On that day, declares the LORD of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the LORD, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the LORD of hosts.  Haggai 2:23

Zerubbabel was the leader in Jerusalem when the Jews returned from Babylonian captivity.  He was leading the effort to rebuild God’s temple and God says to him, “I’m going to make you Zerubbabel like a signet ring.”  At this time, a signet ring was used by a king to show his approval of something.  It served as the Kings stamp of approval and God is saying here to Zerubbabel, “You are my signet ring.  You are my guarantee that my temple is going to be completed and you are my guarantee that my Kingdom is going to be established.”  God says, “I am going to establish and advance my kingdom, and I am going to do it through you Zerubbabel.” 

Now the issue with that statement is that though God says this to Zerubbabel, he dies before these promises are fulfilled.  Because that is the case, how are we to make sense of these promises?  Who is Zerubbabel?  In Matthew 1:12 we learn that he is a part of the royal family—he is in the family of David--in the line of Christ.  Matthew tells us,

And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

So when God mentions Zerubbabel here in Haggai and says, “He is my signet ring.”  God is reaffirming what he said to the patriarchs long ago and what he promised in David’s day.  He’s showing us here that Zerubbabel is in the messianic line and is saying to him, “Just like I promised your ancestors Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and later promised David, through you Zerubbabel, I am going to provide a King who is going to usher in my Kingdom.  And that King is of course, Jesus.

Just like Zerubbabel was one of the ones responsible for rebuilding the temple, Jesus said he too would rebuild God’s temple.  In John 2, the religious authorities come to Jesus and challenged Him and called for Him to prove himself—to prove that he had the authority to say what he said and do the things he did.  In response, Jesus says, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” 

At this we are told that the religious leaders were floored thinking, “That’s crazy.  You can’t tear down and rebuild a temple in three days.”  John tells us in his Gospel that Jesus was not talking about a building, he was talking about Himself.  You see Jesus is God’s temple—He is fully God and fully man—He is the God man.   We are told by Paul in Colossians 1:19,

For in him (in Jesus) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 

In Revelation 21, when John is giving a future glimpse of the New Jerusalem, he says in v. 22,

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.

Jesus is the temple.  In Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.  God the Son took on flesh and came to earth to tabernacle with His people.  And so with that in mind, we see here that this prophesy made by Jesus in John 2 happens exactly as He said.  They did in fact destroy God’s temple by crucifying the Lord of Glory.  Yet though that’s the case, the Lord Jesus on the third day, just as he said, rebuilt God’s temple by rising again.