance of the Exodus experience.
This feast was also one of the three "Pilgrim Feasts" where every man of Israel was to present himself before Yahweh at His holy Temple in Jerusalem (Exodus 23:14-17; 34:18-23; Deuteronomy 16:16; 2 Chronicles 8:13). You couldn't celebrate the Passover anywhere; Jerusalem was the place where Yahweh had put His name. And so the Lord Yeshua, as a faithful Jewish man, went up at the Passover time to Jerusalem in order to participate in the Passover Feast.
We know from what Acts 2 tells us about Pentecost, that people from all over the known world traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Josephus indicated that as many as three million Jews occupied Jerusalem during the Passover Feasts.
Lazarus' description here of the Passover, as "the Passover of the Jews," supports the view that he wrote his Gospel late in the first century for a general audience that was mainly Gentile. It also implies that the church no longer observed this feast. This description also says to me that Yahweh was no longer in this feast. In Leviticus these feasts are called, "The Feasts of Yahweh," but here they are "of the Jews."
And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. John 2:14 NASB
The "Temple" of our text is of course the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. This was actually the third Temple. The first Temple was built by Solomon (see 1 Kings 6-7). When Solomon dedicated the Temple, almost one thousand years prior to this account, Yahweh's glory fell in power upon that place. Upon the dedication of the Temple, as the people prayed, the Shekinah glory of God descended in such awesome majesty that no one could even enter that holy Temple. God claimed that place for Himself. He received it as His house, and it would be a place where He would meet with His people.
The second Temple was the one rebuilt by the Jews returning from their Babylonian captivity (Ezra 6:15). This third Temple was known as "Herod's Temple."
Solomon's Temple (and, previously, the Tabernacle) was the place where the glory of Yahweh was displayed to His people. There He met with them. There His eternal and holy presence was symbolized. But due to Israel's sin, the glory of Yahweh had departed long ago.
The Greek word used here for Temple is hiero and indicates that this was the "outer court" of the Temple area. We tend to think of the Temple as a single building, but it was much more than that. The Jerusalem Temple's most sacred spot was the Holy of holies, where only the high priest could enter. Next was the Sanctuary limited to the priests; then the Court of Israel where the laymen could gather. Following this was the Court of Women, limited to Jewish women; then the Court of the Gentiles. The Court of the Gentiles was a huge area, about three football fields long and about three football fields wide. It was meant to be a very sacred place—where Gentiles from any nation could come into this court and could pursue the God of the Hebrews and enter into some sort of an experience with God. But the Gentile worshipers could not go beyond this; the signs on the wall expressed that to do so would be at the peril of life.
This outer court was described by Josephus in his, War, which reads (5.5.2):
...there was a partition made of stone all round, whose height was three cubits: its construction was very elegant; upon it stood pillars, at equal distances from one another, declaring the law of purity, some in Greek, and some in Roman letters, that "no foreigner should go within that sanctuary" for that second (court of the) Temple was called "the Sanctuary" and was ascended to by fourteen steps from the first court.
Josephus' quote of this warning is somewhat condensed, and the full version is seen from the discovery of one of these rocks in 1871. Zondervan reads: "No Gentile may enter within the railing around the Sanctuary and within the enclosure. Whosoever should be caught will render himself liable to the death penalty which will inevitably follow."
The disdain for Gentiles and failure to understand the nature of worshiping the Lord was found in the way the Court of the Gentiles became host to what was called, "The Bazaars of Annas."
"At one time the animal merchants set up their stalls across the Kidron Valley on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, but at this point they were in the Temple Courts, doubtless in the Court of the Gentiles (the outermost court)."(D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), p. 178).
The well-known high priest granted permission to family members to begin what looked like a flea market in the area reserved for Gentiles to seek the Lord and worship Him. Noisy animals, bargain hunters, and crass merchants crowded the area that should have provided dignity and quiet contemplation for worshipers. Kickbacks and fees for the priestly family kept the bazaar in full swing to the total neglect of why the Temple existed at all.
