John 2:21

21. Temple of his body That the body is a building has been recognized by both the science and the literature of all the world. And religious thought specially recognizes that it should be a temple; the temple of the Holy Spirit. And Christ’s body was the temple; of which the Jewish material temple was the type. When, therefore, the disciples subsequently found that after three days of destruction Christ revived his bodily temple, a new inner meaning flashed upon their minds. The meaning now is, Destroy, ye Jews, this sacred frame, (as you surely will,) and in three days it shall by my divine power rise again. Before fulfilment it would indeed have taken a prophet to extract this inner meaning; yet, none the less we see, after the fulfilment, that none but a prophet could have uttered the prediction. And to us may they not bear a third still deeper meaning? Destroy this old dispensation of which this temple is the symbol, and my three days of death will build it anew. Abolish old Judaism, and in brief time I will rear young Christianity. So that there are in these words three strata of meaning: an outside, an inner, and an inmost sense; each true for its own class of searchers.