“We have a circuit assembly in La Chaud de Fond next month, and she is seriously thinking of being baptized. Tomorrow night at the service meeting we will have a talk on baptism which will help her to see the seriousness of the step she wants to take. I do not want her to jump into anything like this without her fully realizing what she is doing.

“She makes every sacrifice to get to the congregational meetings, working late at nights to make up for the time lost by attending them. She took time off to go into the service Saturday afternoon and gave her employers such a thorough witness that they were moved by her sincerity and obtained two magazines from her to find out what this was all about. She already has arranged for me to conduct a home Bible study with the cook that works for her employers. You can well imagine the joy that this young ‘sheep’ of the Lord has brought us.”

Questions From Readers

● John 2:19 (NW) states: “In answer Jesus said to them: ‘Break down this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” Does this indicate that Jesus had power to raise himself from the dead, as trinitarians argue, and proving, as they say, that Jesus and God are the same person?—M. S., Oregon.

We must harmonize Jesus’ words with many other scriptures, which clearly show that God and Christ are separate persons and not equal and not tied together, along with the holy spirit, to form one god. Numerous texts show that Jesus did not raise himself from the dead, but that he was resurrected by Jehovah God his Father. (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:15; Eph. 1:20) So how may we logically view John 2:19?

The context must be examined. Joh 2 Verses 13 to 18 show that Jesus had cleansed the literal temple at Jerusalem, routing from it those who were making it a place of merchandise, and as a result had been confronted with this question from the Jews: “What sign have you to show us, since you are doing these things?” Then in the 19th Joh 2 verse 19 Jesus told them the sign, which is the basis of our question. Joh 2 Verses 20-22 continue: “Therefore the Jews said: ‘This temple was built in forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was talking about the temple of his body. When, though, he was raised up from the dead, his disciples called to mind that he used to say this.”—NW.

This setting shows that Jesus was not talking about his physical body, but “he was talking about the temple of his body”. The temple in Jerusalem that Jesus cleansed represented not Jesus alone but also the body-members over which he is head. Just as the literal temple was not made up of one stone but many, so “the temple of his body” consists of many living stones, with Jesus as the foundation cornerstone: “You yourselves also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house for the purpose of a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Pet. 2:4-7, NW) After the Jewish religionists rejected Christ the living stone and broke him down by death on the torture stake, on the third day thereafter Jehovah God raised him up to become the chief cornerstone of the temple of living stones then under preparation. He immediately appeared to his disciples and lifted them up out of their despondency, built them up spiritually so that they could “offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God”. That this building of “the temple of his body” started then and continued through the years that followed is shown by Peter’s use of the present tense when years afterward he said Christ’s followers “are being built up a spiritual house”.

Now with this broadened view of matters we must return to the consideration of Jesus’ words, “In three days I will raise it up.” We have seen how he did start giving attention to the building up of the temple of living stones after his resurrection on the third day of his death. Yet it might be argued with some force that since Jesus was to be the chief cornerstone and he was the firstfruits of the resurrection, the first one to be built up for use in the construction of the spiritual house or temple, we cannot eliminate him entirely from this building work and apply the expressions concerning it to his followers only. Yet we cannot say that Jesus raised himself, for he was dead, and the trinity doctrine, being proved false by so many scriptures, cannot be appealed to as a basis for saying he was dead only as Christ but alive as God, and hence could, as God, raise himself, as Christ. Moreover, as we have previously noted, Joh 2 verse 22 specifically states that “he was raised up from the dead”, not that he raised himself. Is there any way, then, that we could understand and harmonize in a reasonable way Jesus’ statement that “in three days I will raise it up”, having it embrace his own resurrection as chief cornerstone as well as the building up of his followers as living stones?