When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this, and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.
Jesus spoke of the temple as a type (i.e., a divinely intended illustration) of Himself. Later Christ’s body became a figure for the church (cf. Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 4:16; Colossians 1:18), but that use probably began after the founding of the church at Pentecost. It seems clear that Jesus was referring to his physical body here rather than to the church. Yet there may be an intentional allusion to the ultimate abolition of the Jewish temple and temple sacrifices. [Note: Morris, p. 178.] Such double entendres are common in this Gospel.