John 2:18 Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

In his first confrontation with the Jewish leadership, Jesus was asked what sign he would give to show his authority. Throughout the Old Testament, prophets brought signs and wonders to show that they were from God. Moses, Elijah and Elisha are just a few examples. Their miracles validated that they were from God because they did things that a human being by himself could not do.

When Jesus cleared out the temple, it was a deliberate act to shake things up. He was challenging the established order and the religious authorities of the day

Now anyone could have chased the money changers out of the temple, that was not a miraculous thing. His changing the water to wine was a private act known only to his disciples. At this point there had been no public miracles.

I think it was a legitimate question to ask Jesus. However, it was not a serious question and Jesus saw their hearts.

Throughout the rest of the Gospel of John we will see the tension grow between Jesus and the Jewish leadership, as we also see the tension between belief and unbelief. Perhaps Jesus was foreseeing the tension as he gave a veiled answer.

Jesus often gave veiled or cryptic answers. His parables were that way too, with things that were hard to understand. Some things, like his statement about the temple, were only understood later. He perhaps did not give a simple answer because he wanted them to think about what was happening. Jesus was not going to get into a debate with them, and he was not going to play mind games. In other places in the gospel, when people ask questions because they are really looking for answers, they get straight answers.

He realized that the Jews did not want to believe, so he gave them an answer that would confuse them.

From this point he does many miracles and offers many signs to show that He is from God, showing his authority to do the things he was doing. Later in the gospel though, they reject his signs, and even accuse him of doing miracles by the power of the devil. It is interesting that even in the face of all the signs Jesus performed… the healing of the sick, the raising of the dead and so on … that the Jews kept asking for a sign and still refused to believe. They still refused to believe even after they did destroy his temple (his body) and he did in fact raise it up again in three days.

The reason they did not want to believe was that Jesus had not come from them, and he was not doing things the way they thought he should be doing them. They wanted the Messiah to operate under their authority and power. To believe in Jesus would have meant giving up their authority and power.

Maybe this is a reason today that people refuse to look at the evidence. A lot of people “search for truth” but they intentionally overlook Jesus and the Bible. To accept Jesus is to give up our own agendas and our own authority over our lives. To have accepted Jesus then would have meant lessening their own authority and so they perceived him as a threat. For this same reason many people today feel threatened by this and refuse to accept Jesus even in the face of the evidence.

Some things have not changed even after 2000 years.