1 Corinthians 3:16

1Co_3:16-23

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

The two temples

Two points comprehend the apostles teaching in this chapter.

1. The foundation of Christian life and doctrine (1Co_3:11).

2. The form of Christian life and doctrine built thereon. It is to be worthy of the foundation (1Co_3:10; 1Co_3:12, &c.). Christian teachers have a covenant engagement--to erect a temple on a previously laid foundation. According to a specification, they are to use gold, &c. Pauls complaint is, that they appear not to have known the terms of their contract (text), and hence had departed from the true foundation, and consequently had developed a form of Christian life contrary to the form and Spirit of Christ. Note--

I. The Divine dwelling.

1. The Christian heart under the figure of a temple points back to Gods visible dwelling-place in Jerusalem.

(1) The former temple was the dwelling-place of Trinity. In the holy of holies the cloud was the memorial of the enduring mercy of the Father; in the outer courts the sacrifices typified the atonement of the Son, while the incense pointed to the sweet influence of the Spirit.

(2) The former temple was the treasury of sacred truth. All that symbolised the religious life of the Jews was kept in the ancient temple--Aarons rod that budded, indicating the perpetual freshness of the gospel; the golden pot of manna, indicating the nourishing properties of the gospel; the original copy of the law of Moses, indicating that the gospel is our directory. The gospel rod of Gods strength is treasured up in the Christian heart. The gospel food of Gods providing for the wilderness is received into the soul. The gospel, the perfect law, is hidden in the secret places of the heart. Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage, &c.

(3) The former temple was but a partial revelation of the Divine glory. Sin explains all that earlier worship; sin, too, explains all our later worship. And not till sin is destroyed will the Christian heart be a perfect temple, and full revelation of the glory of God.

2. Compare the Christian heart with the future, or heavenly temple.

(1) The central figure in the heavenly temple is Christ. The Lamb is in the midst of the throne, is the chief subject of their song, Worthy is the Lamb. He is the object of their highest worship, They cast their crowns at His feet. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God? Jesus in the midst of the throne of your affections; Jesus the object of your worship.

(2) In that heavenly temple there shall be no more curse (Rev_22:3); so in the Christian heart there is now no condemnation (Rom_8:1).

(3) In the heavenly temple there is no particular spot consecrated for worship (Rev_21:22), no set times, but it is all temple; so also in the human heart (Joh_4:21). Every place, season, faculty consecrated to worship.

II. The Divine indwelling. From the figure of the temple the apostle passes to the life of it, that which gives it its vitality. Observe the various methods of the Spirits manifestations in the Christian heart.

1. He is the Spirit of the new birth (Joh_3:6).

2. To the worker in the Kingdom of God He is the Spirit of new strength (Eph_3:16; Eph_1:17-18).

3. To the broken-hearted He is the Spirit, the Comforter. He is the Spirit to seal the covenant of the soul with its God (2Co_1:22).

4. He dwells in us--

(1) Through faith.

(2) By prayer. The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities.

(3) By obedience to the Divine will, He makes us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

(4) By the assurance of faith, the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God.

(5) By fruit-bearing, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, &c.

Conclusion:

1. The oneness of the Christian Church. Paul in the last chapter complained of divisions. In this he speaks of them all as built on one foundation, and growing up into one temple, having one source of life, &c.

2. Its sacredness (1Co_3:17). (D. Y. Currie.)

Temples of God

I. Every Christian is a dwelling-place for God. That God dwells in us is only possible from His dwelling in Christ, through whom we touch Him.

II. Christians, as temples, are to be manifestors of God. The meaning of temple is that there the indwelling Deity shall manifest Himself. God dwelling in our hearts reveals Himself--

1. To us ourselves.

2. To others around us by our conduct.

III. Christians, as temples, should be places of sacrifice. What is temple without worship? What is worship without sacrifice?

IV. Christians, as temples, are to be holy. Holiness is separation to Gods service--dedication. The idols of covetousness, idolatry, intolerance, drunkenness, &c. When God enters, all Dagons fall to the ground maimed and destroyed. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Gods spiritual temple

The ancient temple was not more glorious and admirable to the human eye than such societies should be to the eye of faith. And learned men think that latter part of Ezekiels prophecy, though very obscure, concerning the measuring of the temple, is nothing but the promise of the building of the Church in the New Testament in an heavenly and glorious manner. First, the materials for the temple were to be polished and fitted by art ere they could be made part of the building. We of ourselves have not faith, have not preparedness for such Church duties, till God doth enable us. Look we, therefore, how we come into the Church of God? How is it brought about that we are so? If there be nothing but nature and custom, or because we are born in such places. Thus it is here, whatsoever our societies and meetings are in reference to God it is wholly of His making. Secondly, the materials of the temple were very excellent and precious, of gold and silver, &c., not hay and stubble. The best stone, the best wood that would not putrify, and all things were covered over with gold, and the gold was to be pure gold; even the very snuffers were to be of gold. Now what did this represent, but to show what kind of people those should be who were of the Church of God? Thirdly, the temple was full of external glory. A magnificent place, admired by heathens. Now the glory of Christians is likewise great, but in a spiritual and heavenly way. The Church is all glorious within (Psa_45:13). The gospel that is preached is styled a glorious gospel (1Ti_1:11); and the Spirit of God the Spirit of glory (1Pe_4:14). It is promised that the glory of the second temple should far exceed that of the first (Hag_2:9). Now how was that made good? not in any outward glory, but because Christ in a spiritual manner did reform all those corrupt doctrines, and did sit as a refiner to purify the sons of Levi. This was glory to have the spiritual worship of God. Fourthly, the temple was in a peculiar manner holy in respect of other buildings. Now when we say it was holy, we do not mean an holiness inherent, as angels and men are holy, but of dedication and consecration, a relative holiness, being set apart by Gods special command to such a use. Fifthly, because of this relative holiness it was a capital crime to defile this temple. There were porters set at the gate to keep out all unclean things (2Ch_23:19). Lastly, that which was the glory of the temple and the life of it was Gods gracious presence. (A. Burgess.)

The Divine Spirit dwelling in the Church

I. That the Spirit of God is God.

II. That the Spirit of God dwells in His Church, And now to open this let us consider--First, what the phrase to dwell in the Church implieth. Now this phrase, to have the Spirit dwell in us, denoteth--First, the propriety that it hath to us, that we are His possession, as an house is a mans own, where He is Lord and Master. And this is worthy of consideration, that we who once were the devils, he dwelt in us, he ruleth in the hearts of the disobedient (Eph_2:1-22.), have now him expelled from us, and the Spirit of God taken us for His possession. So that herein is a wonderful change when the Spirit of God comes and takes possession of a people who before were captives to Satan, and led aside according to his will (2Ti_2:26). Secondly, when it is said the Spirit of God dwells in a people, it supposeth that He doth fashion and prepare them for Himself. For every lodging is not fit for so noble a guest, but as great men carry their rich furniture with them to have convenient lodgings, so also doth the Spirit of God raise up a people by illumination and sanctification to be a fit habitation for Him. Thirdly, when it is said the Spirit of God dwells in us, it denoteth the familiarity and condescending communion that God vouchsafeth unto His children. Fourthly, in that the Spirit of God is said to dwell, it denoteth a permanent and constant abode in His people. For this you must know, the Spirit of God is many times working where yet He doth not dwell. There is a great difference between transient motions and constant mansions of Gods Spirit. Fifthly, the Spirit dwelling in us doth denote the intimateness and inward efficacy it hath. It doth not only dwell with us, but in us, which denoteth great intimateness.

III. Now let us proceed to show how the Spirit of God dwells in His Church. Now several ways we may consider of the Spirits dwelling in the people of God. First, there is an essential dwelling, or a gracious dwelling, by a special manifestation of more peculiar favours; we do not speak here of an essential dwelling, for so the Spirit of God is everywhere (Psa_139:7). Secondly, when the Spirit of God is said to dwell in His Church, it may not only be understood of the gracious effects thereof, but also of His person likewise. Lastly, the Spirit of God dwells two ways in His Church--

1. In respect of wonderful and miraculous operations.

2. In respect of saving and sanctifying graces.

IV. In the next place, let us consider the special works and effects of Gods Spirit in His Church. But to the particulars. First, the Spirit of God dwells in us after a saving manner in the general, by way of sanctification of the spirit, soul, and body, even the whole man (1Th_5:1-28). But more particularly, the Spirit of God dwells in a saving manner. First, by illumination, and opening of the dark mind of every man. Secondly, the Spirit of God quickens and reviveth those graces that by regeneration were infused to us. Thirdly, the Spirit of God doth enable us to kill and mortify sin (Rom_8:1-39.). Fourthly, the Spirit of God doth bestow a filial and ingenuous spirit upon believers, whereby they are carried out upon evangelical and gospel grounds in their obedience to God. Fifthly, the Spirit of God works comfort and joy in the hearts of the godly. Hence He is called the Comforter (Joh_15:26). Sixthly, that we may have this boldness and joy. The Spirit of God hath another effect, which is, to witness and seal unto our spirits that we are the children of God. Seventhly, the Spirit of God worketh wonderful support, and even glorious rejoicing, in all afflictions and tribulations. Lastly, the Spirit of God doth work the prayers of Gods people. (A. Burgess.)

The believer a temple of God

Consider--

I. The people of God indwelt by God. The Spirit of God dwelleth in you.

1. We must accept that as literally true. The Spirit of God is a person, the attributes of personality are ascribed to Him. The Old Testament prepared for this teaching. I will put My Spirit within you. Then, in the New Testament, our Lord says, I will pray the Father, &c. As God the Father pardons sin, and God the Son atoned for sin, God the Spirit dwells in us to cleanse from sin.

2. This is granted to the lowliest spiritual condition. Indeed, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His. Many spiritual blessings we have to wait and even strive for, but this is given at the beginning. I dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, and that is the first stage of Christian life.

3. This represents a permanent state. God comes not to tarry for a night, but This is My rest for ever, here will I dwell, for I have desired it. What a vision all this gives of infinite condescension.

II. This indwelling makes each of Gods people a temple. That implies--

1. Divine consecration. Other buildings might be put to other use, but everything under the shadow of the shekinah was inscribed Holiness unto the Lord. And that is the Divine emblem of the redeemed man; he is to be amongst men like a church in a city, the mirthful tide may beat against its gates, and the stream of business ever pass its doors, but it were pollution for either to cross its threshold, it and all within are Gods. The less distinction we make between the Church and the world the further we go from Gods purpose concerning us.

2. Divine testimony. For the temple stands amid the din and strife of the streets a silent witness for God. Such is the Christian amongst men; he is a church in the world. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His, and do you think He can dwell in a soul and the world not know it!

3. Divine revealings. God in the soul. What spiritual visions, what views of the King, what subtle voices, what inward brightness does it not suggest! The Kings daughter is all glorious within. And if He be there, the angels, His attendants, are there; angels of holy thought and affection and desire, making sacred melody, and reverently listening for their Lords will.

III. The fact of this indwelling is often forgotten by Gods people. How often do we need the Divine appeal, Know ye not, &c. For example--

1. When we doubt the Divine care. What! know ye not that ye are the temple of God? Will He not care for His own; will He dwell amid our needs and not meet them?

2. When we mourn an absent God. Know ye not, &c. He has not gone, He is in your soul, you carry within you the well of water springing up into everlasting life. Only unmourned sin has hindered His manifestation, and that hindrance can be removed and the shining of His face appear again.

3. When we shrink from setting holy example.

4. When we make light of sin. (C. New.)

Humanity the temple of God

Let us look at man as--

I. A Divine temple. A temple is a special--

1. Residence of God. God is in all material objects, but especially in moral minds.

2. Manifestation of God. God is seen everywhere, but never so fully as in the mind of man. We are all His offspring.

3. Meeting place with God. The temple at Jerusalem was specially such. There will I commune with thee. Man can meet God in nature, but not so fully and consciously as in mind,

II. As a Divine temple that might be destroyed. The destruction of a temple does not mean the destruction of all its parts, but the destruction of its use. Man might live for ever and yet be destroyed as the special residence, manifestation, and meeting-place of God. But this destruction is not by God. If any man. Alas! men are destroying this temple--their natures. An awful work this!

III. As the destroyer of that which will be destroyed by God Himself. Destroy, if not his existence, all that makes existence worth having, or even tolerable. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The Christian Church the temple of God the Holy Spirit

I. The Christian Church is Gods temple.

1. The temple of God is a phrase used to signify something dedicated to Jehovah, whether a material or a spiritual building.

(1) The temple in Jerusalem.

(2) The human nature of Christ (Joh_2:19-22; Col_2:9).

(3) Heaven (Rev_7:15).

(4) The Christian Church. This is the spiritual house of God, composed of all faithful souls.

2. In writing to the Church at Corinth, the apostle remembered the pride that city had in its temples whose glory fired all its people with delight. All of this grandeur was displayed for what? For senseless idols who could hear no prayer nor impart any blessing. The gospel came to destroy all false systems of religion, and to build up a more glorious temple of God than any heathen or Jewish temple ever was before.

3. Now, if the Christians in Corinth lost much delight and cherished associations in forsaking their temples, if the Jewish converts, too, lost all their pride in the glory departed from their temple, the apostles argument is that God hath His own glorious temple still on earth.

4. Although this glorious work is sometimes invisible to mans eye, yet it is all comprehended by the Divine mind, and is daily extending in the world.

5. Now this good work is Gods and not mans. Human skill may rear classic temples, but no power less than Divine can take a rough block of human sinfulness, purify it from its defilements, and gloriously prepare and polish it for some fitting place in the spiritual temple of the living God.

II. The holy Spirit dwells in the Christian temple. Heathen classics believed that their divinities resided in their temples. Advancing a step nearer truth, some of the wise men of old taught that a good man himself was a temple in which the divinity dwelt. Now these were glimmerings of Divine truth.

1. It might well be argued that to dwell in any place denotes a living being and a distinct personality. Mans soul dwells in his body, and this constitutes him a real living person; the Spirit of God dwells in the Christian soul, and animates by Divine power all the living Church.

2. God clearly taught this truth to the Hebrew Church (Eze_36:25-28), though its fulness of blessing was only bestowed in Christian days. If any man of rank or power sat down familiarly in some poor cottage how the world would marvel! Especially if in his condescension he bestowed on it some of his own treasures as gifts of his power. How much more, then, ought we to be astonished and delighted that God, the Eternal Spirit, visits earths dwellings of dust.

3. But the infidel theories of the day banish God from all His own works. Yet if I behold some great building, I naturally inquire who was the architect, and who dwells or acts there? Apply this illustration--

(1) To creation. Will any man, then, tell me that this glorious temple is the mere work of chance, that no Almighty Spirit regulates or minds it?

(2) To a living Church. Can it be possible that this is no work of God? Has not Gods Spirit dwelt in it, creating its life, diffusing its light, and commanding its heavenly power, love, peace, and joy, and making it the centre of rich blessing, humanity, charity, and civilisation to the world?

(3) To the Holy Spirit dwelling in the Christian soul.

III. The obligations and blessings of these important truths.

1. As you are bought with the price of Christs blood, and sealed as His by the Holy Spirit, you are called to glorify Him both in body and soul. As Christians are Gods temple collectively as the body of Christ, and individually as members of Christ, how then ought they to live in holiness, peace, and love!

2. Who can tell the invaluable blessings and gifts of the Holy Spirit thus dwelling in the heart? In short, they are Divine light, guidance, help, and comfort. (J. G. Angley, M. A.)

The house beautiful

Taking the idea of the text and looking upon the human form divine as the house beautiful, we would remark that--

I. The house should give signs of its superior occupant. We judge of the inmate by the residence. If everything around is disorderly, we attribute it to the character of the tenant. If the paths are clean and the flower-beds are trimmed, we know that there is taste and cultivation of the spirit of beauty on the part of the occupier. So we judge regarding the human house. Sin makes its marks upon the countenance. Care traces its wrinkles on the face. The house should be--

1. Kept clean. Sanctification is spiritual cleanliness. Christ will cleanse. And the soul made pure will manifest that purity in the outer life. The light of God in the soul will illumine the darkness around.

2. Well furnished. The Christian needs to be ready to account for his faith. He must be furnished for every good word and work. His mind should be stored only with remembrance-pictures upon which he can look with tranquility and delight.

II. We are not freeholders or absolute possessors of that house--we only have it on lease. It is but a temporary temple. The beams and rafters will be taken down, and the tenant will depart.

III. The tenant is more precious than the house he lives in. The soul is of infinitely more worth than the body. Fair though the house may be, more beautiful still is the tenant, radiant with the love that God bestows. (Homiletic Monthly.)

The nature and offices of the Holy Spirit

I. His personality. To dwell in a temple is a personal act. We understand by person a distinct, subsistent, intelligent being, as distinguished from a mere property or attribute. It is quite necessary to draw this distinction, otherwise we might imagine the Spirit of God to be nothing but a Divine power, virtue, or efficacy, resident in God, or derived from God. There are, certainly, attributed to the Holy Spirit faculties and operations which can only be attributed to a person, and not to a quality. He possesses understanding, The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Affections are ascribed to Him, when we are bidden not to grieve Him, and when the Israelites are said to have provoked Him. He teaches men; guides them into all truth; can be blasphemed, and Christians are baptized into His name equally with that of the Father and the Son, whose personality are not disputed.

II. His divinity. If it be a personal act to dwell in a temple, there must, it would seem, be Deity in the person who, by His indwelling, makes the temple the temple of God. But we have clear evidence in abundance that He must be actually God. What inherent property and perfection of the Divine nature is there which is not attributed to the Holy Spirit? What operation is there, transcending that of a finite and created thing, which the Spirit is not said to perform?

III. His offices. If the residence of the Spirit in a man convert him into the temple of God, it is evident that the Spirit must be a renewing and sanctifying agent. Man being naturally inhabited only by what is evil, therefore a work of regeneration must be effected ere he can be dwelt in by One infinitely holy. Here we may observe that the office of the Spirit, in the economy of redemption, is a fresh proof of His Divinity. Man having been born in sin, and shapen in iniquity, it is the office of the Holy Ghost to effect such a change that the sinner may be described as born again, and made a new man in Christ Jesus. It were even nothing that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, if there were no supernatural agency to apply to ourselves the expiatory virtue of Christs sacrifice. It is the office of the Spirit to translate us from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of Gods dear Son; and having once made us fellow-citizens with the saints, He equips us for spiritual conflict, enables us for every spiritual duty, and furnishes us with every spiritual consolation. Indeed, it were little to be brought within the circle of the family of God, if we were not also kept in it by the power through which we were first introduced. But this power never deserts those who give themselves to its guidance. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The Spirits dwelling

I. The fact. Ye are the temple, &c. In three ways

1. By building. No one is by nature a temple. The Holy Ghost quarries the stones, shapes the pillars, constructs the edifice.

2. By furnishing. He supplies the good thoughts, good motives, good principles, which actuate the Christians life.

3. By inhabiting. The Spirit does not build a house for the devils home. It is for Himself.

II. The inferences. It is implied that there should be, if we wish the Spirit to continue--

1. Fitness. The house must be kept in such a condition as is suitable for His presence.

2. Supremacy. God cannot share the kingdom.

3. Unanimity. How can two dwell together, except they be agreed? (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit

This indwelling is a profound mystery, but it is the characteristic glory of the Christian dispensation. Our Lord distinguishes between the work of the Holy Spirit before and after Pentecost: He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. Once He came upon them, now He is in them. And where the Spirit dwells is holy ground. Of that indwelling the temple of Solomon gives us a prophetic glimpse. There shone a heavenly light, the symbol of the Holy Spirit who was to dwell in every true Christian, not as a passing visitor, but as a perpetual guest. And where He comes, He brings a new nature and capacities. He gives a new direction to the heart and will. He opens the understanding, and bestows a new power for holiness and for service. This indwelling is here set forth as an antidote.

I. To party spirit.

1. The love of faction which marked the politics of Corinth had crept into their religion. They nursed a temper of bitterness which hindered true work for God, injured their inner life, and grieved the Holy Spirit. Therefore St. Paul asks with surprise, Know ye not, &c. Their lack of charity helped to destroy the Church of God. It broke up its unity, it killed its spirituality. It provoked God to judge them. It was a desecration which the Holy God could not ignore.

2. The bane of the Church still is its unhappy divisions. Still Christian scorns Christian in proportion as the differences which divide them are trivial and unimportant. If the remembrance of our great mission fail to move us, at least let the tact that the Spirit of God dwells in us do so. If Moses appealed to the striving Israelites, Sirs, ye are brethren, may not we appeal, Sirs, know ye not that ye are a temple of God, &c.

II. To disloyalty to God.

1. Some of the Christians at Corinth knew well the freedom of Christs gospel. But there was a danger lest they should grow proud of their light and their liberty, and despise every barrier between themselves and sin. Therefore St. Paul sternly calls them to a life of separation from all evil (2Co_6:14-16).

2. The warning is not unneeded by English Christians. There are forces at work in society not unlike those at Corinth. Our charity is apt to degenerate into indifference. A feeble and uncertain grasp of truth leads too often to acquiescence in a policy or in practices which the conscience condemns. When we are tempted to take as our friend the godless, simply because they are clever or rich; when we are invited to put our hands to any work upon which we cannot ask the blessing of God, or to join any association which may make money at the cost of the character or the well-being of our fellow-men--let us remember that to touch the unclean thing is to defile that temple and to grieve the indwelling Spirit.

III. To impurity. In the foul atmosphere of that heathen city the Christians were exposed to fearful temptations, and needed an adequate motive and a superhuman power, if they were to keep themselves pure. And such they had (1Co_6:19-20). There are symptoms in the social life of England which cannot but excite the anxiety of every one who loves his country and is loyal to God.

1. If our literature is free from the coarseness of earlier centuries, it is too often pervaded by a subtle taint which poisons almost imperceptibly the imagination of its readers; while the silent and deadly effect of the publication in our newspapers of things of which it is a shame even to speak in secret, has corrupted the purity of thousands of souls.

2. The fashion of treating marriage flippantly, and the fact that leading reviews insert articles which deliberately question its sanctity, tend to strike at the very root of morality and home life.

3. The growing luxury which has accompanied the accumulation of wealth, brings with it its own Nemesis in the relaxing of our moral fibre.

4. And, while rejoicing in every honest attempt to remove all the disabilities under which women have suffered, I venture to think that the tendency to destroy the distinction between the sexes must help, in the long run, to rob a womans life of those graces which have been the secret of her highest influence, and her most invulnerable shield. Now to us, exposed to these dangers, the fact of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, when once realised, becomes a great safeguard, and a mighty incentive to a pure and self-restrained life. (F. J. Chevasse, M. A.)

The indwelling of the Spirit

He, uncreated love, pours out into our souls all our power of Divine love for Him and for each other. He, uncreated wisdom, orders our thoughts secretly. He, uncreated truth, dissipates from our mind the mist which we have gathered round ourselves. He, uncreated strength, instrengthens us to bear or to overcome all evil, and to will mightily all good. He, uncreated holiness, cleanses by His presence an habitation for Himself, and hallows by His abiding the dwelling-place, which He has repaired, that He might enter in; which He has enlarged, that it might contain Him. He Himself, within us, informs our memory that we may remember Him, enlightens our minds that we may know Him, moves our wills that we may choose Him and obey Him. He Himself, within us, quickens our diligence that we may seek Him, gives us wisdom that we may find Him, perseverance that we may attain unto Him. Nor is it our spiritual nature only which He so hallows. Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost. Yes, these poor bodies, which hunger and thirst, are heavy and weary; which shall return to corruption, which shall be subject to the dishonour of the grave--these God has chosen to be His dwelling-place; within these He is forming that glorious body which shall be after the resurrection; with these He unites Himself now, that they may be full of His glory hereafter. They shall shine above the glory of the sun, because they shall be filled with the light of His divinity. They shall know no decay; for He shall be their immortality. They shall know no weariness; for He shall be their life. They shall know no suffering; for they shall be made impassible, since He is not subject to suffering. They shall obey, unhindering, every motion of His will, for they shall be spiritual through His indwelling Spirit. How, then, should we reverence this our mysterious being. How should we reverently use the eyes; how keep them from all wrong use and all unlawful sight, which are, through the light of God, to see God! How should we keep the tongue from evil words, which, moved by the Spirit of God, is endlessly to sing the new song! How should we guard the heart from evil affections, which God has claimed as His own, and bidden us to give it wholly to Him; the soul which is capacious enough to contain God, yet not large enough to contain the world and God! (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)

If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy … which temple ye are.--

The human soul Gods truest temple

I. The human soul Gods truest temple. This truth expresses one of the great changes introduced by Christianity. Why has Christianity abolished the one local house and consecrated man himself as the dwelling-place of God? Because--

1. God is equally present everywhere. Though recognised in Judaism, this never broke forth into its wonderful glory until Christ appeared. Men feared God, and the shadow of that fear led them to fancy Him far away. The whole tendency of Christs life was to wear down the barrier between God and man. He showed that nature was but the living work of an ever-present Father. But although equally present, God is not equally manifested everywhere. Thus God is revealed in His worship, but who sees Him? Not the careless or the carnal; but to holy men spiritual emotion has hallowed strange places, and made them temples. To Jacob, the stones became a temple. To Peter, the mountain where Christs glory shone became the Holy Mount. Nathaniel would never pass the fig-tree without feeling it to be a place of prayer. Perhaps we all have our holy places; the chamber where we first really prayed, &c. These are our earthly temples, because there God has been most clearly manifested to us.

2. God is most clearly manifested in humanity. Christ, pre-eminently, was the glorious temple in which God dwelt, and through whom the Divine glory was revealed to the world. There was the holy of holies; there the altar which made every other altar fire grow pale and expire.

II. The manner of realising this. Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (verse 16). Assuming that, how may we attain more of the full presence of God in our souls? In man there is a trinity of power, and in order to become a temple all these must be consecrated.

1. Intellect to realise Gods presence, To awaken the soul to energy you must think on Him. Go, then, and stretch every faculty of your souls to realise His glory and His presence.

2. Emotion. Thought is vain apart from this.

3. Action. Thought and feeling are both vain without this. Work from your emotion, and ultimately you may do all from it. Thus man becomes a temple of God--intellect the holy place; the hearts emotions the altar of sacrifice; the actions of life the revelation of both.

III. The results of the realisation.

1. God manifested to the world. They say our temples are being deserted; that the young and the labourer are, going away. Is not this because we are not temples? It is vain to build stone temples to God unless we become His living ones.

2. Elevation of life above the sinful, trifling, earthly. His is no vain life who has, through the Spirit, become a temple of Jehovah! In the temple at Jerusalem there was a veil; at the death of Christ that veil was rent. In the temple of every human heart there hangs a veil; death will rend it, and will reveal either the glorious image of the Father, or the image of the demon-god for which it has lived. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)

Defiling the temple of God

Why false doctrines are a defiling. First, from the pure nature of Gods truth, and His worship, which falsehoods do stain and take away the glory of. Oh, then, how humble, tender, and careful ought men to be! Are the truths and ordinances of God by institution, and in their original so pure? Come not, then, with thy foul hands to handle such precious things. Secondly, they are called defilements and pollutions, because the truths and Church of God are not only pure, but dedicated and appropriated to Him, as the only object. Thirdly, errors and heresies may well be called defilements, because they are a disease, and so spread over the Church. Fourthly, they are defilements, because they pollute the conscience, mind, and heart, and whole life of a man. Hence you have that phrase, Men of corrupt minds (1Ti_6:5; 2Ti_3:8). Lastly, Corrupt doctrines are called defilements, to show how loathsome and abominable they should be to us. We have despatched the sin supposed, we come to the punishment proposed--Him shall God destroy. Let us consider the aggravation of this destruction. First, it is an eternal destruction; a destruction that is always destroying, and yet the party is not extinguished. Secondly, it is a universal destruction in a moral sense. There is not the least mixture of any joy, of any hope. Thirdly, it is an inevitable destruction. God will destroy; who can stop Gods hand? (A. Burgess.)

The mystical temple

There was, under the law--

1. The outward court, where the people did stand, and the inner temple, into which none but the priests did enter. So with a Christian; there is the outward temple of his body (1Co_6:19), and the holy of holies, his soul, where none but Christ our High Priest must come.

I. The resemblances between a believers soul and a temple.

1. All the materials were fitted for the building of the temple: the timber was to be sawn, the stones to be hewn and polished. So by nature we are not qualified for a temple, we are unhewn and unpolished. So far from preparing ourselves for a temple, we indispose ourselves; but God hews us by His prophets (Hos_2:5), and cuts and carves us by afflictions, and so makes us meet for a spiritual temple.

2. The temple was very magnificent (1Ki_6:32). So the soul of a believer is an illustrious temple. God Himself brings His glory into it (Psa_45:13). Christ never admired the goodly stones of the visible, but admired the glory of the spiritual temple (1Pe_3:4).

3. The temple was a place set apart for Gods peculiar worship; it was separated from all other places. So a believers heart is consecrated ground, and set apart for Gods service (Psa_4:3; Psa_119:38).

4. The temple was a place of Gods special presence: He did there command His blessings. So in a spiritual heart God wonderfully manifests His presence: there He gives forth the influences of His grace, the communications of His love.

5. The temple was adorned with curious pictures; so the temple of the heart hath Gods image in it (Col_3:10); is drawn by the pencil of the Holy Ghost.

6. The temple had a fire burning on the altar; so a believers heart is the altar on which there is a sacred fire still burning (Rom_12:13; Psa_119:97).

7. The temple, being an hallowed place, was to be kept clean (2Ch_29:15; 2Ch_23:3). So must this (2Ch_7:1).

II. This Divine temple of the soul differs from other temples, and hath a transcendent excellency above them.

1. Other material temples, though of a beautiful structure, yet have no life in them; but a believer is a living temple (1Pe_2:5). Hypocrites who have only a name to live (Rev_3:1), are not temples, but tombs.

2. This is an heavenly temple; other temples are constituted of earthly materials. The believers soul was breathed from heaven, and that which is in heaven is to be found in Him. In heaven there is--

(1) Light (Col_1:12), so in a saint there is the light of knowledge (Eph_5:8).

(2) Love (1Jn_4:7), so a saints heart is a temple of love (Joh_21:15).

(3) Joy (Mat_25:23), so a saint hath joy in believing (Rom_15:13).

3. He is an everlasting temple; other temples are of a perishable nature. God will not demolish His own temple. Christs blood cements all the stones together, and as long as the foundation and cement hold, so long this temple shall last, and that is for ever.

III. Uses.

1. Of information.

(1) See the difference between the godly and the wicked: the heart of the godly is a temple; the heart of the wicked is a cage of unclean birds (Rev_18:2).

(2) See wherein a great part of the nations safety lies; namely, in having store of these spiritual temples. In ancient times temples were places of safety. The saints are Englands sanctuaries.

(3) If the saints are the temples of God, then how dangerous is it for any to abuse and injure them!

2. Of examination. All Gods temples are made in some measure like Him.

(1) God is a spirit. Are we spiritual?

(2) God is pure. Have we holy and chaste affections?

(3) God is merciful. What shall we say to them who have no mercy?

3. Of exhortation. You who are the temples of God.

(1) Do not defile Gods temple (verse 17).

(a) By intermixing with the wicked. Bad company is defiling (1Co_5:9).

(b) By uncleanness. This sin defiles both the outward temple and the inner.

(c) By error. Heresies are as the leprosy, which defiled the house in which it was (Lev_14:39).

(2) Be as temples.

(a) Do temple work. Offer up spiritual sacrifices (1Pe_2:5)--of prayer; of a broken heart (Psa_51:17); of praise (Psa_50:23).

(b) Study temple purity. The temple was very holy. So Christians. Holiness beautifies Gods temples, and is the cherisher of a Christians peace.

4. Of consolation.

(1) Such as are Gods spiritual temples shall have much of Gods company (2Co_6:16).

(2) Such as are gracious temples shall one day be glorious temples. (T. Watson.)

The holiness of Gods temple

Take the figure in connection with any of the kinds of habitation spoken of in Scripture--

1. The home.

2. The tent.

3. The palace.

4. The temple--it exhibits a most comforting truth to us.

To be Gods home or dwelling, His tent or tabernacle, His royal palace, His chosen temple, of which that on Moriah was a mere shadow, how solemn the admonition as to personal holiness conveyed to us by this! In Gods temple there is the blood, the fire, the smoke, the water, the lamps, the incense, the shewbread, the cherubim, the glory--all consecrated things, and all pertaining to what is heavenly!

I. What intimacy with God. Acquaintanceship with Him who has made our heart His home is the least which could be expected. He must be no stranger to us. There must not merely be reconciliation--for that may consist with some degree of distance--but intimacy, peaceful friendship, loving acquaintanceship. If God be our inmate, how intimate ought we to be with Him in all respects! Of an old Scotch minister it is said (as the finishing stroke in his character), He was one very intimate with God. So let it be said of us.

II. What calmness of spirit. In all false religion there is excitement, in true religion calmness. Man is never more truly and deeply calm than when filled with the Spirit of God. The tendency of much that is called religion in our day is to agitation, bustle, noise, unnatural fervour. God keeps His temple in perfect peace.

III. What solemnity of soul If God be inhabiting us as His temple we ought surely to be solemn men--called to a solemn life, speaking solemn words, manifesting a solemn deportment. Should the worlds rude laughter echo through the aisles of the Divine temple? or its uproarious mirth ring through the holy of holies?

IV. What recollectedness of thought and feeling. With God dwelling in us, shall we allow wandering thoughts or forgetfulness of the Divine presence to prevail. Let us gather up our thoughts and keep them gathered.

V. What spirituality and unworldliness. God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. We need the spiritual heart, shutting out the world from a shrine which Jehovah has entered and made His own. If we are temples of the holy Ghost, and if His temples are holy, then are not such things as the following shut out?--

1. Vanity. How inconsistent 1

2. Pleasure. Can a lover of pleasure be a temple of the Holy Ghost?

3. Politics. What have the poor party politics of this world to do with the worship of this glorious temple? Can the smoke and dust of the world commingle with the incense of the golden altar?

4. Covetousness. Absorption even in lawful business is inconsistent with our being temples of God. Let us not grieve that Spirit whose temple we are. Let us allow Him to fill us wholly, and to cast out all that is unbefitting the holiness and glory of His habitation.

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co 3:16-17. Know ye not, &c. — As if he had said, You should also lake heed what doctrine you deliver, lest by teaching what is false, unimportant, or improper to be taught, you should defile or destroy the temple of God; that ye — True believers, genuine Christians; are the temple of God — Whether considered collectively as a church, (Eph 2:21; 1Ti 3:15,) or as individuals and members of one, (1Co 6:19; 2Co 6:16; Eph 2:22; Heb 3:6; 1Pe 2:5,) being set apart from profane uses, and dedicated to his service, among whom, and in whom, he manifests his gracious presence by his Spirit. See on Rom 8:9. If any man defile, corrupt — Or destroy rather, (as it seems the word φθειρει should be rendered,) that is, should divide and scatter a Christian church or society, by schisms or unscriptural doctrines, or leaven with error, and lead into sin, a real Christian; him shall God destroy — Punish with eternal condemnation and wrath; so that he shall not be saved at all, not even as through fire: for the temple of God is holy — Consecrated to him, separated from all pollution, and to be considered as peculiarly sacred; and therefore it is an awful thing to do any thing which tends to destroy it. Which temple ye are — Called and intended to be such.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

1Co_3:16.—A temple (R.V.) misses, or denies, the typology binding Old Testament and New Testament together here. A case where, as often (e.g. 1Co_11:20), one of the great leading facts of the Old Covenant is divested of its temporary, local robing and embodiment, and brought forward into the new world of the New Testament, to find a new embodiment in the Church. The old building has gone; the new shrine where God dwells on earth is growing, rising, every day. A local Church, and still more the aggregate Church, is the New Testament form of the old Temple idea. It is the Temple to-day. This a collective Temple; in 1Co_6:19-20 an individual application of the same idea is found. The word here is that which signifies, not the whole structure inclusive of the surrounding courtyard, but only the actual Temple building itself. “In” is here practically “among”; as distinguished from the indwelling in the man, 1Co_6:19 (see Appended Note from Evans).

1Co_3:17.—Defile and destroy, same word; combining “impair,” “mar,” “ruin,” “destroy.”

1Co_3:18.—Cf. 1Co_15:33 for the thought (not for the word); men seem to persuade themselves that they shall somehow evade the penalty of sin, although others do not escape. Thinks.—As 1Co_8:2; not with any hesitation, but with much confidence. Among you.—And yet taking his place, and holding his own, as a wise man of the world “in the world.” “Can’t be done! Incompatible things altogether!” The connection between inflated self-esteem and a slavish submission to party leaders is exposed in 1Co_6:6. Surely no implied caution to, or censure on, Apollos!

1Co_3:19.—Note the small change of translation. Quotation of words of Eliphaz, from Job_5:13. [On the general principle of such a quotation being taken as part of what “is written,” see Homily on xv. 33, § 1.]

1Co_3:20.—Psa_94:11. “Reasonings” (R.V.).

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—1Co_3:16-20

The Temple of God.—Very little in this paragraph which is not dealt with elsewhere. For 1Co_3:16-17 see, e.g., 1Co_6:18-20; for 1Co_3:18-20 see, e.g., 1Co_1:18 sqq. Note, however, that the Temple is here collective, the whole Church; in 1Co_6:18-20 it is individual—indeed, the very body of the Christian man.

I. Note how, from paragraph to paragraph, the illustrations change.—In 1–4 Paul is the “nursing father” (Isa_49:23); the Church is the house where “the holy seed” is growing up, or ought to be, into strength and ripeness of godliness. In 1Co_3:5 figure is dropped, unless “ministers” be a figure. Paul and his friend and successor Apollos are employés of God, enrolled in His service, to bring men to Christ and to faith in Him; John Baptist-like, to bring Bridegroom and Bride together. There has been “a division of labour,” and the thought is made pictorial in 1Co_3:6. Paul and his fellow-worker are seen toiling each at his task in God’s field or in God’s vineyard—“labourers in the vineyard,” each of whom is to receive “whatsoever is right” according to his work. [There is more in the Scripture than was in the Scribe. The mind of the Spirit is often fuller than any thought in the mind of the human writer. Yet the use of the illustration goes so little beyond the division of tasks amongst the qualified workers, and the payment according to results and fidelity, that an expositor may hesitate to fill out these two hints with the typology of the Vine and the Vineyard of God, found, e.g., in Psalms 80; Isa_5:2; Ezekiel 15; Ezekiel 17; Mat_21:28; Mat_21:33, sqq.; Luk_13:6 (where the two figures for Israel are conjoined); and, with most profound significance, Joh_15:1, and Mat_26:20 (adding, perhaps, 1Co_9:7).] Then again the picture changes; as the “dissolving-view picture” fades out when another is superposed upon it, so the busy “labourers” at their “husbandry” have scarcely been shown to us before the field has faded and a “building” is rising as we watch. There is no doubt who is the Architect; whose is the great, leading, essential Idea of such a house. It is a busy scene. Not Paul or Apollos only are “workers together with God” this time. Every Corinthian teacher, every Corinthian believer, is a co-worker too. Paul has done his part of the work; “well and truly laid” does this Master-mason declare his foundation to be. Yet more truly the “foundation” is bed-rock; of God’s “laying,” in the prehistoric ages of a wider than earthly history (Rev_13:8; 1Pe_1:20).

