‘And they did not find it, although many false witnesses came. But afterward came two, and said, “This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.” '
Seemingly a good number of witnesses came to present their case against Jesus, no doubt expecting suitable reward for their helpfulness, but it appears that they continually contradicted each other (Mark 14:56; Mark 14:59). However, this very fact demonstrates that the system was not being openly abused, and that they were not just being ‘set up' to give the same testimony. The aim had apparently been to spread the net wide among disillusioned people, hoping in that way that they would come up with something. For they felt that surely there must be something that He had done or said that could put Him in a bad light. But as the time went by, all too quickly, nothing promising seemed to be appearing.
However, hope began to grow when two witnesses were found who both stated that Jesus had said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.' That was at least a start, for it meant that they had the required twofold witness (Deuteronomy 17:6) and that the subject matter was serious, for in those days men of all nations considered that the desecration of Temples was a serious matter. But the twofold problem was that when examined in more detail the evidence was clearly not considered sufficient to bring a charge, probably because under questioning it was not sufficiently definite, while their attempt at using it in order to get the accused to convict Himself failed because Jesus simply disdained to answer. It thus did not seem to be much to build a case on, especially as there appeared to be some doubt about what the exact details were (Mark 14:59).
We know that in fact their testimony was partially true, for Jesus had said something about someone destroying a temple which He would rebuild in three days (John 2:19). But what they had failed to observe was that Jesus had not actually said that He Himself would destroy the Temple (He had said that ‘if they did it'), and that He had said ‘this Temple', meaning the Temple of His body (John 2:19). No wonder then that the witnesses disagreed on what was actually said.