This area called the "Court of the Gentiles" was the place designated for the teaching of the Gentile nations about the one true God. It was the only place where Gentiles could offer prayer to Yahweh. This was the one place where the Gentiles had the opportunity to come close to God in His Sanctuary.
"Those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves"—the sacrifices to be offered in the Temple needed to be certified as "without blemish" by a priest, who charged for the service. If they brought their own animal, it would most likely be rejected so people were forced to buy their approved sacrifices. Many pilgrims would purchase a sacrifice in the Temple rather than herd it for several days on their way to the Holy City for Passover. It was a convenience to purchase sacrifices at the Temple, but the price gouging was often terrible. Later in the First Century, Rabbi Simeon (son of Paul's teacher, Gamaliel) crusaded to lower the price of a pair of doves from two gold dinars to one silver dinar; 1% of the original price.
"The money changers seated at their tables"—it was required by the Law that a Temple Tax of a half-shekel was to be paid once a year. Coins that bore the portraits of the Roman Emperors or other pagan portraits were not permitted to be used in paying the tax (Exodus 20:4) and so moneychangers, for a profit, exchanged these coins for legal Tyrian coinage which was not stamped with an image.
And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; John 2:15 NASB
Yeshua didn't come in to the Temple and say, Let me teach you what the Bible says about Temple worship. He didn't kindly ask, Can you take all your animals and money out of here please. He drove them out overthrowing their tables. Yeshua's action was angry and violent. Have you ever had someone in your home overthrowing a table on which all the food has been set out? Have you seen this being done in a restaurant as a guest explodes in fury with the way he has been served or with the quality of the food? It was a violent action to move from table to table—maybe twenty or forty such tables—and send money going everywhere.
"He made a scourge of cords"—the word "cords" is schoinion, which is a rush or plant. Luke uses this word in Acts 27:32 to describes the ropes on a ship. This was by no means a deadly weapon. It was basically a braided rope. The Temple Police strictly enforced the rule that no weapons or sticks were allowed in the Temple precincts. Yeshua probably took this from one of the animals that were tied up.
"And drove them all out of the temple"—the Greek word for "drove" is ekballo, which means: "force to leave, drive out, expel." The same word is often used to describe Yeshua driving out demons from the afflicted.
The Greek masculine plural, pantas (all), argues for Yeshua driving the traders out, not just the animals, which the neuter plural, panta, would identify.
"He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables"—the words "poured out" are significant in Scripture; this is liturgical language. These words are used in the Hebrew of the Tanakh, in the Greek translation of the Tanakh known as the "Septuagint Translation," and the New Testament in connection with the "pouring out" of the blood of sacrifice on the altar and with the "pouring out" of God's wrath. In this case it is the pouring out of God's wrath and this action is a prophetic sign performed by Yeshua as "The Prophet" of Deuteronomy 18:14-20. Such a sign performed by a Prophet indicated a future fulfillment. In this case, Yeshua's action signifies the Temple's destruction, which took place in A.D.70 when Yahweh brought His judgment on the Old Covenant people for the rejection of the Messiah and, therefore, rejection of God's Covenant of salvation.
and to those who were selling the doves He said, "Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business." John 2:16 NASB
"My Father's house"—by claiming God as His "Father," Yeshua was citing authority for His action. They had turned a place of worship into a bazaar.
How does one man with a braided rope drive thousands out of the Temple?
Why didn't the Temple officials arrest or physically restrain Yeshua from carrying out this extreme action? The Temple was under the control of about three hundred Temple Police. Fort Antonia was next to the Temple, and the Romans had built it high so they could sit on the top and watch what was going on. If needed, they could dispatch a Roman garrison to go down there and put down any kind of action that was threatening. So why was Yeshua allowed to do this? How could He get away with this?
The "why" could be answered if we see this event was near the end of Yeshua's ministry. If they had used force against Yeshua, they might have faced a public rebellion. So rather than physically arresting or restraining Yeshua, the authorities simply challenged His authority or right to do what He did (2:18).