“The Church’s one Foundation

Is Jesus Christ the Lord.”

What Paul or Cephas may lay is rather the lowest courses of the masonry, which, in their turn, rest upon this “Rock of Ages” (Isa_26:4, margin). It is mercy and blessing to man that he is permitted, privileged, to be a worker “together with God”; but we touch the fringe of The Great Problem in all human thinking—the problem of Evil—when we see how this has entailed the invariable consequence that the design of the Great Architect never gets fairly carried out. Nor is it only that the workers blunder or are innocently incompetent; the deviation from the design of the Great Builder has a moral character. The material is bad; the building is careless; the work will be fit for nothing but the fire—very much of it. In our paragraph the building is specialised in its character. What we saw as a great house rising is now the Temple of God. And then the figure drops once more. Upon the screen are portraits; Corinthians strutting themselves in their fancied “wisdom”; He who knoweth men pronouncing His verdict: “Fools! You are only setting a trap for your own feet!” And the chapter leads up to the last solemn sentences in which is recited God’s “grant” of all men, all things, to His Church, to the individual Christian. A party said at Corinth, “We are of Christ.” The truth is far wider than that. They all “are Christ’s”; He is not “divided” (1Co_1:13); He belongs to no one party; all the parties belong to Him; as yet, all the “schisms” at Corinth have not cut off any of them from Him. The seemingly so humble “We are of Christ” too easily passes over into the miserably exclusive “We are of Christ.” “Ye are all Christ’s; all that is His is yours; all things are yours.”

II. The Church is the Temple of God.—[N.B. the, not a.] Fulfilling the age-long truth that God loves to dwell amongst men. “God with us” is the keynote in which, if Sin had not put all things out of tune, the story of the relations of God and man would have run on in one lovely strain of most perfect music. He planted His Tent in the midst of the tents of Israel in the wilderness; He accepted the Royal Palace built for Him in His capital, Jerusalem, by His viceroy Solomon. Men looked from their housetops in the city across to the Temple; they hushed their thought as they passed beneath the boundary walls of its outer court—“The King, Jehovah, is within there!” And when their sin had cost them the presence of the occupying Shekinah-cloud, the Palace stood still, a witness to the desire of the heart of God to dwell amongst men. [All this is carried out in chap, 6, where see.] The word used is that for the actual Temple building, the Naos or Shrine. Around this lay broad outer courts, the outermost and largest being open to the world, the Court of (even) the Gentiles. It was an ill day for the Church when it added a great outer court, the Court of the World. In a true sense, perhaps, like the Court of the Gentiles, it may be included in the Hieron. The outer Court of the World does stand in a true relation to God. But the ill-day is when the court of the baptized, or unbaptized, world is counted part of the Naos; when the sacred name which belongs to the Shrine only is extended to the outer court, to the great confusion of thought and discipline and practice. “Ye are the Naos.” The Church with the “indwelling” of the “Spirit of God” is the present-day embodiment and exhibition of God’s Thought. [Not the last; the last but one. The last and most perfect is in Rev_21:3. And in heaven to-day is another, concurrent, exhibition of it, where He sits who is, and will eternally be, the God-man. (The two are one: Eph_1:23).] The individual and the collective modifications of Paul’s illustrations are combined in 1Pe_2:5. The whole building is instinct with Life, because every single stone is “living.” Peter’s figure hardly bears, even in a reader’s mind, to be put into visible shape. The truth is clear. The Temple is built up of temples. Men whose body is a temple, and they alone, build up the Temple of God. But there is a presence of God which specially belongs to the Church as such.

III. “Defile” and “destroy” are the same word.—A vox media, for which Evans suggests “mar.” Sin, as so often is repaid in kind. It shapes, as well as earns, its own punishment. [In part, a sinner makes his own kind of hell.] The man who does anything in the corporate life of the Church, which is a “grief” and an offence to the Divine Tenant of the Temple of to-day, shall find that he has grieved the Spirit of his personal life. It is the One Spirit of Holiness who everywhere, in church or soul, makes its most grievous penalty His own withdrawal. Let the life of the body depart, and from that moment it begins to be “marred” and “destroyed” by disintegrating moral corruption. In this particular instance the “defiling” is done by the introduction of party spirit, and by the introduction of the “wood, hay, stubble” into the structure, whether of Church order or Christian doctrine, or personal character and life; not to add by the envying and strife which proved the Corinthians “yet carnal.” Let every man in Corinth watch not only lest he offend against the holiness of his personal Christian life, but be jealous of anything which might impinge upon the corporate holiness of The Church of Christ. Let every Corinthian enrol himself in the honourable Guild of the Temple-guardians [lit. “Temple-sweepers,” Act_19:35] of the shrine of the great God and His Spirit.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

VI—THE RUPTURE OF THE CHURCH BY PARTY SPIRIT PROVOKES HEAVY JUDGMENT. THE RENUNCIATION OF OUR OWN WISDOM THE CONDITION OF TRUE WISDOM. THE LOFTY TITLE OF CHRISTIANS TO ALL THE INSTRUMENTALITIES AND MEANS OF SALVATION

1Co_3:16-23

16Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, [God’s temple15] and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 17If any man defile [destroy] the temple of God, him16 shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are [of which sort are ye]. 18Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world,17 let him become a fool, that he may be [become] wise. 19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness 20with God: for it is written, He [that] taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. 21Therefore let no man glory in men: for all things are yours; 22Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are [om. are18] yours; 23And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

[“He passes to another argument against the sin of ranging themselves in opposite factions under human leaders, particularly such as corrupt the essential purity and fundamental soundness of the spiritual fabric of the Church.” Words.].

1Co_3:16. Know ye not that ye are God’s temple?—It will hardly do to connect these words directly with the preceding—if for no other reason than simply because the threat of destruction made in the following verse stands in direct contradiction to the promise of salvation there held forth, showing that Paul has a new case in mind. [Olshausen, however, regards the Apostle as simply intensifying and carrying out still further his previous figure. The edifice is now spoken of as God’s temple, and the guilt of desecrating or injuring the building by introducing incoherent materials into its structure is enhanced in proportion. And still further, the taught as well as the teachers are also here brought into view. So substantially Hodge, Alf., Stanley; Calvin says more correctly: “Having admonished the teachers as to their duty, he now addresses himself to the pupils”]. Οὐκοἴδατε: know ye not? This phrase is not to be confounded with ἤ οὐκ οἴδατε: or know ye not?—and it might very well serve to introduce a new turn of thought, indirectly suggested by what precedes. Thus far, Paul has contemplated the Church as a building belonging to God, and has exhibited the great responsibility attendant on the work of erecting it, after the only proper foundation has been laid. Now he describes its sacred character more fully by likening it to a temple inhabited by God’s Spirit, the violation of which incurs condign punishment. By the question: Know ye not? he appeals directly to the consciousness of Christians and intimates to his readers that in that spirit of partisanship which they cherished and which was so destructive to the integrity of the Church, there was a strange and criminal obscuration of true Christian feeling, inasmuch as they were conducting themselves just as if they possessed it not, and knew not what belonged to their profession. In the objective clause the emphasis lies on temple (ναός), marking an advance upon the more indefinite term, building, used before. ναός, according to its derivation, (ναίω) means indeed a building in general. But the Greeks used the word only to denote the dwellings of gods, and especially that room where the image stood. [“ναὸς is more holy than ἱερόν.” Words.]. Here it denotes the spiritual sanctuary, the place where the true God reveals His presence, and bestows blessings, and is worshipped, forming one complete whole, and consisting of all such as carry in themselves the Spirit of God. This appears from the explanatory clause following—and (km explicative) that the Spirit of God dwells in you.—Hence Christians are called “a spiritual house” (1Pe_2:5), also “a habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph_2:22); comp. also 2Co_6:16 ff.; Rom_8:9; Rom_8:11; 2Ti_1:14; Eze_37:27, etc. οἰκεῖν, to reside permanently (comp. Joh_14:23.) The words ἐν ὐμῖν, in you (not, ‘among you’), refers, like the statement: ‘ye are the temple,’ to the Church, or to individual believers, not, however in their separate capacity, but in their organic connection. Here the law of all organization obtains, that every organ is a complete whole in itself. As Christendom unitedly is a “temple of God,” so is also every Christian congregation and every individual Christian. But as the whole is to be understood and apprehended only in its parts, so are the parts to be understood only as connected in the whole. The translation: ‘the temple of God’ is by no means needed for the Bake of setting aside the idea of a plurality of temples. We can employ the rendering: ‘a temple of God,’ simply as signifying the kind of building implied. [Meyer on the contrary more justly says: “ναὸς θεου is the temple of God, not a temple, for Paul does not conceive of the various churches as various temples of God, which would be inconsistent with the Jew’s conception of God’s temple; but of each Christian church as in a mystic sense the temple of Jehovah. So there are not many temples, but one only, and many churches, each one of which is ideally the same temple of God.” So Stanley and Alford].

1Co_3:17. If any one destroy the temple of God, him will God destroy.—This is the first clause in an inference which rests upon the undoubted recognition of the inviolability of the temple of God, as maintained also in the Jewish Scriptures. All injuring, or desecrating, or even disturbing the sanctuary of God’s manifested presence, was deemed a sacrilege, which incurred the Divine vengeance. This is strongly indicated by the immediate succession of the same word in the two forms, φθείρει and φθερεῖ. “If any the temple of God destroyeth, destroy him shall God.” See a like case in Rev_22:18. The punishment here implied as related to the old temple was that of temporal death. Used, however, in relation to the spiritual temple, the word, in the first instance, signifies the rupturing of the Church by violent partisanship, which must finally end in its entire dissolution; and in the second instance, as indicating the consequent punishment, it denotes exclusion from salvation (απώλεια), [Stanley says that “φθείρειν, in the LXX. and in the New Testament, seems to have lost the sense of ‘defile,’ and merely to retain that of ‘mar’ or ‘destroy.’ ” And so Hodge, who says “the passage may be rendered ‘If any man injure the temple of God, him will God injure.’ “Olshausen goes still further: “The connection shows that the word cannot be understood of absolute destruction. Probably the Apostle chose the strong word only on account of its having been used just before for the purpose of intimating that God would requite like with like.” But such modification of its plain meaning is certainly contrary to the parallel which the Apostle introduces. The violater of the sanctuary of the ancient temple was unquestionably punished with death. And to preserve the analogy, we ought to maintain the word φθείρειν in its original signification].

Next follows the proof with the application of the penal principle just stated to the case in hand.—For the temple of God is holy.—It lies in the very idea of a temple that it is holy and inviolable, and that therefore all injury done to it is a crime.—And of this sort are ye—οἵτινές ἐστε ὐμεῖς ὅστίς refers to the object generally as one of a class, and not definitely, thus serving to render a proposition general; here it means: of which sort, viz., “holy.” The antecedent here is not “temple,” but the adjective “holy.”19 That they were the temple of God he had already asserted in 1Co_3:16. “Recurring to 1Co_1:1 he hereby awakens a feeling of reverence and a holy communion of Spirit in opposition to that unworthy servility engendered by a divisive regard for human authorities.” Osiander. [“Meyer well remarks that this clause is the minor proposition of a syllogism: Whoever mars the temple of God, him will God destroy, because His temple is holy: but ye are are also holy as His spiritual temple: therefore whoever mars you shall be destroyed by God.” Alford].

1Co_3:18. The Apostle now proceeds to point out the real source of the mischief he rebukes. The rupture of the unity of the Church by a party spirit, sprang from a pride of knowledge, and a vain conceit of that wisdom which belonged to and this world, and not to God’s kingdom. This was especially the case with the party of Apollos, which the Apostle seems chiefly to have in his eye, throughout this chapter. As it took pride in Apollos, because of his dialectic and rhetorical skill and learning, and clung to these qualities in him, so also did it seek to imitate his manner, and signalized itself for laying a great stress upon secular wisdom, and for no little conceit in that respect. This tendency Paul denounces as unfounded in truth, and unsuited to such as strive for the kingdom of God. In his view it involves a self-deception, more or less gross, against which he felt constrained to warn them.—Let no one deceive himself.—The deception here consisted in a person’s imagining himself to possess a profound insight into the truth and ways of God, when in fact he was utterly devoid of it, yea, was involved in entire misapprehension and gross blindness in reference to it. Such delusion passes away only when all conceit of wisdom is given up, and a person is willing to be regarded a fool, or consents to renounce all secular wisdom in the exercise of that simple faith which he before had regarded as folly, and which passes for folly with the world. And this is what the Apostle requires when he says:—If any one thinketh to be wise among you in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise.—Δοκεῖν may mean either: to think, or to appear; hence the clause may here be translated, “if any one passes for a wise man, either in his own estimation,” or “in others’ estimation.” The former rendering is best sustained by what has been said before. Hence the exhoration, “let him become a fool,” must be understood as relating to his own, and not to others’ judgment, and in such a way that either the words παῤἑαυτῷ, in his own esteem, shall besupplied; or that the person be regarded as passing over to a standpoint, which had until then appeared to him and to others like-minded as folly. The latter sense best suits the word. [And here it must be borne in mind that this renunciation of our own wisdom, or of the world’s wisdom, is required because all such wisdom is one only in appearance, and not in reality. It is its intrinsic worthlessness that renders it discreditable]. The phrase “in this world,” lit. “in this age,” is not to be united with the clause following, [as Origen, Chrysostom, Luther, Rosenmuller] as though it meant, “let him become a fool in this world;” the order of the words forbids this. But it belongs to ‘wise,’ as designating the sphere where this wisdom prevails; q. d. ‘wise in this world’ (comp. 1Co_3:19). [Alf. following Meyer says: “it belongs not simply to ‘wise,’ but to the whole clause going before; to the whole assumption of wisdom made by the man, which as made in this present world, must be false; “for,” adds Meyer, “those very persons who thought to become eminent among Christians through their wisdom in this premessianic period, when the knowledge of Divine things is yet in its infancy, and exceedingly limited, were not really wise, but were ensnared by their own self-decit.” Such a limitation, however, of the meaning of the word αἰων, age, here is very questionable. It is plain from the following verse, that “this age” is to be interpreted not temporally, but qualitatively, as synonymous with “this world” (κόσμος)]. Ἐνὑμῖν, among you, designates the sphere in which the person supposed hopes to shine by his wisdom.

1Co_3:19-20. Sustain the previous exhortation, and shows that in becoming a fool a person but coincides with God’s judgment—For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God—As such, therefore, it deserves to be cast aside. “Wisdom of this world” (κόσμος), comp. 1Co_1:21; 1Co_2:6. “It is a wisdom ruled by the spirit of this world that oversteps its proper bounds, seeks to satisfy itself about divine and human things, is tainted with error, and therefore stands in direct opposition alike to the highest reason, and to God, and to great objects for which the world and man were created (μωρία).” Osiander. [παρὰ τῷ θεῷ—παρά is used with the Dative “to express standing before a person as a judge, and submitting to his decision or sentence.” Hence the expression ‘before God’ carries a deeper meaning than simply ‘in his sight.’ God has passed upon it and condemned it.]—The proof of this.—For it is written, “He taking the wise in their own craftiness.”—This passage is cited from Job_5:13, and is a part of the speech of Eliphas. It accords with the original text, and agrees in sense with the Septuagint. [The phraseology of the latter, however, is changed for stronger terms, δρασσόμενος, catching for καταλαμβάνων, taking and πανουργίᾳ, craftiness for φρονήσει, prudence]. The sentence is incomplete, since Paul quotes only the words suited to his purpose, omitting those on which these grammatically depend. Hence they need no supplement. Human wisdom, art, cunning are here stated to be incapable of standing before the wisdom of God, since God catches those who rely on these aids, in their own craftiness, and the very excellencies on which they pride themselves, are turned into a snare through which they are entrapped. By thus causing them to be destroyed by their own devices, God shows them up to be nothing less than the veriest fools. This citation, the only one in the New Testament, taken from the book of Job, like much which Eliphas spoke, belongs to that wisdom which uttereth her voice in the streets, and is marked as here with the stamp of Divine truth.—And again.—‘The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain.’—This second passage, taken from Psa_94:11, was originally directed against those proud contemners of God, who acted as if there were no God above, observing and noting down all their unrighteous deeds. In accordance with the object he has in view, Paul here employs the word “the wise,” instead of “men,” as it stands both in the original Heb. and in the Sept. But this is no arbitrary alteration, since the whole Psalm treats of those vain sophists, who pride themselves on their perverse and groundless notions respecting God. Διαλογισμοί in Hellenic speech, was used to denote all those capricious reasonings and reflections which either opposed Divine truth or tended to render it doubtful, comp. Rom_1:21; Eph_4:17. Μάταιοι, groundless, void of truth, therefore, counter to wisdom, and belonging to folly. Whether this word in the original belongs to the wise themselves, or to their reasonings, is questionable. The essential meaning is the same in either case. [“It appears from these two verses thus placed in juxtaposition, that St. Paul followed the LXX., but uses his own discretion in doing so, and sometimes substitutes for it a translation approaching more nearly the original.” Words.].

1Co_3:21-23. From all this a warning is derived.—So then—ὥστε.—[“This word is used by St. Paul to introduce the summing up and conclusion of his argument here and elsewhere in this Epistle, 1Co_3:7; 1Co_4:5; 1Co 8:33; 1Co_11:33; 1Co_14:39; 1Co_15:58.”—Words.] It serves even in classical writers to introduce an imperative clause when this follows upon another which contains the reason why such command is given. (Comp. Passow, ii. 2.) [Also Winer, N. T., Gr. Pt. 1Co_3:5, note 1; also Jelf. Gr. Gram. , § 867, 1].—Let no one glory in men.—That is, so far as they set up for themselves, and rely on their natural powers—not as possessed of spiritual gifts and because of such. In the latter case the boasting would be in the Lord. The caution is addressed to those who are inclined to make much of men in consequence of their education or supposed wisdom, cleaving to them in partisan attachment, and disparaging other servants of Christ in comparison, to the overlooking of the unity of the Church. Such persons are guilty of putting the highest value on what is merely a natural advantage. And all such should be avoided by reflecting, that the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For this there was an additional reason:—For all things are yours.—Here he exhibits to us the dignity of Christians, [in contrast with the World and its folly], as persons who, by virtue of their union with Christ and, through Him, with God, are precluded from dependence on men, and have a direct claim on every thing Which belongs to God and Christ, so that all things serve their advantage and promote their exalted destiny (Rom_8:28)—even as all things are compelled to serve Christ (Mat_21:3; Mat_27:60; Mat_11:27). As Neander well says: “The sovereignty over the world was indeed conferred on man in his original estate. But this, being lost through sin, was restored again by redemption. The spirit which is bestowed on Christians, carries in itself a principle which every thing must eventually obey, and which will subjugate the world ever more and more, until at last the promise, that ‘the meek shall inherit the earth,’ is fulfilled, and the world has become the theatre of the Divine kingdom.” From the drift of the passage we may see the utter groundlessness of Billroth’s view, who supposes the warning here to be addressed to teachers, cautioning them against boasting on account of their partisans. In such a case, we should be obliged to interpret ‘yours’ of the teachers, which would be impossible. It is to the Church in general that Paul is here speaking. Instead of glorying with a one-sided partiality, in the fact that, this or that person belonged to them as their master, he would have them maintain a blessed consciousness of the privilege, that all things and persons belonged to them alike.

What in particular these things were, he goes on to specify, beginning with the teachers whom they had made the occasion of their strifes.—Whether Paul, or Apollos or Cephas.—(Comp. 2Co_4:5.) Each one of these they were all to turn to their own advantage, instead of adhering to any one exclusively. Here he could not add, “or Christ,” for this would be to reduce Christ to the same footing with his servants. The Christ-party do not come into view here, and could hot, “since their relation to the Apostles was only a negative one “(comp. on 1Co_1:12).—or the world.—“This leap from Peter to the whole world gives a sudden breadth to the discourse, as if he were borne on with a sort of impatience to set forth his theme in its fullest scope.”—Bengel. Comp. Rom_8:38. There is here neither a climax, as if he were proceeding upward from the lowest point, nor an argument from the less to the greater, [as Calvin, when he says: “If Christ has subjected to you also the world and life and death, how much more men, so that they should serve rather than rule you?”] Nor is the term ‘world’ to be understood as denoting: ‘the university of the learned;’ nor yet: ‘the knowledge of all natural things’ wherein the learned boast; nor: ‘unbelieving teachers as contrasted with the aforementioned believing ones;’ nor: ‘all the rest of mankind.’ But the word is to be taken in its most comprehensive sense; Christians, who are the destined “heirs of the world” (Rom. 4:38), have even now a claim upon the world. It belongs to them. It must serve them. Yet in order not to make the term synonymous with the expression: “all things” (1Co_3:21) we shall have to limit it (with Osiander) to mean the visible world, with a special reference to mankind dwelling in it. [“The present order of things,” says Hodge, “is maintained and directed to the promotion of the great work of redemption.” And Barnes well expands the thought, ‘the world is yours,’ under four particulars: (1) The world was made by the common Father, and all His children have an interest in it as His work. (2) The frame of the universe is sustained and upheld for their sake. (3) The course of providential events is ordered for their welfare. (4) They have the promise of as much of this world as is needful for them (Mat_6:33; Mar_10:29-30; 1Ti_4:8)]. With this view the following members of the sentence best accord.—There we have indicated the most momentous states and changes belonging to this visible sphere.—or life, or death.—The former expresses the fullest exercise of all our vital energies in all its varied influence and bearings; the latter denotes the entire suppression of this activity. And both these must promote the advantage of believers and help onward their salvation. [“They are dispensed and administered so as best to fulfil the designs of God in reference to the Church. The greatest men of the world, kings, statesmen and heroes, ministers, individual believers and unbelievers, live and die just as best subserves the interest of Christ’s kingdom.”—Hodge. “ ‘Life is yours’: (1) Because believers enjoy it. It is a real life, not vain show. (2) Because its various events tend to promote their welfare and work together for their good.” “ ‘Death is yours’: (1) Because believers have peace and support in their dying hour. (2) Because it is the avenue which leads to their rest. (3) Because they should triumph over it, in that it will be swallowed up in the glory of a higher life, releasing us from what is mortal to put on immortality.”—Barnes.]—Or things present or things to come.—These terms alike refer to the present life, and include all its vicissitudes from the passing moment onward, whether joyful or sorrowful.—All are yours.—A summing up and emphatic reassertion of what he opened with. And from this he passes on to state the ground on which Christians possess such wealth; But ye are Christ’s.—[“Here the category changes; Christ is not yours in the sense in which ‘all things’ are—not made for and subserving you—but (δέ) you are His.”—Alford]. It is this fact which gives to believers their royal power over all creaturely existences. By partaking in Christ’s redemption, they once more attain unto a dignity which originally belonged to man (Gen_1:26; Psa_8:6) and which is promised God’s people (Exo_19:6). And this is a dignity far transcending all that ever was surmised by Pagans or is expressed in their most famous sayings—such as: ‘the wise alone are kings—are rich—are free, “The analogousness of such language to that of the New Testament indicates the remaining traces of the nobility of human nature; but without Gospel redemption the dignity of man thus set forth would be wholly unrealized. Antiquity planted itself upon self-exaltation, Christianity on self-humiliation.”—Neander. (Comp. 1Co_2:15; 1Jn_5:1; Rev_3:21; 1Pe_2:9). By belonging to Christ, the Church and all its true members become partakers of his glory as the One to whom all things have been given by the Father. In their fellowship with Him—a fellowship involving entire dependence on their park—they are made independent of all else, and all else stands at their service. By the fact expressed in: “ye are Christ’s,” all partizanship is cut off, all generic differences are dissolved, and a proper relation to all teachers established. Meyer says finely that the active relation of possession mentioned in 1Co_3:22 (‘all things are yours’) and the passive relation of being possessed here brought out (‘ye are Christ’s’) are both alike opposed to the disorders arising from subservience to human authorities. We may, perhaps, detect here a slight intimation intended for the Christ party, that in their partisan appeal to Christ there was an ignoring of that connection which all alike sustained to Him, and a disparaging levelling of their Lord to an equality with human leaders.—But Christ is God’s.—[“And even being Christ’s does not reach the highest possession: He possesses you not for Himself, but (δέ, again) the head of Christ is God,” (1Co_11:3).—Alford.] Thus it is shown that by belonging to Christ we indirectly belong to God, and are planted upon an immovable basis of independence and power (comp. Joh_10:28-30). And so, on the one hand, we see our union to God to be mediated by Christ, and, on the other, that Christ is subordinated to the Father, as shown in 1Co_11:3. To consider this subordination however as belonging solely to His human nature, would not accord with a correct view of the whole subject. It is the whole Christ that is here spoken of, and that too not simply as in His state of humiliation, but also in His state of glory (comp. 1Co_15:28; Php_2:9). In His essential equality with God, He is at the same time subordinated to God (comp. Joh_5:23-26; Joh_14:28; Joh_17:8). [“There is,” says Alford, “a striking similarity in the argument in this last verse to that in our Lord’s prohibition, Mat_23:8-10, ‘But be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your Master, even Christ; and call no man your father upon earth, for one is your Father, who is in heaven.’ ”]. “This last clause gives to the whole course of thought a most exalted close, and to the argument presented its strongest and noblest foundation, and rounds off the whole paragraph by a most fitting allusion to the idea of the one holy temple of God with which it opened (1Co_3:16, comp. 1Co_3:9), in order to show Christians that by virtue of their union to God through Christ they are really taught of God.”—Osiander.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The sacredness and inviolability of the Church. It is God’s temple. If so, then it is the place of His gracious presence—His sanctuary, to be treated with tender reverence and awe. To introduce strange fire (Lev_10:1-2) into it is a sacrilege which incurs the heaviest judgment, even an exclusion from the communion of saints. Of this crime they are guilty who bring into the Church some other authority than that of God’s word, and pin their faith to something else than that which God has given, and prize another wisdom beside that which is in Christ. By such conduct the Church is desecrated, and robbed of its true character as the temple of God. In fact it is as such destroyed. And this occurs whenever party spirit prevails. In such a case man’s word and wisdom usurp the place of God’s word and wisdom. Then adhesion to some particular human leader is made a test of Christianity and a condition of brotherhood. Then Christ, “who of God is made unto us wisdom,” etc., (1Co_1:30), is crowded out of His supremacy. In place of this one holy image of God, the only proper pattern for believers, there comes in the idol of some human personality to be copied as the true standard of character, and this not for the sake of any resemblance it may bear to Christ, but for the sake of some natural peculiarities it may happen to possess. Instead of the flame of a holy love kindled by the Spirit and warming toward all, there burns the Are of human partialities, which begets alienation and hostility towards all who do not cherish like preferences; and when such are the results of party spirit, it must be seen that he who engenders or furthers this spirit mars the work of God, and desecrates His sanctuary. And can such a person hope to escape condign punishment from Him who is thus insulted in His own temple?

2. The Christian’s regal glory in its nature and grounds. “All things are yours and ye are Christ’s, and Christ’s is God’s.” Since God is love itself, He keeps nothing for Himself, but imparts to others all—yea, His very Being in the fulness of its perfections and blessedness. This He does in an original and eternal way within the sphere of the Godhead, to his only-begotten Son, who, by virtue of this communication, is, has, and can do every thing the same as the Father. He does it also in an indirect manner towards all creatures made in His image, according to their measure. Hence the appointment of man to lordship in his own province. [This lordship he indeed lost by reason of sin, and became the slave of the circumstances which he ought to have ruled. But in the work of redemption it has been restored to him through the interposition of this Son, who became the second Adam, and, in His assumed humanity, reestablished this supremacy for all who should believe on Him. “Fear not,” He says to His own, “for I have overcome the world.” Hence it is] in Christ that we see this appointment to Lordship actually fulfilled; and how it was fulfilled may be seen, both during His life of humiliation, when He controlled all things by the word of His power, and in His exaltation to universal power and authority at the right hand of God. In this power believers are now invited to share by union with Him. Through Him the whole creation stands subject to their disposal. Every thing He has is made to subserve the purposes of His love in them and promote their sanctification and glory.

But since now, for a period, their life is, to a certain degree, hid with Christ in God, so also is their power. Nevertheless this power is to be experienced even here in striking ways, and ever more and more through the prevalence of their prayers. And the terms on which they receive it show the ground on which it rests, viz.: the fellowship had with Christ, and through Him with God. Prevailing prayers are such as are offered in the name of Christ or according to the will of God (Joh_14:13 f.;Joh_17:23; 1Jn_2:14), or as are presented in faith (Mat_17:20). In them there is an identifying of ourselves with God through Christ, so that all private preferences are given up, and we keep ourselves in exclusive dependence on Him. Besides, as in Christ Himself there was manifested this same demeanor towards the Father; as He, the Divinely equal Son, kept Himself in perfect dependence on God, and determined to be nothing else but the revealer and executor of the Father’s will; as He, the first man, was obliged to qualify Himself for the exercise of Divine power in the way of obedience,—just so it is with believers. Their voluntary and complete dependence on Christ and through Him on God is the condition and source of their all embracing power. The fact that they belong to Him is the ground that all things belong to them.

[3. All sound title and right to use the creatures of God, together with the ability to use them to advantage, are conditioned on faith in Christ. He, having by His obedience recovered for man his lost sovereignty, makes those who believe on Him joint heirs with Him to this inheritance. And He also imparts to them that purity by which all things are pure to them. Hence to them every creature of God is good, when received with thanksgiving and sanctified with the word of God and prayer. And in the ordering of His providence all things are made to work together for their good. Not so is it with the wicked. A kind of natural right to possession and use they may indeed have in the present condition of things; but—it is under God’s toleration and only for a time. If they continue unbelieving to the last, they are finally despoiled of all. While even in this life the good they seem to have is no real good, and “nothing is pure, since even their very mind and conscience is defiled.” This is what Origen seems to teach. “All things belong to the saint. The whole world is the possession of faith. But the unbeliever has no claim to even an obolus; for the goods which he has he holds as a robber, since he knows neither how to use them nor yet the God that made them.” (Taken in substance from Wordsworth)].

4. [Christ is God’s. On the subordination of Christ to the Father, see on 1Co_8:6 and 1Co_11:3].

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Starke:—To be “the temple of God,” inhabited by the Holy Spirit, is the highest dignity of Christians. It ennobles the humblest to a greatness that far surpasses all secular honor and glory. The Spirit dwells in us: 1, through faith in Christ; 2, through peace with God; 3, through hope; 4, through love; 5, through special gifts and powers; 6, through comfort, cheer, patience, joy in the cross; 7, through true life in the soul, continuing even when it passes out of the body; which itself also partakes of this life, whether it be in this or in the future state, (Selnecker) 1Co_3:16.—How fearful the woe which awaits those who mislead and destroy souls, either by false doctrines or by an ungodly life (1Co_3:17).—“Let him become a fool.” What a paradox! A fool first—then wise! The world seeks to be wise and then becomes foolish. But what is this “becoming a fool?” Not the losing of our understanding and will, [but the confession of ignorance, the avowal of our knowing nothing, that we may be willing to be taught, so as truly to know every thing] (1Co_3:18).—God sometimes lets “the wise” run their course, accumulate their knowledge, construct their cunning systems, so as at last to be caught as in a snare by their own devices, and be the more thoroughly convinced of their folly. [Few are so profoundly sensible of the incompetency of the human intellect and the meagreness of human attainments as those who have most profoundly and honestly explored and discussed the great problems of nature, humanity and God] (1Co_3:19). The Church is not for the teachers, that it should be subject to them and called by their names; but they are for it, to serve its welfare and build it up. Hence no man or set of men has power over Christians to prescribe laws for them and bind their consciences. Let no one therefore choose a mere man for his guiding star unconditionally, or follow his lead blindly; much less should any one count himself blessed in having adopted this one rather than that as the controller of his life and conscience. Nor yet let him provoke dissensions and divide the Church by asserting his partialities to an undue extent (1Co_3:21).—“All things are yours”—[all true Christian teachers of every name, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or Calvin, or Wesley, or Leighton, or Fuller. Every faithful minister profits the whole Church; and every member of the Church may and ought to derive benefit from the teachings of all. It is thus the mind is expanded beyond party limits into a true Catholicity]. And “this world,”—sun, air, water, fire, earth, all stand at your service, and ye can use them and praise the Creator for them. Your natural “life,” too, preserved by this world’s goods, [is, while preserved, for your advantage, even though it may be passed amid pains, and privations, and disabilities, that seem worse thin death]. Finally, “death” is yours, as it opens an entrance into eternal blessedness and glory (1Co_3:22).—‘Ye are Christ’s.’ He has bought you with His blood, and is your proper Lord and Master. He is the Head—you, the members. Hence cleave to Him only. Be called after him only. “Christ is God’s,” as the appointed Mediator and Ambassador of God to men. Likewise, as Head of the Church, He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and acted ever in the Father’s service and to His glory (1Co_3:23).

Heubner:—The indwelling of the Spirit is opposed to all party strife. Hence in moments of holy inspiration, [in times of religious awakening], sectarianism melts, [and the hearts of believers of every name flow together], 1Co_3:16.—The conceit of our own unimpeachable wisdom is self-deceit or self-betrayal (1Co_3:18).—The wisdom which would know nothing of God and would discard a Saviour, will be finally exposed by God in all its nakedness, and all its aims baffled and punished (1Co_3:19).—To be proud of our own denomination or of our own leaders is nothing but a concealed self-love, which seeks to shine in the glory of another. And this is derogatory to the Christian name, for the believer is servant to no man (1Co_3:21).—Since all things are ours through Christ, all things should conduct the Christian to Christ. [Failing in this, their use and enjoyment become so far prejudicial and unlawful. They are then not properly “ours”]. (1Co_3:22).—“Ye are Christ’s,” then ye should serve Him, even as He, the image of God, served God in all things and conducted all to God (1Co_3:23.)

W. F. Besser:

1Co_3:18. “Be not deceived.” Self-deception is an injurious thing; it renders much labor useless, and despoils us of our reward. But worst of all is that self-betrayal which hardens the heart against brotherly admonition.—“Let him become a fool.” Such is the power and wonder working of God’s word, that it moves me to become an enemy to myself; and to empty myself of all that which best pleases my flesh; and to become a fool in this world, to give up the reputation of being a sagacious man, who moves on with the party of progress, and stands upon the apex of the civilization of the time; and so to pass into obscurity and contempt.—(1Co_3:19). God weaves a snare for the wise out of their own craftiness, wherein he catches them while they think to slip from Him by their arts: e. g., explaining away His miracles through their rationalism.—(1Co_3:21). The building here does not belong to the builders but the builders to the building.

1Co_3:22 as compared with 1Co_1:12. Christ does not stand in the second rank with His servants. He is the Lord of Glory. The declaration “all is yours” promises the world to Christians preëminently in this sense, that all secular art and service help to furnish mortar for building the temple of God. Christians are called not to curse the world, but to overcome and rule it for God. The world is nothing but a scaffolding that will be broken up when it has served its end in assisting to construct God’s house. But this house, which is destined to be eternal, are we.—All this world’s wisdom is folly with God, if it insists in playing the mistress in His house; but if it act the part of handmaid, it is in its place.—(1Co_3:23). Though Christ may employ His servants for bringing all those who have been purchased by His blood to become His by faith; still the saints thus called hang upon Christ, independently of any man, just as needles are drawn and held by the power of the magnet, even though some other needle, which had been first attracted, should sustain them by virtue of the magnetic power streaming through it.

[Barnes: 1Co_3:20. “Words of the wise, vain.” This admonition especially applicable to ministers. They are in peculiar danger on this subject, and it has been by their yielding themselves so much to the power of speculative philosophy that parties have been formed in the Church, and that the Gospel has been so much corrupted].

[J. Barrow: 1Co_3:16. The Divinity of the Holy Ghost. I. His nature and original—the Spirit of God. II. His personality—He dwelleth in us. III. His Divinity—Christians are called the temple of God because He dwelleth in them. IV. His sanctifying virtue—in that he constitutes us temples by His presence in us. Application. 1. We are obliged to render all adoration to the majesty of the Divine Spirit. 2. The consideration of His presence and work should awaken devoutest gratitude. 3. We should desire and pray for God’s Spirit. 4. We should demean ourselves worthily toward the Spirit. 5. The doctrine full of comfort and encouragement.—J. Howe:

1Co_3:16. The Christian a living temple, I. built, and II. inhabited, by the Holy Ghost.—See this whole subject largely discussed in Howe’s works, pp. 77–113.—R. South:

1Co_3:19. Worldly wisdom. I. Principles: a. Dissimulation in concealment or false pretences; b. Self-interest as opposed to conscience or religion; c. Self, the chief end; d. All its beneficence and gratitude are practiced with an eye to advantage. II. The folly and absurdity of these principles: a. The end pitched upon not suited to man’s condition, either as to duration or rational nature; b. The means pitched upon are unsuited to his end, inasmuch as they are insufficient and often contrary to it].

Footnotes:

[15]1Co_3:16.—[“God’s” should stand first as in the Gr. to mark the emphasis].

[16]1Co_3:17.—Τοῦτον. Lach., Tisch., and others read αν̓τόν according to many and in part weighty authorities [A. D. F. Syr.]. Meyer: τοῦτον, because after εἴ τις in the protasis αὐτόν is most usually employed, and it was corrected to this as more usual.” [So Alf., Words., and others following B. C. L. Cod. Sin.].

[17]1Co_3:18.—[The proper order is, “If any one thinketh to be wise among you in this world.” See exegesis].

[18]1Co_3:17.—ἐστιν is to be omitted according to preponderant authorities [A. B. C. D. F. Cod. Sin.].

[19]Hodge prefers the rendering of the E. V. which follows that of all the previous English versions, as well as the Syriac, Vulgate and Lather’s. And this rendering is sustained by Jelf. Gr. Gram. § 816. 7, § 821. 3. The plural in οἵτινες is to be explained on the principle of attraction.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 Corinthians

TEMPLES OF GOD

1Co 3:16.

