Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary John 2:22

"When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he spake this; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said." — John 2:22 (ASV)

The author’s comment indicates that from the first of his ministry Jesus had the end of it in view. One can hardly escape the conviction that the fourth gospel depicts the career of Jesus as a voluntary progress toward a predetermined goal.

The allusions to the destruction of the temple of his body (2:22), to the elevation on a cross (3:14; 12:32–33), to the giving of his flesh for the life of the world (6:51), to his burial (12:7), and to the announcement of his betrayal and death to his disciples (13:19, 21), attest to his consciousness of the fate that awaited him in Jerusalem. Though the disciples did not comprehend the situation during Jesus’ career, the Resurrection placed the memory of his sayings in a new perspective.