In the account of Christ’s crucifixion by Matthew and Mark, it is recorded that they which passed by railed on him, saying,—“Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself”; and that witnesses had testified to the same accusation, but did not agree. The disagreement seems to have been, that some (Mark xiv. 58) testified that he said,—“I will destroy this temple that is made with hands and in three days I will build another made without hands,” and the others (Matthew xxvi. 61) “I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.” The Evangelists properly characterize both classes as _false_ witnesses. Jesus had not said, “_I will_ destroy,” nor “I am _able_ to destroy,” but, “Destroy (_thou_) this temple.” It was not a destroying by _him_, but by _them_; and it was the temple of his own body. It was the earliest, and in some respects the most striking of his predictions of his death and resurrection. It was on the occasion of his cleansing the temple at the first Passover. The Jews demanded of him, “What sign showest thou unto us, seeing thou doest these things?” Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews therefore said, “Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. 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 ii. 13 to 22.) It must have been soon after this Passover, and certainly before John the Baptist was cast into prison, that Jesus said to Nicodemus, that, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life. (John iii. 14, 15.) Nicodemus does not appear again, until his mild protest to the rest of the Sanhedrim,—“Doth our law judge a man except it first hear from himself, and know what he doeth?”[1] They answered and said unto him, “Art thou also of Galilee? Search and see that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” He was silent. (John viii. 45 to 52.) But when Jesus had been put to death as a malefactor, no longer afraid, he comes with Joseph of Arimathea, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight, and they gave the Crucified One a princely burial. (John xix. 39, 40, 41.) What had wrought this change in Nicodemus? The lifting up upon the cross, was to _him_ assured proof that Jesus was a true “prophet, and more than a prophet.”