Jesus is literally “that one,” rendered “he” in most translations. Good News Translation uses the noun Jesus, since a new paragraph is introduced. Elsewhere in John’s Gospel “that one” also refers to Jesus (see 5.11; 7.11; 9.12,28,37; 19.21).

Jesus’ body may truly be spoken of as the temple of God, because it was through the person of Jesus that God fully revealed himself, and it is through encounter with Jesus that men meet and worship God.

The sentence But the temple Jesus was speaking about was his body is syntactically compressed. It may therefore be necessary to expand the statement, for example, “But when Jesus was speaking about the temple, he was talking about his body” or “But when Jesus said the temple, he really meant his body.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .