An atheist site on the internet came up with this biblical contradiction. Most such accusations are rather easy to counter, but I must admit that this one posed a bit of a challenge for me. Fortunately, I have a number of reliable sources to consult besides my own limited capabilities.
The problem is this: In John 2:19-21, Jesus says that if the temple is destroyed, he will raise it up in three days. John explains this statement as referring to Jesus' body. However, in Acts 4:10 it is clearly stated that God was responsible for raising Jesus from the dead. Actually, the person who posed this contradiction could have cited a number of other places in the NT where it is indicated that, in Furnish's words, “Christ's resurrection is...an act of God himself.” For this concept, see Romans 4:17; 5:6ff; 6:4; 10:9I Corinthians 6:14; 15:54ff; and II Corinthians 13:4. By contrast, Guthrie points out that “there is no parallel reference to Jesus raising His own body.” Therefore the best approach to resolving this issue would seem to be a concentration on the passage in John, especially since, as several commentators note, it is rather cryptic and subject to several different interpretations.
Any one of the following lines of reasoning would seem to lead to an adequate resolution of this apparent contradiction, although some are certainly more likely than others:
1. The verb forms in the Bible are not as much distinguished as in modern English.
When a sentence is written in the active voice, the subject performs the action; in the passive voice, the subject receives the action. Thus, John 2:19 Jesus uses the active voice of the verb to indicate that he will be doing the raising. By contrast, in the other references to his resurrection cited above, it either states that God raised Jesus or in the passive voice that “he was raised.” Note that the passive leaves it vague as to which person was responsible for doing the raising, but it generally refers to someone other than the one on the receiving end of the action.
Blomberg in commenting on Matthew 28:5-7 says, “No text of Scripture ever speaks of Jesus raising himself but always as being raised by God...John 2:19-20 is the sole possible exception. Jesus does use the active voice to speak of himself as raising the temple, which John interprets in v. 22 (sic, 'v. 21') to refer to Christ's body. But, interestingly, in that (sic, 'the next') verse, as the interpretation is given, the passive voice reappears.”
Another possible biblical example of this phenomenon is seen in the story of the ten plagues visited on Egypt. The passage seems to move between statements regarding pharaoh's heart in which either (a) he hardened his own heart, (b) God hardened his heart, or (c) pharaoh's heart was hardened. We can consider these three options as expressing exactly the same thought or, possibly, see some sort of progression in hardening as the plagues continued.
2. John 2:21 referring to Jesus' body should be excised from the text as an explanatory note written by a later hand and introduced into subsequent manuscripts either accidentally or purposely.
This sort of approach should always be one of the last resort. And in this case, there is very little reason to suppose that it these are not the authentic words of John. For one thing, there is no variant manuscript evidence to back up such a claim. One could, I suppose, make a big point of the fact that, as Motyer says, John 2:21 “is the only instance in the Johannine writings where soma [“body”] does not mean dead body or slave (cf. Rev. 18:13).” But the content of the verse is consistent with John's writings elsewhere in this Gospel account, such as when Jesus says in 5:21: “Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.” Or when Jesus states, “I am the resurrection...” (John 11:25)
3. John 2:21 speaks to the close unity of God the Father and Jesus, His Son.
Of all the gospels, John is the most insistent on the unity of Jesus and God, even while Jesus was on earth. As just two pertinent passages, look at John 10:30 (“The Father and I are one”) and John 14:17 (“If you know me, you know my Father also”). Thus, it is hard to distinguish where God's actions end and Jesus' begin. As two example:
Whereas Genesis 1:1 has God creating the universe, John 1:3 ascribes this action to the pre-incarnate Christ.
John 5:19 states that Jesus' works on earth were not done without God's involvement.
Most importantly, John 5:21 reveals that “just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.” And it is just possible that statement includes Jesus raising himself from the dead as well. Other passages expressing a similar thought include John 6:39,44,54.
All judgment is given to Christ according to John 5:22,27; judgment will be carried out by both God and Christ as stated in John 8:16; and God is the sole judge in passages such as John 8:50; Acts 17:31; and Romans 2:16.
Therefore, saying that God raised Jesus can be taken as another way of stating that Jesus raised himself (through the power God delegated to him).