The great purpose of Christianity is to make men like Jesus Christ. As He is the image of the invisible God we are to be the images of the unseen Christ. The Scripture is very bold and emphatic in attributing to Christ’s followers likeness to Him, in nature, in character, in relation to the world, in office, and in ultimate destiny. Is He the anointed of God? We are anointed-Christs in Him. Is He the Son of God? We in Him receive the adoption of sons. Is He the Light of the world? We in Him are lights of the world too. Is He a King? A Priest? He hath made us to be kings and priests.

Here we have the Apostle making the same solemn assertion in regard to Christian men, ‘Know ye not that ye are’-as your Master, and because your Master is-’that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?’

Of course the allusion in my text is to the whole aggregate of believers-what we call the Catholic Church, as being collectively the habitation of God. But God cannot dwell in an aggregate of men, unless He dwells in the individuals that compose the aggregate. And God has nothing to do with institutions except through the people who make the institutions. And so, if the Church as a whole is a Temple, it is only because all its members are temples of God.

Therefore, without forgetting the great blessed lesson of the unity of the Church which is taught in these words, I want rather to deal with them in their individual application now; and to try and lay upon your consciences, dear brethren, the solemn obligations and the intense practical power which this Apostle associated with the thought that each Christian man was, in very deed, a temple of God.

It would be very easy to say eloquent things about this text, but that is no part of my purpose.

I. Let me deal, first of all, and only for a moment or two, with the underlying thought that is here-that every Christian is a dwelling-place of God.

Now, do not run away with the idea that that is a metaphor. It was the outward temple that was the metaphor. The reality is that which you and I, if we are God’s children in Jesus Christ, experience. There was no real sense in which that Mighty One whom the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain, dwelt in any house made with hands. But the Temple, and all the outward worship, were but symbolical of the facts of the Christian life, and the realities of our inward experience. These are the truths whereof the other is the shadow. We use words to which it is difficult for us to attach any meaning, when we talk about God as being locally present in any material building; but we do not use words to which it is so difficult to attach a meaning, when we talk about the Infinite Spirit as being present and abiding in a spirit shaped to hold Him, and made on purpose to touch Him and be filled by Him.

All creatures have God dwelling in them in the measure of their capacity. The stone that you kick on the road would not be there if there were not a present God. Nothing would happen if there were not abiding in creatures the force, at any rate, which is God. But just as in this great atmosphere in which we all live and move and have our being, the eye discerns undulations which make light, and the ear catches vibrations which make sound, and the nostrils are recipient of motions which bring fragrance, and all these are in the one atmosphere, and the sense that apprehends one is utterly unconscious of the other, so God’s creatures, each through some little narrow slit, and in the measure of their capacity, get a straggling beam from Him into their being, and therefore they are.

But high above all other ways in which creatures can lie patent to God, and open for the influx of a Divine Indweller, lies the way of faith and love. Whosoever opens his heart in these divinely-taught emotions, and fixes them upon the Christ in whom God dwells, receives into the very roots of his being-as the water that trickles through the soil to the rootlets of the tree-the very Godhead Himself. ‘He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.’

That God shall dwell in my heart is possible only from the fact that He dwelt in all His fulness in Christ, through whom I touch Him. That Temple consecrates all heart-shrines; and all worshippers that keep near to Him, partake with Him of the Father that dwelt in Him.

Only remember that in Christ God dwelt completely, all ‘the fulness of the Godhead bodily’ was there, but in us it is but partially; that in Christ, therefore, the divine indwelling was uniform and invariable, but in us it fluctuates, and sometimes is more intimate and blessed, and sometimes He leaves the habitation when we leave Him; that in Christ, therefore, there was no progress in the divine indwelling, but that in us, if there be any true inhabitation of our souls by God, that abiding will become more and more, until every corner of our being is hallowed and filled with the searching effulgence of the all-pervasive Light. And let us remember that God dwelt in Christ, but that in us it is God in Christ who dwells. So to Him we owe it all, that our poor hearts are made the dwelling-place of God; or, as this Apostle puts it, in other words conveying the same idea, ‘Ye are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief Corner-stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth . . . for a habitation of God through the Spirit.’

II. Now then, turning from this underlying idea of the passage, let us look, for a moment, at some of the many applications of which the great thought is susceptible. I remark, then, in the second place, that as temples all Christians are to be manifesters of God.

The meaning of the Temple as of all temples was, that there the indwelling Deity should reveal Himself; and if it be true that we Christian men and women are, in this deep and blessed reality of which I have been speaking, the abiding places and habitations of God, then it follows that we shall stand in the world as the great means by which God is manifested and made known, and that in a two-fold way; to ourselves and to other people.

The real revelation of God to our hearts must be His abiding in our hearts. We do not learn God until we possess God. He must fill our souls before we know His sweetness. The answer that our Lord made to one of His disciples is full of the deepest truth. ‘How is it,’ said one of them in his blundering way, ‘how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself to us?’ And the answer was, ‘We will come and make Our abode with him.’ You do not know God until, if I might so say, He sits at your fireside and talks with you in your hearts. Just as some wife may have a husband whom the world knows as hero, or sage, or orator, but she knows him as nobody else can; so the outside, and if I may so say, the public character of God is but the surface of the revelation that He makes to us, when in the deepest secrecy of our own hearts He pours Himself into our waiting spirits. O brethren! it is within the curtains of the Holiest of all that the Shekinah flashes; it is within our own hearts, shrined and templed there, that God reveals Himself to us, as He does not unto the world.

And then, further, Christian men, as the temples and habitations of God, are appointed to be the great means of making Him known to the world around. The eye that cannot look at the sun can look at the rosy clouds that lie on either side of it, and herald its rising; their opalescent tints and pearly lights are beautiful to dim vision, to which the sun itself is too bright to be looked upon. Men will believe in a gentle Christ when they see you gentle. They will believe in a righteous love when they see it manifesting itself in you. You are ‘the secretaries of God’s praise,’ as George Herbert has it. He dwells in your hearts that out of your lives He may be revealed. The pictures in a book of travels, or the diagrams in a mathematical work, tell a great deal more in half a dozen lines than can be put into as many pages of dry words. And it is not books of theology nor eloquent sermons, but it is a Church glowing with the glory of God, and manifestly all flushed with His light and majesty, that will have power to draw men to believe in the God whom it reveals. When explorers land upon some untravelled island and meet the gentle inhabitants with armlets of rough gold upon their wrists, they say there must be many a gold-bearing rock of quartz crystal in the interior of the land. And if you present yourselves, Christian men and women, to the world with the likeness of your Master plain upon you, then people will believe in the Christianity that you profess. You have to popularise the Gospel in the fashion in which go-betweens and middlemen between students and the populace popularise science. You have to make it possible for men to believe in the Christ because they see Christ in you. ‘Know ye not that ye are the temples of the living God?’ Let His light shine from you.

III. I remark again that as temples all Christian lives should be places of sacrifice.

What is the use of a temple without worship? And what kind of worship is that in which the centre point is not an altar? That is the sort of temple that a great many professing Christians are. They have forgotten the altar in their spiritual architecture. Have you got one in your heart? It is but a poor, half-furnished sanctuary that has not. Where is yours? The key and the secret of all noble life is to yield up one’s own will, to sacrifice oneself. There never was anything done in this world worth doing, and there never will be till the end of time, of which sacrifice is not the centre and inspiration. And the difference between all other and lesser nobilities of life, and the supreme beauty of a true Christian life is that the sacrifice of the Christian is properly a sacrifice-that is, an offering to God, done for the sake of the great love wherewith He has loved us. As Christ is the one true Temple, and we become so by partaking of Him, so He is the one Sacrifice for sins for ever, and we become sacrifices only through Him. If there be any lesson which comes out of this great truth of Christians as temples, it is not a lesson of pluming ourselves on our dignity, or losing ourselves in the mysticisms which lie near this truth, but it is the hard lesson-If a temple, then an altar; if an altar, then a sacrifice. ‘Ye are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, that ye may offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God’-sacrifice, priest, temple, all in one; and all for the sake and by the might of that dear Lord who has given Himself a bleeding Sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, that we might offer a Eucharistic sacrifice of thanks and praise and self-surrender unto Him, and to His Father God.

IV. And, lastly, this great truth of my text enforces the solemn lesson of the necessary sanctity of the Christian life.

‘The temple of God,’ says the context, ‘the temple of God is holy, which {holy persons} ye are.’ The plain first idea of the temple is a place set apart and consecrated to God.

Hence, of course, follows the idea of purity, but the parent idea of ‘holiness’ is not purity, which is the consequence, but consecration or separation to God, which is the root.

And so in very various applications, on which I have not time to dwell now, this idea of the necessary sanctity of the Temple is put forth in these two letters to the Corinthian Church. Corinth was a city honeycombed with the grossest immoralities; and hence, perhaps, to some extent the great emphasis and earnestness and even severity of the Apostle in dealing with some forms of evil.

But without dwelling on the details, let me just point you to three directions in which this general notion of sanctity is applied. There is that of our context here ‘Know ye not that ye are the temple of God? If any man destroy the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, and such ye are.’

He is thinking here mainly, I suppose, about the devastation and destruction of this temple of God, which was caused by schismatical and heretical teaching, and by the habit of forming parties, ‘one of Paul, one of Apollos, one of Cephas, one of Christ,’ which was rending that Corinthian Church into pieces. But we may apply it more widely than that, and say that anything which corrupts and defiles the Christian life and the Christian character assumes a darker tint of evil when we think that it is sacrilege-the profanation of the temple, the pollution of that which ought to be pure as He who dwells in it.

Christian men and women, how that thought darkens the blackness of all sin! How solemnly there peals out the warning, ‘If any man destroy or impair the temple,’ by any form of pollution, ‘him’ with retribution in kind, ‘him shall God destroy.’ Keep the temple clear; keep it clean. Let Him come with His scourge of small cords and His merciful rebuke. You Manchester men know what it is to let the money-changers into the sanctuary. Beware lest, beginning with making your hearts ‘houses of merchandise,’ you should end by making them ‘dens of thieves.’

And then, still further, there is another application of this same principle, in the second of these Epistles. ‘What agreement hath the temple of God with idols?’ ‘Ye are the temple of the living God.’

Christianity is intolerant. There is to be one image in the shrine. One of the old Roman Stoic Emperors had a pantheon in his palace with Jesus Christ upon one pedestal and Plato on the one beside Him. And some of us are trying the same kind of thing. Christ there, and somebody else here. Remember, Christ must be everything or nothing! Stars may be sown by millions, but for the earth there is one sun. And you and I are to shrine one dear Guest, and one only, in the inmost recesses of our hearts.

And there is another application of this metaphor also in our letter. ‘Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?’ Christianity despises ‘the flesh’; Christianity reverences the body; and would teach us all that, being robed in that most wonderful work of God’s hands, which becomes a shrine for God Himself if He dwell in our hearts, all purity, all chastisement and subjugation of animal passion is our duty. Drunkenness, and gluttony, lusts of every kind, impurity of conduct, and impurity of word and look and thought, all these assume a still darker tint when they are thought of as not only crimes against the physical constitution and the moral law of humanity, but insults flung in the face of the God that would inhabit the shrine.

And in regard to sins of this kind, which it is so difficult to speak of in public, and which grow unchecked in secrecy, and are ruining hundreds of young lives, the words of this context are grimly true, ‘If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.’ I speak now mainly in brotherly or fatherly warning to young men-did you ever read this, ‘His bones are full of the iniquities of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust’ ? ‘Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?’

And so, brethren, our text tells us what we may all be. There is no heart without its deity. Alas! alas! for the many listening to me now whose spirits are like some of those Egyptian temples, which had in the inmost shrine a coiled-up serpent, the mummy of a monkey, or some other form as animal and obscene.

Oh! turn to Christ and cry, ‘Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest, Thou and the ark of Thy strength.’ Open your hearts and let Christ come in. And before Him, as of old, the bestial Dagon will be found, dejected and truncated, lying on the sill there; and all the vain, cruel, lustful gods that have held riot and carnival in your hearts will flee away into the darkness, like some foul ghosts at cock-crow. ‘If any man hear My voice and open the door I will come in.’ And the glory of the Lord shall fill the house.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:16-17 Christians must be very careful, both in what they teach and in how they relate to one another, because the body of believers is the temple of God, the home of the Spirit of God who lives in them (cp. Eph 2:21-22), and God’s temple is holy (see 1 Cor 1:2). There are terrible consequences for anyone who destroys God’s temple by such things as jealousy, argumentativeness, and divisiveness (see 3:3-4).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Co 3:16. Ναὸς, the temple) The most noble kind of building.—ἐστὲ, ye are) the whole of you together.—τὸ πνεῦμα, the Spirit) The indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and that of God, are held in the same estimation [are equivalent]: therefore the high honour due to the Holy Spirit is the same as that due to God, 1Co 6:19.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co_3:16-17. Οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι κ.τ.λ[544]] could be regarded as said in proof of 1Co_3:15 (Billroth), only if Chrysostoms interpretation of ΣΩΘΉΣΕΤΑΙ … ΠΥΡΌς, or Schotts modification of it (see on 1Co_3:15), were correct.[545] Since this, however, is not the case, and since the notion of ΣΩΘΉΣΕΤΑΙ, although limited by ΟὝΤΩ ΔῈ Ὡς ΔΙᾺ ΠΥΡΌς, cannot for a moment be even relatively included under the ΦΘΕΡΕῖ ΤΟῦΤΟΝ Ὁ ΘΕΌς of 1Co_3:17, because the ΦΘΟΡΆ is the very opposite of the σωτηρία (Gal_6:8), this mode of bringing out the connection must be given up. Were we to assume with other expositors that Paul passes on here from the teachers who build upon the foundation to such as are anti-Christian, qui fundamentum evertunt et aedificium destruunt (Estius and others, including Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Flatt, Pott, Hofmann), we should in that case feel the want at once of some express indication of the destroying of the foundation,which, for that matter, did not take place in Corinth,and also, and more especially, of some indication of the relation of antithesis subsisting between this passage and what has gone before. The apostle would have needed at least, in order to be understood, to have proceeded immediately after 1Co_3:15 somewhat in this way: εἰ δέ τις φθείρει Κ.Τ.Λ[546] No; in 1Co_3:16 we have a new part of the argument begun; and it comes in all the more powerfully without link of connection with the foregoing. Hitherto, that is to say, Paul has been presenting to his readersthat he may make them see the wrong character of their proud partisan-conduct (1Co_4:6)the relation of the teachers to the church as an οἰκοδομὴ Θεοῦ. But he has not yet set before their minds what sort of an οἰκοδ. Θεοῦ they are, namely, the temple of God (hence ναός is emphatic). This he does now, in order to make them feel yet more deeply the criminality of their sectarian arrogance, when, after ending the foregoing discussion about the teachers, he starts afresh: Is it unknown to you[547] what is the nature of this building of God, that ye are Gods temple? etc. The question is one of amazement (for the state of division among the Corinthians seemed to imply such ignorance, comp 1Co_5:6, 1Co_6:15 f., 1Co_9:13; 1Co_9:24); and it contains, along with the next closely connected verse, the sudden, startling prefacearresting the mind of the readers with its holy solemnityto the exhortation which is to follow, 1Co_3:18 ff.

ναὸς Θεοῦ] not: a temple of God, but the temple of God. For Pauls thought is not (as Theodoret and others hold) that there are several temples of God (which would be quite alien to the time-hallowed idea of the one national temple, which the apostle must have had, see Philo, de monarch. 2, p. 634), but that each Christian community is in a spiritual way, sensu mystico, the temple of Jehovah, the realized idea of that temple, its ἀληθινόν. There are not, therefore, several temples, but several churches, each one of which is the same true spiritual temple of God. Comp Eph_2:21; Ignatius, ad Eph. 9; 1Pe_2:5; Barnab. 4; also regarding Christian persons individually, as in 1Co_6:19, see Ignatius, ad Phil. 7. This accordingly is different from the heathen conception of pious men being temples (in the plural). Valer. Max. iv. 7. 1, al[550], in Elsner and Wetstein.

καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα] appends in how far (καί being the explicative and) they are ναὸς Θεοῦ. God, as He dwelt in the actual temple by the שכינה (Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 2394), dwells in the ideal temple of the Christian church by the gracious presence, working and ruling in it, of His Spirit, in whom God communicates Himself; for the Spirit dwells and rules in the hearts of believers (Rom_8:9; Rom_8:11; 2Ti_1:14). But we are not on this ground to make ἐν ὑμῖν refer to the individuals (Rückert and many others); for the community as such (1Co_3:17) is the temple (2Co_6:16 f.; Eph_2:21 f.; Eze_37:27).

ΝΑΌς did not need the article, which comes in only retrospectively in 1Co_3:17, just because there is but one ναὸς Θεοῦ in existence. Comp 2Co_6:16; Eph_2:21; Wis_3:14; 2Ma_14:35; Sir_51:14.

[544] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

[545] This holds, too, against Ewalds way of apprehending the connection here: Are any surprised that the lot of such a teacher should be so hard a one? Let them consider how sacred is the field in which he works.

[546] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

[547] This lively interrogative turn of the discourse, frequent though it is in this Epistle, occurs only twice in the rest of Pauls writings, namely, in Rom_6:16; Rom_11:2.

[550] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.

1Co_3:16-23. Warning address to the readers, comprising(1) preparatory statement reminding them of the guilt of sectarian conduct as a destroying of the temple of God, 1Co_3:16-17,verses which Chrysostom, Theophylact, and others quite mistakenly refer to the incestuous person; then (2) exhortation to put a stop to this conduct at its source by renouncing their fancied wisdom, 1Co_3:18-23, and to give up what formed the most prominent feature of their sectarianism,the parading of human authorities, which was, in truth, utterly opposed to the Christian standpoint.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co 3:16-17 . However poor his work, the workman of 1Co 3:15 built upon Christ. There are cases worse than his, and to the εἴ τινος τὸ ἔργον alternatives of 1Co 3:14 f. the Ap. has a third to add in the εἴ τις … φθείρει of 1Co 3:17 . Beside the good and ill builders, who will gain or lose reward, there are destroyers of the house, whom God will destroy ; the climax of the βλεπέτω πῶς , 1Co 3:10 . Gd [601] well explains the absence of connecting particles between 1Co 3:15-16 , a “brusque transition” due to the emotion which seizes the Apostle’s heart at the sight of “workmen who even destroy what has been already built”; hence the lively apostrophe and the heightened tone of the passage. The challenge οὐκ οἴδατε ; is characteristic of this Ep. (see parls.), addressed to a Church of superior knowledge (1Co 1:5 , 1Co 8:1 ). For the form οἴδατε , of the κοινή , see Wr [602] , pp. 102 f. The expression ναὸς Θεοῦ (see parls.) accentuates the Θεοῦ οἰκοδομή , expounded since 1Co 3:9 : “Do you not know that you are (a building no less sacred than) God’s temple? ” Not “a temple of God,” as one of several; to P. the Church was the spiritual counterpart of the Jewish Temple, and every Church embodied this ideal. For the anarthrous (predicative) phrase, cf. Θεοῦ βασιλείαν , 1Co 6:9 , and see note on 1Co 2:4 . Ναός (see parls.) denotes the shrine , where the Deity resides; ἱερόν (1Co 9:13 , etc.), the sanctuary , the temple at large, with its precincts. ὅτι is not repeated with the second half of the question, καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν οἰκεῖ , the two propositions being virtually one; God’s temple in Christian men is constituted by the indwelling of His Spirit: “and (that) the Spirit of God dwells in you?” cf. Eph 2:21 , also 1Pe 2:5 . The same relationship is expressed by other figures in 1Co 12:5 , Eph 4:4 , etc. So the O.T. congregation of the Lord had for its centre the Shekinah in the Holy Place: Isa 6 , Eze 37:27 ; cf. 2Co 6:16 ff. This truth is applied to the Christian person in 1Co 6:19 .