The Tanakh predicted that Messiah would come and purify the Temple:
And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day. Zechariah 14:21 ESV
Yeshua's action perhaps recalled this prophecy to the godly in Israel who may have wondered if Yeshua was the Messiah. By cleansing the Temple, throwing out the traders, Yeshua was showing that the age of the Messiah had come. That Yeshua was fulfilling these messianic expectations would have been obvious—especially to the disciples, who had just seen the miracle at Cana with all its messianic implications.
The "how" He was able to clear the Temple may be explained as we look at the incident in the Garden of Gethsemane when the soldiers came to arrest Him. And He went out to meet them and said, "Whom do you seek?":
They answered Him, "Yeshua the Nazarene." He said to them, "I am He." And Judas also, who was betraying Him, was standing with them. So when He said to them, "I am He," they drew back and fell to the ground. John 18:5-6 NASB
In the original text it is simply, "I am." That's the name of the covenant keeping God, "I am who I am." And when He said, "I am," just the words caused the soldiers to go back and fall on the ground.
What happened in the Temple was a miracle! Yeshua was like Samson under the power of the Holy Spirit. He cleared thousands out of the Temple court.
Does it surprise you that Yeshua should experience real human anger? It shouldn't; Yeshua is both fully God and fully man. He experienced all the human desires and conditions that we experience, but unlike us, He did not sin. His anger is righteous anger. He is angry at the pollution of His Father's house. The money changers and merchants are robbing Israel through their inflated exchange rates and He is angry because the Gentiles are being robbed of the opportunity to worship; robbed of the opportunity to be instructed in the true faith.
I think there should be times when we reflect this righteous anger. We need to be more like Yeshua in the area. Yahweh being dishonored should make us angry.
How many times did Yeshua cleans the Temple?
As we read through the Gospels, we find that the Synoptic Gospels tell the story of Yeshua cleansing the Temple after the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Though each writer gives a few different details of the story, they all concur on the general time frame of when it occurred. Lazarus, however, puts the cleansing of the Temple at the beginning of Yeshua's ministry.
Because of this, there has been much discussion among New Testament scholars as to how many times Yeshua cleansed the Temple. Some argue that Yeshua cleansed the Temple twice, at both the beginning and the end of His ministry. It's possible to argue for two separate cleansings of the Temple, but it is also possible to argue for a single one relocated by Lazarus to suit his own purposes. It could be that Lazarus has moved the event and isn't claiming to have a chronological order. It's possible that Lazarus structures Yeshua's actions for theological purposes. There are good arguments for both sides. I tend to lean to one cleansing that Lazarus moves to the beginning of Yeshua's ministry for theological reasons.
My reason for thinking this is because if this happens at the beginning of Yeshua's ministry then He would be virtually unknown. The people wouldn't have had any history of Yeshua. They wouldn't have known who He was. To them He would be just some crazy man at Passover causing a commotion. But if it happened at the end of His ministry His reputation is well known, and they would get the significance of this prophetic event.
His disciples remembered that it was written, "ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE WILL CONSUME ME." John 2:17 NASB
These people knew their Tanakh. And when they saw Yeshua do this, they remembered Psalm 69:9:
For zeal for Your house has consumed me, And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me. Psalms 69:9 NASB
Psalm 69 is a Psalm of David. It is a prayer for his deliverance, due to his piety. The Psalm speaks of David's imminent danger due to the enemies of God who hate him for his fervent devotion to Yahweh.
Several verses in Psalm 69 seem to point to the death of the Messiah. The early church saw Psalm 69 as a Messianic Psalm prophesying the death of Yeshua. Lazarus changed the quotation from the past to the future tense, implying that it was a prophecy concerning David's great Son. He undoubtedly saw it as such.
In cleansing the Temple Yeshua fulfills a prophecy that our Lord's zeal for His Father's house will bring about His death. So in John 2:17 Lazarus draws our attention to this point.
Do you remember at the beginning of this message I said in verse 12 that there was a reason that Lazarus mentioned Yeshua's brothers? In our text he quotes Psalm 69:9, but notice what verse 8 says:
I have become estranged from my brothers And an alien to my mother's sons. Psalms 69:8 NASB
This Messianic Psalm speaks of the alienation of the Messiah from his "mother's children." This could be part of the reason for Lazarus' mention of the brief family gathering in Capernaum (John 2:12).