4. Both “temple” and “body” are to be taken to be figurative rather than literal.
In all the above approaches, it is assumed that John is speaking of Jesus' literal body in verse 21. Raymond Brown mentions that some scholars felt that Jesus may have indicated that understanding by pointing to himself as he was talking, but that is mere speculation. Instead, it turns out that a majority of modern evangelical commentators prefer to understand the passage to be highly metaphorical. Thus, both “temple” and “body” point to something entirely different. Brown discusses the possible meanings for “temple,” beginning with the observation that the parallel passage in Mark 14:58 refers to the rebuilt “temple” as being “not made with hands.” Brown breaks down the sub-categories of this general interpretation into three:
1. The Christian temple is the Church (Ephesians 2:19-21; I Peter 2:5, 4:17).
2. The Temple is the individual (I Corinthians 3:16, 6:19).
3. The Temple is a heavenly one (Revelation 11:19; Hebrews 9:11-12).
Brown concludes: “Which of these views of the spiritual Temple Mark held is not clear; but, after all, they are only slightly different aspects of the same reality.”
Others pointing to the “temple” with the same meaning are quoted below;
Reisner says that Jesus “described himself...as well as the redeemed community he founded...as the new, spiritual Temple.”
“John has a heightened focus on the city and the temple, but he portrays Jesus as replacing the temple as a means of access to God (e.g. Jn 2:18-22; 14:6-7).” (Walton)
In commenting on Matthew 12:6 (“something greater than the temple is here”), Hill states, “If this saying is interpreted as referring not to the Messiah, but to the messianic community and its precedence over the Temple, then it may anticipate John's distinctive interpretation of the Temple of Christ's body, which replaces the old order of Temple worship (Jn 2.20-1).”
Barclay thought that Jesus was speaking 'of the temple as a living force.' “Thus, by this view, Jesus was predicting the abolition of the Temple worship through animal sacrifices and replacing it with an approach to God in which the Jerusalem Temple was no longer needed.” (Morris)
Keener: “Believers may be part of the new temple, but Jesus is the foundation stone (cf. Jn 2:21)...Jesus is Jacob's ladder connecting heaven and earth (Jn. 1:51) and is the new temple (Jn 2:21)...”
“It is quite possible that Jesus thought of himself as the foundation of a new community of faith and worship.” (Evans and Novakovic)
In a similar manner, “body” may not point to Christ's literal body, but to the church instead.
“In Colossians we see this double meaning strongly emphasized. In Colossians 1:22 the body is the crucified body of the Lord Jesus. Yet in Colossians 1:18 and 1:24, Paul is clearly using the same term for the Christian community...Christ is so closely identified with the church that to persecute the church is to persecute Christ. The crucified body of Jesus and the ecclesial body, the Church, therefore cannot be separated...John in particular emphasizes the function of the community, Jesus' body, as the temple that bears God's presence.” (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery)
Ellis: “The body of Christ is a regular Pauline metaphor for the church (cf. Eph. 2:21f). Further, just as in a parallel passage (Mk 11:17) the true house of God is a 'house of prayer for all nations' so through the Holy Spirit the same will be true in Christ's Body – the Church.”
Wright, Cullmann, and Morris all agree that “body of Christ” often refers to the church rather than Jesus' literal body, although Morris rejects that interpretation in the case of John 2:19-21.
Morris' objection to this metaphorical interpretation of “body” is based on what seems to be an overwhelming barrier to its acceptance, i.e. the specific prediction of raising the temple (or body) in three days. Brown's response to that criticism is to say, “Perhaps the best solution lies in recognizing that 'three days' was an expression that meant a short, but indefinite time...By promising that the messianic Temple [the church, that is] would be rebuilt in such a short time Jesus may have been hinting at its miraculous nature.” As proof for that biblical usage of the phrase to denote a short, but undefined, time period Brown cites Exodus 19:11; Hosea 6:2; and Luke 13:32. In rebuttal, Morris says that such an interpretation may apply in OT times “but it is not common in the Gospels.”
In re-rebuttal, one could point out two things regarding the NT usage of this time period:
There are many references in the Gospels and Acts to Christ's resurrection occurring “in three days,” three days and three nights,” “on the third day,” or “after three days,” which, technically speaking, are not literally consistent with one another. Neither are “after three days” or “three days and three nights” consistent with the most apparent chronology of the actual events in Scripture since, at most, it appears as if Christ was buried on Friday just before the Sabbath began and arose before or at dawn on Sunday. These apparent contradictions disappear if the Gospel usage of “three days” is idiomatic for “a short period of time.”
There are other occasions in the NT narratives where something other than the resurrection is said to have occurred “on the third day” or “three days later” (cf. Mark 8:3; John 2:1; Acts 9:9; 25:1; 27:19; 28:7,17). This recurring time period is either quite a coincidence or, again, the phrases are stereotyped idioms for, “a little time later.”
Any one of the four approaches above results in a resolution to the seeming contradiction regarding who raised Jesus from the dead.
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