Hearing this accusation, “the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what [is it which] these witness against thee? But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ [Messiah], ² the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy” (Matthew 26:62-65).

The high priest and his associates evidently took Jesus' words to mean that he would destroy the temple of stone built by King Herod the Great and raise it up in only three days. ³ Jewish tradition held that the Messiah would build the temple in the last days, and this seems to have prompted the high priest's question about the Savior's identity.

Christ's response was drawn from Daniel 7:13, “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven.”

Daniel had also used the expression “without hands” in his description of the latter-day establishment of God's kingdom on the earth: “Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces” (Daniel 2:34; see also verse 45). That kingdom is the Church (D&C 65:2; D&C 109:72), but one early Jewish text says that the stone cut without hands is the Messiah himself ( Pirqe Eliezer 11).

Stones in a Temple

The apostle Paul compared members of the Church to stones in a temple, with Christ as the chief cornerstone:

Paul considered the mortal body to be a temple. To the Corinthians he wrote,

The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) do not admit that Christ actually said he would destroy the temple and then rebuild it, only that this is what the witnesses called to testify against him claimed this. But the gospel of John affirms that “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, 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” (John 2:19-21).

Paul also likened the Church to the body (specifically, the body of Christ), saying “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit ... Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 27). ⁵

¹For circumcision “without hands,” see Colossians 2:11; Ephesians 2:11.

² The Hebrew and Greek terms underlying the titles Christ and Messiah mean “anointed.”

³ The idea that “the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands” (Acts 7:48) was also used by Paul in speaking to the Athenians (Acts 17:24). The existence of a heavenly temple not “made with hands” is affirmed in Hebrews 9:11, 23-24, and we find many other passages describing the heavenly temple, notably in the book of Revelation but also in some portions of the Old Testament.

⁴ One of the earliest known Christian texts, included in some of the earliest Bibles, is the Shepherd of Hermas , in which Hermas has a vision in which individuals arrive at the heavenly gate and become part of the celestial temple. Each one was robed in the virtues that make a Christlike life.

⁵ For the full context, see 1 Corinthians 12:12-31.

⁶ See the discussion in my article “In the Spirit,” posted on the Meridian Magazine site at http://www.ldsmag.com/gospeldoctrine/nt/070810nt32sf.html .