The Jews then said to Him, "What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?" John 2:18 NASB
Remember, when you see "the Jews" in this Gospel, and we'll see it over and over and over again; it is a term that Lazarus usually uses to speak of the enemies of Yeshua.
The Jewish authorities didn't question, Why did you do this? They asked for "signs," because every true Prophet must have "signs" or miracles worked in God's name:
"Ask a sign for yourself from the LORD your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven." Isaiah 7:11 NASB
It was expected that the Messiah would repeat the "signs" of Moses (see John 1:21). So Yeshua gave them a sign:
Yeshua answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." John 2:19 NASB
Here the word "Temple" is not hiero, which indicated the "outer court" of the Temple area. The word for "Temple" here is naos, which indicates the Sanctuary of the Temple area, which includes the Holy Place and the "inner sanctum" or place where God dwells, called the "Holy of Holies."
The Sanhedrin later used Yeshua's words about destroying the Temple as a capital charge against Him at His trial (Matt. 26:61; Mark 14:58; cf. Matt. 27:40; Mark 15:29). This was dishonest because Yeshua had said, "Destroy the Temple," not, "I will destroy the Temple." Furthermore Yeshua was speaking of His body, not the Temple.
In other places in the New Testament, for example in Romans 1, it says that God through the Holy Spirit raised Yeshua from the dead. In 1 Corinthians 15 it says, "God raises the dead." So in Romans 1 the Spirit raises Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15, God raises Christ. And here, Christ raises Himself. The whole triune Godhead is involved.
So the sign that Yeshua gives them is His resurrection. They would destroy the Temple, His body, and He would raise it in three days. He knew His own future before it happened:
The Jews then said, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?" John 2:20 NASB
Because of their blindness they think He is talking about the physical Temple. But Lazarus makes it clear for us:
But He was speaking of the temple of His body. John 2:21 NASB
His resurrection then will be the sign from heaven that ultimately validates His claim to be the Son of God.
Ever since the Temple's rebuilding after the return from the Babylonian exile in the late 6th century BC, the Temple in Jerusalem had been an "empty house." God had not taken possession of the Temple the way He had filled and in-dwelled the desert Tabernacle (Exodus 40:34-45) and Solomon's Temple (1 Kings 8:10-11). The Holy of Holies was an empty room because the Ark of the Covenant was not there. The glory of Yahweh returned in the person of Yeshua.
The body of the risen Christ is the spiritual Temple from which the living waters of salvation flow (John 7:37-39; 19:34; Revelation chapter 22). Yeshua is declaring His Body, Himself personally and His Body the Church—to be the true Temple! The physical resurrection of Christ's Body is the foundation for His New Covenant people being constituted as the Temple.
As I said earlier, Dispensationalism puts great emphasis on a rebuilt Temple and priesthood because they fail to see these as types. Physical Israel was a type and so was the Tabernacle/Temple:
who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, "SEE," He says, "THAT YOU MAKE all things ACCORDING TO THE PATTERN WHICH WAS SHOWN YOU ON THE MOUNTAIN." Hebrews 8:5 NASB
The Tabernacle was a type. What is the anti-type? Yeshua is the anti-type. Yeshua replaces the Temple itself. Yeshua is the anti-type of the Temple. The Temple represented the presence of God among His children in the early days, so Yeshua came and pitched His tent or tabernacled among us. Notice what Peter says of Christ:
"He is the STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, but WHICH BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone. Acts 4:11 NASB
Yeshua is the cornerstone upon which the spiritual house of God was built. If you don't build on the cornerstone, Yeshua, you don't have salvation. Paul put it this way:
Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. 2 Corinthians 6:14-16 NASB
Who is the "we" here? It is Paul and the Corinthian believers. Paul says believers are the temple and then quotes Leviticus 26:11-12. Was Paul looking for a rebuilt Temple? It doesn't look like it. In 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19 Paul refers to believers as the temple of God:
Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 1 Corinthians 3:16 NASB
Paul uses the plural to emphasize that the entire Church community is God's Temple (His dwelling place on earth), not just select individuals.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 1 Corinthians 6:19 NASB
"Your body"—refers to the body of each believer. Paul's use of the singular form of "body" may emphasize that each believer is a temple of God. In this context, Paul focuses on individual believers instead of the entire Church community.
