What Does John 2:21 Mean in the King James?
But he spake of the temple of his body.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Jesus’ body is named as the sanctuary itself: God’s dwelling is disclosed in embodied life.
THE MEANING
The verse presents Jesus’ body as the sanctuary where God’s presence is encountered. The temple is a living body, and its destruction is not the last word: this sanctuary is raised.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that God can be encountered only inside a sacred building.
THE ROOT
ναός
naos
GROWS FROM
ναίω (naíō), the lexical base traditionally associated with ναός
to dwell, inhabit
“temple” in this verse is naos. The Greek word ναός names the sanctuary, the dwelling place. Calling Jesus’ body the ναός reveals more than a likeness to a building: his embodied life is the sanctuary where God dwells.
ALSO GROWS
naos: sanctuary, temple
ναός
This is the word John uses for Jesus’ body, presenting it as the place of divine dwelling.
naopoios: temple-maker; maker of a shrine
ναοποιός
This compound carries the same sanctuary word: the body Jesus names is the dwelling itself, not something made by human hands.
THE PATTERN
God’s dwelling is revealed among people through sanctuary, embodied presence, and living bodies.
And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?THE THREAD
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?The Greek words for “body” (σῶμα, sōma) and “temple” (ναός, naos) recur here together. John’s clarification about Jesus opens into the same image of embodied life as sanctuary.
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