[601] F. Godet’s Commentaire sur la prem. Ép. aux Corinthiens (Eng. Trans.).

[602] Winer-Moulton’s Grammar of N.T. Greek (8th ed., 1877).

“If any one destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him” talione justissima (Bg [603] ). On the form of hypothesis, see 1Co 3:14 . φθείρω signifies to corrupt morally, deprave (injure in character ), 1Co 15:33 , 2Co 11:3 , as well as to waste, damage (injure in being : see parls.) mutually implied in a spiritual building. This Church was menaced with destruction from the immoralities exposed in chh. 5, 6, and from its party schisms (1Co 3:1-3 ), both evils fostered by corrupt teaching. The figure is not that of Levitical defilement ( φθείρω nowhere means to pollute a holy place); this φθορὰ is a structural injury, to be requited in kind. ὁ Θεὸς closes the warning, with awful emphasis ( cf. 1Th 4:6 , Rom 12:19 ); God is bound to protect His temple ( cf. Psalms 46, 48, 74, Isa 27:3 ; Isa 64:10 ff.). The injury is a desecration: “for the temple of God is holy, which (is what) you are ”. The added clause οἵτινές ἐστε ὑμεῖς reminds the Cor [604] at once of the obligations their sanctity imposes (see notes on ἡγιασμένοις , κλητοῖς , ἁγίοις , 1Co 1:2 ; cf. 1Pe 2:5 ), and of the protection it guarantees (2Co 6:14 ff., 2Th 2:13 ; Joh 10:29 ; Isa 43:1-4 , etc., Zec 2:8 ). οἵτινες , the qualitative relative, refers to ἅγιος more than to ναός , and is predicate (see Wr [605] , pp. 206 f.) with ὑμεῖς for subject.

[603] Bengel’s Gnomon Novi Testamenti.

[604] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[605] Winer-Moulton’s Grammar of N.T. Greek (8th ed., 1877).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co_3:16

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and (that) the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

The apostle justifies the representation given above of the responsibility of ministers. The unfaithful builders deserve to be thus punished, because they are engaged in the erection of no ordinary building. They are not raising up a house for themselves, to be constructed of what materials and on whatever plan may suit their taste. They are building the temple of God. This truth the Corinthians seem to have forgotten, for they regarded their teachers as men allowed to preach their own speculations, and valued them according to their proficiency in the wisdom of words. He, therefore, asks them, Know ye not that ye are the temple of God? See 1Co_6:19; 2Co_6:16; Eph_2:21. A temple is a house in which God dwells; and therefore, it is added, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. This indwelling of the Spirit constitutes each believer, every separate church, and the Church collectively the temple of God. As in the Jewish temple, in its inmost recess, the Shechinah, or glory of God, was constantly present, and conferred on the building its awe-inspiring power, and rendered any profanation of it a direct offense to God; so does the Holy Spirit dwell in the Church, the profanation of which by false doctrine is therefore sacrilege.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Continuing still in the metaphor of a building, he teacheth us that this ambition is not only vain, but also sacrilegious: For he saith that the Church is as it were the Temple of God, which God hath as it were consecrated unto himself by his Spirit. Then turning himself to these ambitious men: he showeth that they profane the Temple of God, because those vain arts wherein they please themselves so much, are as he teacheth, so many pollutions of the holy doctrine of God, and the purity of the Church. Which wickedness shall not be suffered unpunished.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Here the apostle resumes his argument and exhortation, founding it on his former allusion, You are God's building, Co1 3:9, and here, Know you not that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile (corrupt and destroy) the temple of God, him shall God destroy (the same word is in the original in both clauses); for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. It looks from other parts of the epistle, where the apostle argues to the very same purport (see Co1 6:13-20), as if the false teachers among the Corinthians were not only loose livers, but taught licentious doctrines, and what was particularly fitted to the taste of this lewd city, on the head of fornication. Such doctrine was not to be reckoned among hay and stubble, which would be consumed while the person who laid them on the foundation escaped the burning; for it tended to corrupt, to pollute, and destroy the church, which was a building erected for God, and consecrated to him, and therefore should be kept pure and holy. Those who spread principles of this sort would provoke God to destroy them. Note, Those who spread loose principles, that have a direct tendency to pollute the church of God, and render it unholy and unclean, are likely to bring destruction on themselves. It may be understood also as an argument against their discord and factious strifes, division being the way to destruction. But what I have been mentioning seems to be the proper meaning of the passage: Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? It may be understood of the church of Corinth collectively, or of every single believer among them; Christian churches are temples of God. He dwells among them by his Holy Spirit. They are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit, Eph 2:22. Every Christian is a living temple of the living God. God dwelt in the Jewish temple, took possession of it, and resided in it, by that glorious cloud that was the token of his presence with that people. So Christ by his Spirit dwells in all true believers. The temple was devoted and consecrated to God, and set apart from every common to a holy use, to the immediate service of God. So all Christians are separated from common uses, and set apart for God and his service. They are sacred to him - a very good argument this against all fleshly lusts, and all doctrines that give countenance to them. If we are the temples of God, we must do nothing that shall alienate ourselves from him, or corrupt and pollute ourselves, and thereby unfit ourselves for his use; and we must hearken to no doctrine nor doctor that would seduce us to any such practices. Note, Christians are holy by profession, and should be pure and clean both in heart and conversation. We should heartily abhor, and carefully avoid, what will defile God's temple, and prostitute what ought to be sacred to him.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Know ye not--It is no new thing I tell you, in calling you "God's building"; ye know and ought to remember, ye are the noblest kind of building, "the temple of God."

ye--all Christians form together one vast temple. The expression is not, "ye are temples," but "ye are the temple" collectively, and "lively stones" (Pe1 2:5) individually.

God . . . Spirit--God's indwelling, and that of the Holy Spirit, are one; therefore the Holy Spirit is God. No literal "temple" is recognized by the New Testament in the Christian Church. The only one is the spiritual temple, the whole body of believing worshippers in which the Holy Spirit dwells (Co1 6:19; Joh 4:23-24). The synagogue, not the temple, was the model of the Christian house of worship. The temple was the house of sacrifice, rather than of prayer. Prayers in the temple were silent and individual (Luk 1:10; Luk 18:10-13), not joint and public, nor with reading of Scripture, as in the synagogue. The temple, as the name means (from a Greek root "to dwell"), was the earthly dwelling-place of God, where alone He put His name. The synagogue (as the name means an assembly) was the place for assembling men. God now too has His earthly temple, not one of wood and stone, but the congregation of believers, the "living stones" on the "spiritual house." Believers are all spiritual priests in it. Jesus Christ, our High Priest, has the only literal priesthood (Mal 1:11; Mat 18:20; Pe1 2:5) [VITRINGA].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 16. Ye are the temple of God] The apostle resumes here what he had asserted in 1Co 3:9: Ye are God's building. As the whole congregation of Israel were formerly considered as the temple and habitation of God, because God dwelt among them, so here the whole Church of Corinth is called the temple of God, because all genuine believers have the Spirit of God to dwell in them; and Christ has promised to be always in the midst even of two or three who are gathered together in his name. Therefore where God is, there is his temple.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. Know ye not, etc. Having admonished the teachers as to their duty, he now addresses himself to the pupils — that they, too, may take heed to themselves. To the teachers he had said, “You are the master-builders of the house of God.” He now says to the people, “You are the temples of God. It is your part, therefore, to take care that you be not, in any way defiled.” Now, the design is, that they may not prostitute themselves to the service of men. He confers upon them distinguished honor in speaking thus, but it is in order that they may be made the more reprehensible; for, as God has set them apart as a temple to himself, he has at the same time appointed them to be guardians of his temple It is sacrilege, then, if they give themselves up to the service of men. He speaks of all of them collectively as being one temple of God; for every believer is a living stone, (1 Peter 2:5,) for the rearing up of the building of God. At the same time they also, in some cases, individually receive the name of temples We shall find him a little afterwards (1 Corinthians 6:19) repeating the same sentiment, but for another purpose. For in that passage he treats of chastity; but here, on the other hand, he exhorts them to have their faith resting on the obedience of Christ alone. The interrogation gives additional emphasis; for he indirectly intimates, that he speaks to them of a thing that they knew, while he appeals to them as witnesses.

And the Spirit of God. Here we have the reason why they are the temple of God Hence and must be understood as meaning because This is customary, as in the words of the poet — “Thou hadst heard it, and it had been reported.” “For this reason,” says he, “are ye the temples of God, because He dwells in you by his Spirit; for no unclean place can be the habitation of God.” In this passage we have an explicit testimony for maintaining the divinity of the Holy Spirit. For if he were a creature, or merely a gift, he would not make us temples of God, by dwelling in us. At the same time we learn, in what manner God communicates himself to us, and by what tie we are bound to him — when he pours down upon us the influence of his Spirit.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(16) The temple of God.—From the thought of grand edifices in general the Apostle goes on to the particular case of a building which is not only splendid but “holy”—the temple of God—thus reminding the reader that the rich and valuable metals and stones spoken of previously are to represent spiritual attainments. He introduces the passage with the words “Do ye not know,” implying that their conduct was such as could only be pursued by those who were either ignorant or forgetful of the truth of which he now reminds them.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God] “Ναός, sanctuary, more sacred than ἱερόν; the Holy Place in which God dwells, ναίει.”—Wordsworth. Another view of the subject is now abruptly introduced. The figure in 1Co_3:10 is resumed, but is applied, not to the ministers, but to the people. As the teachers are to avoid unprofitable questions and seek ‘that which is good to the use of edifying, so the taught are to shun all that may do harm to the temple of God, that is the Church at large, for what is true of the individual (ch. 1Co_6:19) is true of the community. This figure of speech is a common one in the N. T. See 2Co_6:16; Eph_2:21-22; 1Ti_3:15; Heb_3:6; 1Pe_2:5.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God,.... The apostle having spoken of the saints as God's building, of himself as a wise master builder, of Christ as the only foundation, and of various doctrines as the materials laid thereon, proceeds to observe to this church, and the members of it, that they being incorporated together in a Gospel church state, were the temple of God; and which was what they could not, or at least ought not, to be ignorant of: and they are so called, in allusion to Solomon's temple; which as it was a type of the natural, so of the mystical body of Christ. There is an agreement between that and the church of Christ, in its maker, matter, situation, magnificence, and holiness; and the church is said to be the temple of God, because it is of his building, and in which he dwells: what the apostle here says of the saints at Corinth, the Jewish doctors say of the Israelites (n), , "the temple of the Lord are ye"; and which being usually said of them in the apostle's time, he may refer unto; and much better apply to the persons he does, of which the indwelling of the Spirit was the evidence:

and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you: in particular members, as a spirit of regeneration, sanctification, faith, and adoption, and as the earnest and pledge of their future glory; in their ministers to fit and qualify them for their work, and carry them through it; and in the whole church, to bless the word and ordinances, for their growth, comfort, and establishment. This furnishes out a considerable proof of the deity and distinct personality of the Spirit, since this is mentioned as an evidence of the saints being the temple of God, which would not be one, if the Spirit was not God, who dwells therein; and since a temple is sacred to deity, and therefore if he dwells here as in a temple, he must dwell here as God; and since he is mentioned as distinct from God, whose Spirit he is, and dwelling, a personal action is ascribed to him, he must be a distinct divine person.

(n) R. Alshech in Hag. ii. 5.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Ver. 16. Ye are the temple of God] Not God’s building only, as 1Co 3:9, but his temple. A mud wall may be made up of anything, not so the walls of a temple or palace, that must have other materials.

And that the Spirit of God, &c.] Next to the love of Christ indwelling in our nature, we may wonder at the love of the Holy Ghost, that will dwell in our defiled souls. (Dr Sibbs on Eph 4:30) Let our care be to wash the pavement of this temple with our tears, to sweep it by repentance, to beautify it with holiness, to perfume it with prayers, to deck it with humility, to hang it with sincerity. Delicata res est Spiritus Dei; A sumptuous person is the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost will dwell in a poor, so it be a pure house. Religion loves to lie clean, as was a grave speech of an ancient saint.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Know ye not ... - The apostle here carries forward and completes the figure which he had commenced in regard to Christians. His illustrations had been drawn from architecture; and he here proceeds to say that Christians are that building (see 1Co 3:9): that they were the sacred temple which God had reared; and that, therefore, they should be pure and holy. This is a practical application of what he had been before saying.

Ye are the temple of God - This is to be understood of the community of Christians, or of the church, as being the place where God dwells on the earth. The idea is derived from the mode of speaking among the Jews, where they are said often in the Old Testament to be the temple and the habitation of God. And the allusion is probably to the fact that God dwelt by a visible symbol - “the Shechinah” - in the temple, and that His abode was there. As He dwelt there among the Jews; as He had there a temple - a dwelling place, so he dwells among Christians. they are His temple, the place of His abode. His residence is with them; and He is in their midst. This figure the apostle Paul several times uses, 1Co 6:19; 2Co 6:16; Eph 2:20-22. A great many passages have been quoted by Eisner and Wetstein, in which a virtuous mind is represented as the temple of God, and in which the obligation to preserve that inviolate and unpolluted is enforced. The figure is a beautiful one, and very impressive. A temple was an edifice erected to the service of God. The temple at Jerusalem was not only most magnificent, but was regarded as most sacred:

(1) From the fact that it was devoted to his service; and,

(2) From the fact that it was the special residence of Yahweh.

Among the pagan also, temples were regarded as sacred. They were supposed to be inhabited by the divinity to whom they were dedicated. They were regarded, as inviolable. Those who took refuge there were safe. It was a crime of the highest degree to violate a temple, or to tear a fugitive who had sought protection there from the altar. So the apostle says of the Christian community. They were regarded as his temple - God dwelt among them - and they should regard themselves as holy, and as consecrated to his service. And so it is regarded as a species of sacrilege to violate the temple, and to devote it to other uses, 1Co 6:19; see 1Co 3:17.

And that the Spirit of God - The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. This is conclusively proved by 1Co 6:19, where he is called “the Holy Ghost.”

Dwelleth in you - As God dwelt formerly in the tabernacle, and afterward in the temple, so His Spirit now dwells among Christians - This cannot mean:

That the Holy Spirit is “personally united” to Christians, so as to form a personal union; or, That there is to Christians any communication of his nature or personal qualities; or, That there is any union of “essence,” or “nature” with them, for God is present in all places, and can, as God, be no more present at one place than at another.

The only sense in which he can be especially present in any place is by His “influence,” or “agency.” And the idea is one which denotes agency, influence, favor, special regard; and in that sense only can he be present with his church. The expression must mean:

That the church is the seat of His operations, the field or abode on which He acts on earth; That His influences are there, producing the appropriate effects of His agency, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, etc.; Gal 5:22-23;

(3)That He produces consolations there, that he sustains and guides His people;

That they are regarded as dedicated or consecrated to Him; That they are especially dear to Him - that He loves them, and thus makes His abode with them. See the note at Joh 14:23.

(“These words import the actual presence and inhabitation of the Spirit himself. The fact is plainly attested, but it is mysterious, and cannot be distinctly explained. In respect of His essence, He is as much present with unbelievers as with believers. His dwelling in the latter must therefore signify, that He manifests himself, in their souls, in a special manner; that He exerts there His gracious power, and produces effects which other people do not experience - We may illustrate His presence with them, as distinguished from His presence with people in general, by supposing the vegetative power of the earth to produce, in the surrounding regions, only common and worthless plants, but to throw out, in a select spot, all the riches and beauty of a cultivated garden” - Dick’s Theology, Vol. III. p. 287.)

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Know you not. After the apostle had described the builders who are employed in the spiritual edifice, he proceeds to speak of the duties of those who are the living temples of Christ. As for you, may brethren, who are the temples of God, preserve yourselves in purity of faith, and innocence of morals. Fly from those false apostles who seek your ruin, and remain steadfast in that faith which you have received from us; (Calmet) that is, the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic faith. What a happiness for the faithful minister to assist in erecting and ornamenting the living temples of God; but what punishment must await the unfaithful minister, who by his own neglect and bad example, helps to ruin and destroy the temples of God himself had entrusted to their care! (Haydock) --- The Spirit of God dwelleth in you, having received the grace of God at your conversion: you are the holy temple of God: But if any one violate, or profane the temple of God, either by false doctrine, or by any grievous offence, he destroys the spiritual edifice, that was built in his soul upon the faith and grace of God. He cannot be said to be built any longer upon the same foundation: and therefore God will destroy such persons: they shall not be saved even by fire, or temporal punishments, but shall be excluded for ever from heaven, and condemned to eternal punishments. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The apostle, 1Co 3:9, had called the church of Corinth, and the particular members of it, God’s building; after this he had enlarged in a discourse concerning the builders, and the foundation and superstructure upon that foundation; now he returns again to speak of the whole church, whom he here calleth the temple of God, with a manifest allusion to that noble and splendid house which Solomon first built, and was afterwards rebuilt by Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah at Jerusalem, as the public place for the Jewish church to meet in to worship God according to the prescript of the Levitical law: in which house God was said to dwell, because there he met his people, and blessed them, and there he gave answers to them from the mercy-seat. He calls them the temple of God, because they were built, that is, effectually called, for this very end, that they might be to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, Eph 1:6; and, as the apostle Peter further expoundeth this text, 1Pe 2:5, the people of God are a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And God by his Spirit dwelt in them, both by his person, and by his gifts and graces, which is a far more noble dwelling in them than the dwelling of God was in the Jewish temple. From this text may be fetched an evident proof of the Divine nature, of the Third Person in the blessed Trinity; for he is not only called here the Spirit of God, but he is said to dwell in the saints: which dwelling of God in his people, is that very thing which maketh them the temple of God; and those who are here called the temple of God, are, 1Co 6:19, called the temple of the Holy Ghost.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. Know ye not—Recognise you not this solemn fact?

Temple of God— Not only are ye a building, 1Co_3:9-15, but ye are a temple.

Dwelleth in you—As the Shekinah or divine Presence, dwelt in the holy of holies.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 16-23. The peril and folly of glorying in men.

Know ye not. The phrase is used by St. Paul in this Epistle to emphasize important truths, as in 1Co_5:6 1Co_6:2,:9, 15 9:13, 24. Out of this Epistle it only occurs in Rom_6:16 Rom_11:2. That ye are the temple of God. "Ye," both collectively (Eph_2:21) and individually; "God"s shrine;" not built for men"s glory. The word "temple" in the Old Testament always means the material temple; in the Gospels our Lord "spake of the temple of his body;" in the rest of the New Testament the body of every baptized Christian is the temple of God, (1Co_6:16) because "God dwelleth in him" (1Jn_4:16; comp. Joh_14:23) In another aspect Christians can be regarded as "living stones in one spiritual house". (1Pe_2:5) The temple; rather, the shrine (uses) wherein God dwells (naiei), and which is the holiest part of the temple ( hieron).

Vers. 16, 17.

Humanity the temple of God.

ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." The apostle is writing not to those who were spiritually perfect; on the contrary, to those who were characterized by most salient moral defects. Yet he says, "Ye are the temple of God." Let us, therefore, look at man

I As A DIVINE "TEMPLE." "The temple of God." In what respects a temple?

