John Lightfoot on John 2:21

[But he spake of the temple of his body.] If we consider how much the second Temple came behind that of the first, it will the more easily appear why our blessed Saviour should call his body the Temple.

"In the second Temple there wanted the Fire from heaven, the Ark with the Propitiatory and Cherubims, Urim and Thummim, the Divine Glory, the Holy Ghost, and the anointing Oil."

These things were all in Solomon's Temple, which therefore was accounted a full and plenary type of the Messiah: but so long as the second Temple had them not, it wanted what more particularly shadowed and represented him.

I. There was indeed in the second Temple a certain ark in the Holy of Holies; but this was neither Moses' ark nor the ark of the covenant: which may not unfitly come to mind when we read that passage, Revelation 11:19, "The Temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his Temple the ark of his testament." It was not seen, nor indeed was it at all in the second Temple.

The Jews have a tradition, that Josias hid the ark before the Babylonish captivity, lest it should fall into the hands of the enemy, as once it did amongst the Philistines; but there is no mention that it was ever found and restored again.

II. In Moses' Tabernacle and Solomon's Temple the divine presence sat visibly over the Ark in the Propitiatory, in a cloud of glory: but when the destruction of that Temple drew near, it went up from the Propitiatory, Ezekiel 10:4, and never returned into the second Temple, where neither the Ark nor the Propitiatory was ever restored.

III. The high priest, indeed, ministered in the second Temple as in the first, in eight several garments. Amongst these was the pectoral, or breastplate, wherein the precious stones were put (out of which the jasper chanced to fall and was lost): but the oracle by Urim and Thummim was never restored: see Ezra 2:63; Nehemiah 7:63. And if not restored in the days of Ezra or Nehemiah, much less certainly in the ages following, when the spirit of prophecy had forsaken and taken leave of that people. For that is a great truth amongst the Talmudists; "Things are not asked or inquired after now [by Urim and Thummim] by the high priest, because he doth not speak by the Holy Ghost, nor does there any divine afflatus breathe on him."

This, to omit other things, was the state of Zorobabel's Temple with respect to those things which were the peculiar glory of it. And these things being wanting, how much inferior must this needs be to that of Solomon's!

But there was one thing that degraded Herod's Temple still lower; and that was the person of Herod himself, to whom it is ascribed. It was not without scruple, even amongst the Jews themselves, that it was built and repaired by such a one: (and who knew not what Herod was?) and they dispute whether by right such a person ought to have meddled with it; and invent arguments for their own satisfaction as to the lawfulness of the thing.

They object first, It is not permitted to any one to demolish one synagogue till he hath built another: much less to demolish the Temple. But Herod demolished the Temple before he had built another. Ergo,

They answer, "Baba Ben Buta gave Herod that counsel, that he should pull it down." Now this Baba was reckoned amongst the great wise men, and he did not rashly move Herod to such a work; for he saw such clefts and breaches in the Temple that threatened its ruin.

They object, secondly, concerning the person of Herod, that he was a servant to the Asmonean family, that he rose up against his masters and killed them, and had killed the Sanhedrim.

They answer, We were under his power, and could not resist it. And if those hands stained with blood would be building, it was not in their power to hinder it.

These and other things they apologize for their Temple; adding this invention for the greater honour of the thing--that all that space of time wherein it was a building, it never once rained by day, that the work might not be interrupted.

The Rabbins take a great deal of pains, but to no purpose, upon those words, Haggai 2:9, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former." "R. Jochanan and R. Eliezer say; one, that it was a greater for the fabric; the other, that it was greater for the duration." As if the glory of the Temple consisted in any mathematical reasons of space, dimension, or duration; as if it lay in walls, gilding, or ornament. The glory of the first Temple was the Ark, the divine cloud over the Ark, the Urim and the Thummim, &c. Now where or in what can consist the greater glory of the second Temple when these are gone?

Herein it is indeed that the Lord of the Temple was himself present in his Temple: he himself was present in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, Colossian 2:9; as the divine glory of old was over the ark typically, or by way of shadow only.

This is the glory, when he himself is present who is the great High Priest and the Prophet; who, answerably to the Urim and Thummim of old, reveals the counsels and will of God; he who is the true and living Temple, whom that Temple shadowed out. "This Temple of yours, O ye Jews, does not answer its first pattern and exemplar: there are wanting in that, what were the chief glory of the former; which very defect intimates that there is another Temple to be expected, that in all things may fall in with its first type, as it is necessary the antitype should do. And this is the Temple of my body." No further did he think fit to reply to them at that time.