One is individual and the other is corporate, it's a plural pronoun. So both corporately and individually we are the temple of God.
Since the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, there are no "sacred" buildings or places. Yeshua Himself is our Temple, not a cathedral or church building. We meet with God in Yeshua. We dwell in Him and He dwells in us.
So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Yeshua had spoken. John 2:22 NASB
Even Yeshua's disciples did not understand what He meant until after His resurrection. The Scripture they then believed was prophecy in the Tanakh concerning Messiah's resurrection (e.g., Ps. 16:10; 69:9).
Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. John 2:23 NASB
"Many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing"—what does that say to you about their spiritual condition? They believed; they are Christians. Well there are some who conclude that these "believers" are not real believers. One commentator writes, "This does not mean that they placed saving faith in Him as the Son of God." Another writes, "Some expression of 'faith' was made and was evident, but Yeshua knew that it was not genuine."
John MacArthur writes, "Right here at the very outset of the Gospel of John, we're introduced to a very important issue throughout all redemptive history, the presence of false, superficial, artificial faith that doesn't save, that doesn't save." He goes on to say, "All belief in Him is not true belief. It is superficial, artificial. It lacks repentance."
This is interesting, since this book was written specifically to bring men to Christ and in this book repentance is NEVER mentioned. But MacArthur says they are not saved even though the inspired writer says, "they believed."
What would make them think that these people are not saved? The next verse:
But Yeshua, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, John 2:24 NASB
The word "entrusting" here is the same word as "believed" in the previous verse. So they believed in Him, but He did not believe in them. So where in Scripture does it say that in order to be saved you have to trust in Christ, and He has to trust in you? Where? What this verse means is that Christ did not put Himself and His ministry in their hands.
I think the Scriptures are clear that you become a Christian by faith and faith alone.
What is the purpose of this letter?
Therefore many other signs Yeshua also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Yeshua is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name. John 20:30-31 NASB
If Lazarus records these selected "signs" to bring people to faith, how could we question the faith of those who "believe in His name" because of these signs? Lazarus tells us that these people "believed in His name." This same expression is found in John chapter 1:
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, John 1:12 NASB
If all those who "believe in His name" are saved in chapter 1, how can we say that those who believe here are not saved when described by the same words in chapter 2? When Lazarus says that someone believed, that is what he means. Belief in Christ, in His Name saves.
Both the sign of the water turned to wine and the cleansing of the Temple end on the note of faith (see v. 11 and v. 22). The goal of Lazarus (20:30-31) was being achieved in people's lives.
But Yeshua, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, John 2:24 NASB
Commenting on this verse Albert Barns says, "Jesus did not put 'trust' or 'reliance' in them. He did not leave Himself in their hands. He acted cautiously and prudently. The proper time for Him to die had not come, and He secured His own safety. The reason why He did not commit Himself to them is 'that He knew all men.' He knew the 'inconstancy' and 'fickleness' of the multitude. He knew how easily they might be turned against Him by the Jewish leaders, and how unsafe He would be if they should be moved to sedition and tumult."
At this point in time Yeshua had not even fully and openly entrusted Himself to His own disciples, so that in 14:9 He can still say to Philip, "How long have you been with Me and have not known Me?"
and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man. John 2:25 NASB
Christ knows the heart of all men. He is fully aware of our corruption, our depravity. He doesn't need anyone to tell Him the condition of man. These last couple of verses tie us into the story of Nicodemus, which we will look at next time.
The Temple has been rebuild in its true spiritual nature in the resurrected Christ. Believer, we are sacred space, Yahweh dwells in us.