1. He is a special residence of God. God is in all material objects, but he is especially in moral mind.

2. He is a special manifestation of God. God is seen everywhere in this world, but never so fully as in the mind of man. "We are all his offspring," and we are like the Father in essence, conscience, freedom.

3. He is a special meeting place with God. The temple at Jerusalem was God"s special meeting place with man. "There will I commune with thee." Man can meet with God in material nature, but not so fully and consciously as in mind. "The highest study of mankind is man.

II As a Divine "temple" THAT MIGHT BE DESTROYED. "If any man defile destroy the temple of God." The destruction of a temple does not mean the destruction of all its parts, but the destruction of its use. Man might live forever, and yet be destroyed as the temple of God, the special residence, manifestation, and meeting place of God. Now, mark, this destruction, if it takes place, is not by God. He will not destroy the temple, only by man. "If any man defile destroy the temple." Alas! men are destroying this temple, i.e. destroying their natures as the temple of God. An awful work this!

III As a Divine temple, the DESTROYER OF WHICH WILL BE DESTROYED BY GOD HIMSELF. "Him shall God destroy." Destroy, if not his existence, all that makes existence worth having or even tolerable. "He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption." "The temple of God is holy," that is, ideally holy, ought to be holy.

Vers. 16-23.

Believers as the temple of God.

Previously St. Paul had said, "Ye are God"s building;" and now he adds, "Ye are the temple of God." Along with this comes the idea of sanctity: "The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." If, then, these Corinthians were the temple of God, and if the Spirit of God dwelt in them, no stronger motive could bear upon them than the need of holiness; and this holiness is a personal matter. "If any man whoever he be and whatever his gifts any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy." The man"s duties to the Church are duties to the Spirit of God in the Church; and the purity of principle and affection, purity of motive and aim, purity of life, which he is bound to maintain, in brief, his spiritual character, grows out of his relation to the Holy Ghost. "Know ye not" this fact that the Church is much more than a society for mutual helpfulness, much more than a human institution, and most truly human when most Divine? To violate this relation in such a way as to "defile the temple of God" is to incur a fearful punishment: "Him shall God destroy." Hitherto in the argument no such language had been used. Did the thought of the gross sin the son taking the father"s wife cross his mind at the instant, and leave its darkness in his memory? Whether so or not, St. Paul knew of moral corruption in the Church as well as religious defection, and he reminded the Corinthians of their peril. Observe the change; a man"s work, if rejected, shall be burned, but he shall be "saved, yet so as by fire." Amid the danger, God will rescue him. But if a "man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy." And now the exhortations: "Let no man deceive himself." And wherein lies the danger of deception? It is in the "wisdom of this world." Intellect exposes us to dangers because it is the great organ of receptivity, by means of which the outer world finds unceasing access to our souls. Through the open avenues of the senses, myriad influences gain an entrance within and distribute themselves over every portion of our nature. Very many of them are unchallenged. Few men criticize their senses and hold them accountable for truth and fidelity in their momentous functions. What habits come from this facile power of sensuousness over the mind, we all understand, alas! too well. The natural man (animal man) has the world of sensation on his side. Instead of the body growing more and more into harmony with spirit and participating in its elevation, the opposite more commonly occurs, so that men become in large measure the creatures of the senses. St. Paul had a very clear insight into this fact. No man makes so many references, direct and indirect, to the physiological connections of sin. As a writer of Scripture, the terrible truth of the "fleshly mind" is often before him, and from him we learn the supreme necessity of keeping the body under, lest we become castaways. "Castaways" are far more numerous than we take knowledge of. Short of downright materialism and its counterpart in sensual degeneration, we have innumerable evidences of the wreck of the spiritual nature. These nerves of ours delicate threads that interlace the whole body and are frequently too fine for the eye what a machinery for the hand of Satan, skilled by the practice of centuries, to play upon! We err when we confine our view of materialism to its professed advocates. We err also when we measure the sensualism of the age by its grosser forms. Far greater, far more harmful, and far more widespread, are the deleterious effects, often unrecognized, that work havoc among our spiritual sensibilities. It is this deadening of the intellect by the sensuousness that keeps itself aloof from overt sensualism which St. Paul so earnestly assails as "the wisdom of this world." Not seldom it beasts of morality, cultivates beauty, patronizes aesthetics, and abounds in animalized poetry and eloquence and science. Meantime it lends all its aid, acting through an army of auxiliaries, to encourage men in a bloated sense of self sufficiency, until there is no felt need of God and still less of Christ. Most of all, this state of mind is inimical to the agency of the Holy Ghost upon the human heart, and consequently we find in our times a much more wilful and violent rejection of the Holy Ghost and a contempt for his gracious offices than hostility to the Father and the Son. Against this most evil and fatal habit St. Paul lifts a vehement remonstrance. And he was the only man of his day competent to this task. No rude Galilean was he; no obscure and unlettered person; but a cultured soul, whose endowments had been signalized before he went forth to convert an empire to Christ. "Become a fool a fool in the world"s estimation ye may be wise." It is "craftiness," argues the man who had experimentally known it all, and, furthermore, it ensnares itself in its own net. And hence glory not in man; there is no wisdom in it, no plea and no excuse for it, since "all things are yours." Party spirit shuts us up in narrow limits; Christianity gives the freedom of the world. Party spirit makes us the disciples of men; Christianity declares that we do not belong to Paul, Apollos, Peter, but that they belong to us, and all Divine in them ministers to the Divine in ourselves, so that our life superabounds by means of theirs. Nor is this all. The vast inventory embraces things as well as men: "The world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours." No room for pride here, since it is a common possession; no opportunity to thank God like the Pharisee that we are not as others are, for God"s grace humbles the natural man, that it may endow and then exalt the Christian. If we undertake to be Christians of a particular sort, it is certain that we shall be cast in a very dwarfing mould, and get our colouring from a very earthly pigment. To be a true Christian is not to adopt the Name of Christ as the watchword of a sect or party, but to accept and venerate it as the watchword of humanity redeemed in the Son of man. Any other use of Christ"s Name is essentially schismatic. All things are ours only so far as we are Christ"s. And it is the Christ of God, the Son of God, the anointed Messiah, who was filled with the unction of the Spirit, and who said, "I do nothing of myself, it is this Christ who is ours. Seen in hint, life redeems itself from everything low, groveling, and merely sensuous; and even the human body, whose wants and demands are the unmanageable factor in all civilization, and whose warfare against the Spirit is the most fearful hazard in moral probation, becomes, through Christ, the temple of the Holy Ghost. Spiritualize in this sense the human body; sanctify its large and. beautiful capacity for a true sensuousness; organize its habits until it becomes almost the automaton of the Spirit, and self denial, prayer, and praise, by virtue of the automatic and semi automatic laws of the physical system, are well nigh incorporated in the nervous functions. Ask art, science, philosophy, to attempt such a task, and would they set themselves to it? Political economy, physiology, hygiene, sanitary: science, concern themselves much with the human body, and are entitled to honour for their interest in its welfare welfare only, however, stopping very far short of genuine well being. Let no word of ours be understood as depreciating these invaluable services. But, nevertheless, their field lies in a department of life comparatively humble life as existence, as organic and vegetative, life as intellectual and moral, not in life as spiritual. Now, at this very point, the incomparable glory of Christianity demonstrates itself by a profound interest in the human body as a religious question, and, first and last, its words are, "temple of God." No wonder that St. Paul rises to the height of exultation. The eagle wing smites the upper air in its buoyant strength, and the eagle eye, catching a radiance unknown in the thick atmosphere of earth, commands the scope of a vast horizon. One of his grand powers was this instinct shall we call it? of exultation, always held in check till the Divine fulness of Christ and the sublimity of humanity in Christ kindled it into rapture. Nor is he ever more like himself nor ever nearer to us than in these moments high hour of visitation from the living God. L.

Vers. 16, 17.

The temple of God.

The temple at Jerusalem was holy, being constructed according to Divine directions, inhabited by the Divine glory, and con-secreted by divinely appointed services and sacrifices. But that temple was local, temporary, and for a purpose. It was, in accordance with the Lord"s prediction, destroyed and abolished before the generation which rejected him passed away. And it was not intended that it should be replaced by any material edifice. The spiritual temple was destined to supersede the material and to abide forever. It is of this spiritual structure that the apostle here speaks.

I THE MATERIALS OF WHICH THIS TEMPLE IS COMPOSED. "Ye," says the apostle, "are the temple." Not that the Corinthians were more than other Christians entitled to this honourable distinction; for this language was addressed to all Christians. All Christ"s people were and are living stones, each in its proper place, and all alike upon the one Foundation. How noble a conception! how worthy of Christ himself, to whom the material was ever of secondary interest, and in whose view the spiritual was of supreme significance and value!

II THE PRESENCE BY WHICH THIS TEMPLE IS CONSECRATED. The first temple had been hallowed by the Shechinah glory which hovered over the ark of the covenant. The second temple the body of the Lord had been consecrated as the dwelling place of the mind of the HolyOne. This third temple is the residence and the shrine of the Spirit of God. In his transforming, quickening, purifying power, the eternal Spirit penetrates his separated and consecrated society, and makes it growingly his own. His light and glory glow within it, so that its spiritual lustre excels that of the holy house at Jerusalem.

III THE WORSHIP WHICH IS IN THIS TEMPLE OFFERED. Here is the living oracle; here is the consecrated priesthood; here are the spiritual sacrifices. The offerings are those of willing obedience and grateful praise; the incense is the incessant worship which floats in fragrance from the spirits of the just; the music that fills these courts is the anthem of adoration, the harmony of imperishable love. Worship is here not occasional, not frequent, but unceasing; there is no moment when this spiritual temple is not telling the praises of the Lord.

IV THE ATTRIBUTE BY WHICH THIS TEMPLE IS CHARACTERIZED. "The temple of God is holy. This expression does not import simply a ceremonial and nominal holiness, but such a character as was both exhibited and required by the Lord Jesus himself. Holiness, not only of word and deed, but of purpose and desire, is required by him who searches the heart and tries the reins of the children of men holiness such as the Holy Spirit alone can create.

V THE REGARD AND TREATMENT WHICH THIS TEMPLE SHOULD RECEIVE.

1. It deserves to be regarded with reverence. Men treat with respect the palaces of kings. Of how much deeper a reverence is that true palace of God, that temple of the Holy Ghost, that home of Christ, deserving!

2. It should not be defiled or destroyed. Every member of Christ"s Church is called upon to purify himself, lest his impurity should dishonour the sacred edifice. "Holiness becometh thy house, O Lord, forever! T.

Vers. 16, 17.

God"s temple.

Declared to be the Church of Christ. Each community of Christians is a temple of God. The old temple has perished; this is the new and the imperishable. The Christian Church has often been insignificant in numbers, wealth, position, earthly learning; men have despised her; judged by human standards she has appeared contemptible; but the Divine thought has been thisthe temple of God!

I RESEMBLANCES.

1. Erected under Divine direction. The old and new temples are of God; they express his thought and purpose. Believers who constitute the new temple become believers through him; for faith is the gift of God. They are gathered into the Church as spiritual stones, by his servants, under his direction, and each has an appropriate place. God is the Author of the constitution of the Church.

2. Erected for the Divine glory. The supreme object. Everything in the Church to be made subservient to this. To glorify God should be the life object of the redeemed. And:

3. Erected for the welfare of men. The temple of old was for God and also for man. The Church has a great mission to the world. There is no conflict between the two objects. As the Church seeks to save the lost, she is most truly seeking to bring glory to God. Her worship is likely to be a mockery unless her work is faithfully performed.

4. Set apart for God. The Church should be separate, holy, peculiarly God"s. "A peculiar people a people for God"s own possession"; (1Pe_2:9) "Ye are not your own.

5. An object of beauty. The beauty of holiness should clothe the Church. The world"s admiration has often been commanded, in early days and since. And better still, God has approved.

6. Of great variety in its parts. Vast diversity in gift and condition, but one spiritual building. In the Christian Church there cannot, perhaps, be too much variety as there certainly cannot be too much oneness.

7. The dwelling place of God. Not only for God, but God"s dwelling place. This was the glory of the Jewish temple the Shechinah the Divine presence. The Church"s joy and glory are that "God is in the midst of her." He dwells not now in temples made with hands, though he does dwell in the temples made by the Divine hands. The ancient temple was unmeaning and useless without the presence of Jehovah. So is the Christian Church: "Ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit". (Eph_2:22)

1. From it true worship should arise. Sanctuary worship, home worship, business worship, recreation worship, worship throughout all the life of those who constitute the temple.

2. In it should ever be the great sacrifice. Not the sacrifice of the Mass, but "Christ crucified" manifestly set forth. The temple of old would have been offensive to God without sacrifice, so we cannot be acceptable to him without the atonement. When the Church loses the cross she loses God. In every Christian community there must be a Calvary. And the true Jerusalem has not its Calvary "without the gate;" Christ crucified is central, chief, predominant.

II PUNISHMENT FOR INJURY. Aaronic priests who violated the ancient temple were doomed to death; injurers of the Church of Christ will meet a terrible fate. In ver. 17 the Greek verb, which means "to bring into a worse state," is repeated; what we do to the Church, God will do to us if we injure it, he will injure us. At Corinth the dividers of the Church were likely to become destroyers, and so God will "destroy." These are far more serious offenders than those named in vers. 12 and 15. God is jealous over his temple, and men may not do evil to it with impunity. Those who sin against it sin directly against him. Note: We may injure the temple of God in many ways. For example, by

(1) false doctrine;

(2) unchristian spirit;

(3) personal unholiness;

(4) conniving at unholiness in others;

(5) failing to do our part;

(6) failing to take our place in the Church.

III HOW CAREFUL WE SHOULD BE IN ALL THAT CONCERNS THIS TEMPLE. In Church life and Church work. How serious are these! in them there is no room for trifling. Alas! how many are living in the Church, and even labouring in it, who seem to feel little or no responsibility! Let us realize what this Church is, and then assuredly with more care than the Aaronic priests shall we comport ourselves. To avoid offence and injury and failure, we shall need the wisdom that cometh down from above (vers. 18-20). H.

Vers. 16, 17.

The temple of God.

Paul again takes up the idea of a building and gives it a new direction. The noblest of all edifices is a temple in which architecture finds its highest and worthiest employment. Under this figure the apostle sets forth sometimes the collective Church of Christ, sometimes the individual believer. (1Co_6:19; Eph_2:21) Man was created to be a sanctuary of God, but this sanctuary was overturned by sin. It lay in ruins till the Lord Jesus came as the Restorer, whose work it is to rebuild the ruined walls; and now the temple is seen rising in its fair proportions in the hearts of the regenerated, and in the spiritual house built of these living stones. (1Pe_2:5)

I BELIEVERS ARE GOD"S TEMPLE.

1. God dwells in them. The temple at Jerusalem was Jehovah"s dwelling place. There he had his Shechinah in the cloud above the mercy seat and between the cherubim, and there he was worshipped. Even so "the Spirit of God dwelleth in you." The Father and the Son make their abode with the man who loves and obeys the Son, (Joh_14:23) and this is effected by the Spirit. This indwelling is the culmination of the work of grace within us. The heart must first be quickened, renewed, purified, ere the Holy Spirit can dwell in it. How wonderful a truth is this! God in me] It is not the dream of the pantheist, who calls me a spark from the eternal fire God dwelling in me because I am only a mode of the one universal existence. It is not the raving of the mystic, whose imagination has betrayed him into a hazy confusion of ideas regarding his relation to God. It is the utterance of sober truth. In me the creature the new creature God the Creator makes his abode; not, indeed, in the infinity of his being, as if our tiny vessels could contain the ocean, yet really. The little flower cup has the sun dwelling in it all the day, though he dwells in thousands besides; and his presence is made known by the colour and fragrance and growth of the flower. The same Spirit of God who abides in the Church abides in every true member of it; and this abiding is revealed in the love shed abroad in the heart, in the odour that breathes through the life, and in the gracious bending of the nature to all that is righteous.

2. They are holy. As the place where Jehovah dwelt, the Jewish temple was holy consecrated to him, and to him alone. None but an Israelite could tread the outer court; none but the priests could serve in the holy place; none but the high priest could enter the holy of holies. Believers are holy, set apart for God and his service. They are not a public street or common, which the world may use as it likes; they are a sacred enclosure, marked off and devoted to holy uses. They are God"s temple body, soul, and spirit corresponding to the three divisions of the ancient tabernacle. This applies also to the Church, which is holy because dwelt in by God.

II GOD"S TEMPLE MUST NOT BE MARRIED. This follows from what has been said. If God dwells in believers, an injury done to them is done to his sanctuary. Consider:

1. How the temple may be marred. Sin in every form pollutes and injures the soul. It is an outrage on God"s temple. The Holy Spirit cannot dwell with unholiness. More particularly:

(1) By setting up idols. To place any person or thing beside God is to be guilty of idolatry. He will not dwell in the temple where other gods are worshipped; it is polluted (Isa_42:8; 1Jn_5:21)

(2) By throwing it open to all. The temple was holy ground, which none but consecrated feet might tread. The heart of the believer is not to be flung open to the world or to unholy thoughts and desires; the Church is not to act on worldly principles, or employ carnal means, or seek secular ends. All such intruders defile God"s temple. (Joh_2:14-17)

2. The penalty threatened against those that mar God"s temple. He who defiled God"s sanctuary was punished by death. (Lev_15:31; comp. Num_19:20) He who destroys God"s spiritual temple shall himself be destroyed. The grieved Spirit will depart and spiritual death will ensue. A warning to Christians against espousing error, or practising sin, or cherishing party spirit. A warning to teachers lest, by preaching false doctrine or fomenting strife, they incur this awful punishment. How watchful should we be over our own hearts! How careful should we be in our treatment of fellow Christians! B.

HOMILIES BY D. FRASER Vers. 16, 17.

The New Testament temple.

Under the Old Testament, the temple of God was a house made with hands, a worldly sanctuary. The New Testament or dispensation reckons the people of God to be his temple, "the habitation of God in the Spirit." At Corinth there were many temples to the gods, but one temple of God. And the former were of dead stones, however beautiful to the eye. It is a common saying, "As dead as a stone." But St. Paul, with a fine audacity of thought, conceived of the latter the temple of God as formed of living stones, from the Foundation upwards.

I THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE. The foundation of the whole Church God himself laid in raising up Christ from the dead. Whom men despised, he accepted; whom men slew, he quickened. And this living One is made "the Headstone of the corner." A "tried stone," too, thoroughly tested and proved to be sufficient. The foundation of the local Church at Corinth, Paul as a wise master builder had laid, i.e. he had made known Jesus Christ as crucified and risen from the dead, and taught the Corinthian converts to rest on him. Eloquent Apollos followed; and, though a party formed itself under his name, saying "I am of Apollos," St. Paul never blamed the eloquent preacher for this or showed the least jealousy of his influence. On the contrary, at the end of the Epistle he promised to the Corinthians another visit from "our brother Apollos, when he shall have convenient time." Any builder was welcome to continue the work and enter into St. Paul"s labours, provided that he did not disturb the Foundation which had been laid and could not be improved, and that he took good heed how he built thereon. The duty of builders is first to gather men, even though they be dead stones, to Jesus Christ, that they may live; and then to build them together, or edify them in faith and love. For this the proper means are found in the exposition and application of the Word with tenderness, pointedness, comprehensiveness, fearlessness, and fidelity. The power is altogether of God. Paul planted, Apollos watered; but the Church at Corinth was not their husbandry, but God"s. Paul laid the foundation, Apollos built on it; but the Church was God"s building, not theirs. It is so always and everywhere. "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.

II THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEMPLE.

1. Holiness. "Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, forever." The temple built by Solomon was holy, or separated to sacred use; but when its holiness was outraged by the idolatrous images and altars afterwards placed within its courts, it still retained beauty, because it was material. But now that the temple is spiritual only, its holiness is its attraction. Corrupt the character, degrade the purity of the Church, and you destroy its beauty too. The holiness of the Church is produced and maintained by the Holy Ghost abiding therein. We have not "influences of the Spirit" as from a distance, but his personal presence. When the Lord Jesus stood in the house of God at Jerusalem, he said, "In this place is One greater than the temple." For once, the less contained the Greater. Now in every meeting of the saints is One greater than the Church, for the Holy Spirit is there. And it concerns his Divine honour to purify the place of his habitation. It is his

2. high prerogative to consecrate; and the New Testament temple is throughout consecrated, not by man, but by the Spirit of God. And as it is in calling and consecration, so ought it to be in fact and in service holy to the Lord.

3. Unity. We read not of temples, but of one temple. However men may arrange themselves ecclesiastically, God sees but one temple or Church in each city, as of old at Corinth or at Ephesus. Indeed, there is but one temple, one Body of Christ, in all the world. And the unity is not brought about by negotiation or legislation; it is wrought by God. "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body." We have nothing to do with making the unity; but we are to know, feel, and evince it, worshipping together with joy, helping and exhorting each other, working together for the glory of God and good of man, and partaking together of the same bread and the same cup, not as partisans, but as Christians, members of one Body, guided by one Spirit, and cheered by one hope of our calling.

1. Variety. There are various courts, wings, towers, and porticoes in this great building. To our minds there may seem to be confusion and incongruity; but the supreme Architect knows how to adjust and reconcile all in a building "fitly framed together." Variety is not desultoriness. The mere heaping of stones together gives no temple, far less the making of little groups or heaps here and there over a wide field. They must be built and knit together in love. And then, too, there is variety in the places assigned to individual Christians. Some "seem to be pillars." They are like those vertical columns which supported a horizontal entablature in those classical temples with which the Corinthians were familiar. Others must be content to fill a niche or fit into a corner. It is an honour to be anywhere in the spiritual house.

III A WARNING AGAINST INJURING THIS TEMPLE, One may mar the temple by not taking heed to what he builds. It may be called very liberal and tolerant to make no distinctions, and bestow Christian privileges on all; but St. Paul would call it the building of "wood, hay, and stubble," which cannot abide the fiery trial that comes on every man"s work. One may also mar the temple by introducing the temper of the market place, and of the tables of the money changers into its courts. Such things call again and again for censure and a whip of small cords. One may destroy the temple, i.e. aim blows at its very life, by striking at its holiness, its unity, or its variety. Not that any one can actually demolish it; for it is an ever living Church: "The gates of hades shall not prevail against it." It is a capital crime against Christ and the Church, either

(1) to bring unholy teachings and practices into the temple ("deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate,"; Rev_2:6) or

(2) to disunite the living stones, striking the pick axes of dissension and a "separating humour" into the temple wall; or

(3) to forbid in a bigoted spirit all variety in Christian organization, and say, "The temple of the Lord are we," instead of looking with an eye of charity on all who love the Saviour and breathe his Spirit, saying, "The temple of the Lord are these. F.

Vers. 16, 17.

The Church a temple.

It is usual to regard these verses as referring to the individual Christian, but the Epistle is addressed "unto the Church of God which is at Corinth," and we may profitably dwell on some thoughts suggested by the comparison; premising that the peculiarities of ancient temples are well understood. The central building of a structure called a temple was not a place of meeting or of worship, it was the sacred shrine or dwelling place of the deity. Round this central building were grouped the courts in which worship was conducted. Eastern people are extremely jealous about the sanctity of their temples. The Christian system transfers the sanctity from the buildings to the body of believers, and even to the individual believer. All the sacredness which Jews felt to surround their temple at Jerusalem Christians ought to feel surrounds them and the Church; consequently each Christian should anxiously guard the Church, lest it should be injured by false teachings or defiled by the evil living of any of its members, No doubt St. Paul had chiefly in mind to warn all those teachers who were likely so to teach as to split the Church into divisions; for, in his thought, the Church is one great whole, and strife and party feeling are the very things that most seriously defile it.

I THE CHURCH A TEMPLE, WITH AN INDWELLING DEITY. Compare the descent of God, in his symbol of fiery cloud, to take up his abode in Solomon"s temple, with the descent of God the Holy Ghost manifest through symbols of wind, fire, and tongues to take up his abode in his Church, on the day of Pentecost. Observe how clearly St. Paul apprehended the truth of God"s real and permanent presence with his Church, and how strongly he urges the consequent sanctity of the Church. It may be true that God is not seen, but he was not seen in the earlier shrines of tabernacle and temple. He is not therefore unknown or unfelt. Spiritual worshippers realized his presence in the older days; and spiritually quickened men and women feel his nearness now. How should we think of ourselves; how of each other; and how of the Church, if it be true that "God dwelleth with us, and is in us"?

II THE INDWELLING DEITY UNIFIES AND SANCTIFIES THE WHOLE TEMPLE PRECINCTS. If he makes that innermost chamber the "holy of holies," because his cloud symbol, his Shechinah glory, rests there; his presence makes the outer chamber holy, and the courts all holy, and the altar and layers and utensils all holy. And if Christ "dwells in our hearts," and makes them like the holy of holies, we must realize that he sanctifies all our being and all our relations; sanctifies mind, affection, will, body, so that the prophetic figure should be fulfilled, and in the Christian life and Christian Church holiness should be inscribed on the very "bells of the horses.". The one anxious endeavour of a Christian life is to get all the "courts" of our body temple wholly sanctified.

III THE OLD LAWS OF JUDGMENT ON THE DEFILEMENT OF GOD"S TEMPLE APPLY TO THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE. Compare Exo_28:43; Lev_16:2. The word used here, "defile the temple of God," is better read "destroy," as the opposite of "building up," which is the Christian teacher"s duty. Ways in which a man may defile, or destroy, the temple of God, which he is himself, or which the Church is, may be detailed and illustrated. We may be sure that God will punish does punish all dishonour done to his spiritual temples.

Impress how the cherished thought of our temple like sanctity would influence our daily life and conversation. As ever present with us, God seems to say to us continually, "Be ye holy; for I am holy. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye - All Christians. Are the temple of God - The most noble kind of building, ver. 9.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Every Christian a temple of God:

v. 16. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

v. 17. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

v. 18. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise.

v. 19. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

v. 20. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain.

This is not merely a warning lest any of the readers find themselves sharing the fate of such whose efforts will not stand the test of the last day, but it is an arraignment of those who become destroyers of God’s house, whom therefore, in turn, God will destroy. To bring this out, Paul shows a different side of the picture: Do you not know that a temple of God you are, and that the Spirit of God lives in you? All Christians, being built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ and the apostles, have received the Holy Spirit, the Triune God, as the tenant of their hearts. Their hearts have become a shrine, a true temple, of the Godhead. And the underlying idea is that they all, because of this indwelling, together form the great temple of the invisible Church, the habitation of God through the Spirit. If, therefore, any person will corrupt, defile, desecrate the temple of God, this man will God destroy. If the agitators and false teachers in Corinth, if the errorists of all times, will persist in defiling the holy place of the pure temple of God in the individual Christian as well as in the Church as such, by a perversion of doctrine, by inciting wrangling and strife, then the wrath of God will strike them at last. For the holiness of God can never permit such a defilement to go unpunished; every injury of that kind is a desecration of the sanctity of the temple. And the added clause, "which you are," reminds the Corinthians of the obligation which is imposed upon them by their sanctity; it urges them to be on a sharp lookout against the defilers of their temple, and not to permit the desecration to take place. The work in which they are engaged is a sacred work; they themselves are hallowed and consecrated to God; therefore they must watch over their sanctity with a jealous eye.

Since there was great danger that some of the Corinthian Christians might have been so thoroughly imbued with the glittering show of human wisdom in the work of the Church as not to heed the apostle’s warning, he adds another word. No one in their midst should deceive himself; no one should be involved in misapprehension and blindness; no one should presume willfully to know more concerning this matter than the apostle. If anyone among them had the idea that he was wise in the wisdom of this transitory world, he had better become a fool according to the standards of this world, for then only could he become wise in the sight of God. "Those who follow human wisdom exalt human masters at the expense of God’s glory, and there are teachers who lend themselves to this error and thus build unworthily on the Christian foundation,—some who are even destroying, under a show of building, the temple of God. " The power of the Word of God over the heart of man must be demonstrated in this way, that he places all the wisdom of this world at the disposal of the true wisdom from above, and that he rejects all wisdom which in any way conflicts with the revealed truth of the Bible, though he be mocked and derided a thousand times as a hopeless fool and as a narrow-minded bigot. For it is only by taking all human thoughts and opinions captive under the obedience of Christ that a person will be placed in the position that he may understand the wisdom of God in the Word of Salvation. In support of this St. Paul reaffirms what he has spoken of at length in chapter 1: For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God; and as such it deserves only one fate, namely, to be cast aside as worthless before God. This statement the apostle substantiates by two passages from the Old Testament. In Job 5:13 it is said of the Lord: He that grips, catches, the wise in their own craftiness, their supposed wisdom. The wisdom of the world is here pictured as a craft, a subtle trade, which is carried on to the detriment of others. But God catches those that practice such cunning in their own wiles, thus showing how foolish their professions are. The second passage is from Psa 94:11: The Lord understands the arguings of the wise that they are futile. What is true of the vanity of human thoughts in general is true in particular of those that assume the leading position in the counsels of human philosophy. Whenever they leave the eternal truth of God’s Word, they become groundless, void of truth, and therefore full of folly.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Our apostle here, in the judgment of some interpreters, makes use of a farther argument to convince the Corinthians of the evil of their divisions. They are the church and temple of God, therefore not to be profaned by divisions; Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?

As if the apostle had said, "You Corinthians, by being converted to Christianity, are become a Christian church, an holy temple, in which the Spirit of God doth dwell, and where the spirit of division ought not to dwell; for if any man defile the temple of God by dividing the church into factions and parties, him will God destroy; for the temple of the Lord is holy, and not to be profaned by your dividing lusts: which temple ye are."

Learn hence, 1. That the people of God met together to worship him, are the church or spiritual temple of God.

2. That the Spirit of God dwells in the church, or temple of God; and this dwelling implies propriety, familiarity, authority, residency, and fixedness of abode.

Learn, 3. That such as defile the holy temple of God, either by factious divisions or erroneous doctrines, do provoke God to destroy them; that is, to punish them with temporal destruction, and, without repentance, with eternal damnation. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16. “Do you not know that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” The Holy Spirit dwells in every sanctified human spirit. As He is holy, He is unwilling to dwell in anything which is unholy. Hence He will never make you His temple until you let Him sanctify you wholly. Solomon’s temple beautifully symbolizes the sanctified heart. While they were felling the trees in Mount Lebanon and hewing out the cedar timbers, there was heard a great noise, roar of axes, clangor of saws and crash of the falling trees. All that symbolized the stir and commotion produced by the conviction of the Holy Ghost in the unregenerate heart. Then the temple was built without the sound of a hammer or the clangor of a saw, thus symbolizing the silent lightning of the Holy Ghost in regeneration. After the temple was built, King Solomon, who emblematizes Christ, slaughtered twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep, thus quantity for quality typifying the blood of Jesus, which sanctifies the heart. After the dedication, i. e., the sanctification of the temple, by this enormous effusion of blood, God came down and filled it with His presence, manifesting His glory. So your heart, convicted amid the thunders and earthquakes of the Sinai gospel, regenerated by the silent interior work of the Holy Ghost, and sanctified by the precious blood of Jesus, then becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost. He comes in to abide. As your spirit, now the temple of the Holy Ghost, fills your whole body, therefore your body also becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost. If you would have the Holy Ghost take your body for His temple, move in and abide forever, you must “cleanse yourself from all the filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (1Co 7:1).

Your tobacco, opium, beer, whisky, gluttony, and slovenliness must all go, and go forever. Oh! what a glory to be the temple of the Holy Ghost.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Know ye no t [a touch of amazement at their ignorance] that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? [In verse 9 he had called them God's building; he now reminds them of what kind the building was, and how exalted were its uses. The Jerusalem temple was honored by the Shechinah, but the church by the very Spirit of God.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16, 17. If any man defile the temple of God. In verse 9 the apostle had said, “Ye are God's building.” Now he returns to that figure, and denounces the judgment of God upon all who would defile his house by their carnal divisions. In that temple the Spirit dwelt, as the Shekinah had dwelt in the temple of God at Jerusalem; it was therefore a holy temple, and an awful sin to defile it. Under the old dispensation, death was the penalty of polluting the temple.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you?

Paul is rebuking the Corinthians. AT: "You act as though you do not know that you are God's temple and the Spirit of God lives in you!" (See: Rhetorical Question)

translationWords

know

temple

Holy Spirit

life

holy

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

16. οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ναὸς θεοῦ ἐστέ; ‘Ναός, sanctuary, more sacred than ἱερόν; the Holy Place in which God dwells, ναίει.’ Wordsworth. Another view of the subject is now abruptly introduced. The figure in 1Co 3:10 is resumed, but is applied, not to the ministers, but to the people. As the teachers are to avoid unprofitable questions and seek ‘that which is good to the use of edifying,’ so the taught are to shun all that may do harm to the temple of God, that is the Church at large, for what is true of the individual (ch. 1Co 6:19) is true of the community. This figure of speech is a common one in the N. T. See 2Co 6:16; Eph 2:21-22; 1Ti 3:15; 2Ti 2:20; Heb 3:3; Heb 3:6; 1Pe 2:5.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16-23.] The figure is taken up afresh and carried further: and made the occasion of solemn exhortation, since they were the temple of God, not to mar that temple, the habitation of His Spirit, by unholiness, or by exaltation of human wisdom: which last again was irrelevant, as well as sinful; for all their teachers were but their servants in building them up to be God’s temple,—yea all things were for this end, to subserve them, as being Christ’s, by the ordinance, and to the glory of God the Father.

16.] The foregoing figures, with the occasion to which they referred, are now dropped, and the οἰκοδομὴ θεοῦ recalled, to do further service. This building is now, as in Mal 3:1, and as indeed by implication in the foregoing verses, the temple of God (ναὸς θεοῦ, with emphasis on ναός, not θεοῦ ναός), the habitation of His Spirit.

οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι—Are ye ignorant that … an expression of surprise arising out of their conduct.

καὶ … ἐν ὑμῖν = ἐν ᾧ, τουτέστιν, ἐν ὑμῖν.

Meyer rightly remarks, that “ναὸς θεοῦ is the temple of God, not a temple of God: for Paul does not conceive (as Theodoret, al.) of the various churches as various temples of God, which would be inconsistent with a Jew’s conception of God’s temple, but of each Christian church as, sensu mystico, the temple of Jehovah. So there would be, not many temples, but many churches, each of which is, ideally, the same temple of God.” And, we may add, if the figure is to be strictly justified in its widest acceptation, that all the churches are built together into one vast temple: cf. ἐν ᾧ καὶ ὑμεῖς συνοικοδομεῖσθε, Eph 2:22.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16. Οὐκ οἴδατε; Frequent in this Epistle, and twice in Romans; also Jas 4:4. As in 5:6, 6:16, 19, the question implies a rebuke. The Corinthians are so carnal that they have never grasped, or have failed to retain, so fundamental a doctrine as that of the indwelling of the Spirit. *

ναὸς Θεοῦ ἐστε. Not ‘a temple of God,’ but ‘God’s Temple.’ There is but one Temple, embodied equally truly in the whole Church, in the local Church, and in the individual Christian; the local Church is meant here. As a metaphor for the Divine indwelling, the ναός, which contained the Holy of Holies, is more suitable than ἱερόν, which included the whole of the sacred enclosure (6:19; 2Co 6:16; Eph 2:21). To converts from heathenism the ναός might suggest the cella in which the image of the god was placed. It is one of the paradoxes of the Christian Church that there is only one ναὸς Θεοῦ and yet each Christian is a ναός: simul omnes unum templum et singula templa sumus, quia non est Deus in omnibus quam in singulis major (Herv.). Ναός is from ναίειν, ‘to dwell.’

καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα. The καί is epexegetic. Both Gentile and Jew might speak of their ναὸς Θεοῦ, but, while the pagan temple was inhabited by an image of a god, and the Jewish by a symbol of the Divine Presence (Shekinah), the Christian temple is inhabited by the Spirit of God Himself.

ἐν ὑμῖν οἰκεῖ. ‘In you hath His dwelling-place.’ In Luk 11:51 we have οἶκος, where, in the parallel passage in Mat 23:35, we have ναός. Τότε οὖν μάλιστα ἐσόμεθα ναὸς Θεοῦ, ἐὰν χωρητικοὺς ἐαυτοὺς κατασκευάσωμεν τοῦ Πνεύματος του ͂ Θεοῦ (Orig.).

It is not easy to decide between ἐν ὑμῖν οἰκεῖ (B P 17) and οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν (א A C D E F G L, Vulg.). The former is more forcible, placing the ‘permanent dwelling’ last, with emphasis.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Temple [ναος] . Or sanctuary. See on Mt 4:5. Compare Eph 2:21; 2Co 6:16.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vv. 16, 17. “Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 17. If any man destroy the temple of God, him will God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”

The asyndeton between 1Co 3:15-16 is to be remarked; it is as if, on occasion of what the apostle has just said about bad workers, a sudden view took possession of his heart, that of the gravity of the act of those workmen who not only build badly, but who destroy what is already constructed. Everything in this abrupt transition betrays emotion; the interrogative form: Know ye not...? which appeals to the conscience of the Church and to the livelier feeling which it should have of its own dignity; the phrase, temple of God, forming a step higher than the simple building (1Co 3:9); finally, the two analogous gradations, that of the first φθείρειν, destroy, rising above the act of bad building thereon, and that of the second φθείρειν, denoting the punishment, rising above the simple fact of ζημιοῦσθαι, suffering loss (of reward).

We must avoid translating, “the temple of God.” The Church of Corinth is not the universal Church. The absence of the article before ναός, temple, makes this word the indication of a simple quality: “Ye are a temple of God; ye partake of the sacred character of such a building!” This applies to every believer at Corinth, and at the same time to the Church as a whole. And how do they all possess such a dignity? The following proposition explains: God dwells in Christ, and Christ by the Holy Spirit dwells in the believer. The Father and the Son, according to the promise of Jesus, thus make, by the Spirit, “their abode in him” (Joh 14:23). The same figure: Eph 2:19-22; 1Pe 2:4-5.

The adjunct ἐν ὑμῖν, in you, may signify within you or in the midst of you. The context speaks rather in favour of the second meaning, since Paul is addressing the Church as such. But as God dwells among believers only on condition of dwelling in them, the second meaning implies the first. Is the apostle thinking of the temple of Jerusalem, for which henceforth the Church, the true spiritual temple, is to be substituted? Possibly. Now if it was a sacrilege to profane the shadow, what will it be to do violence to the body (Col 2:17)!

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.