What does it mean that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?

Indeed, as God raised up the body of the Lord Jesus from among the dead, so will He raise up our bodies. The care of our bodies then is in the power of His own hand, and it is for us now to use them rightly, not to abuse them. In fact, the striking statement is made that "our bodies are the members of Christ." What a dignity is this given to the body! In its present state, of course, it is subject to decay and death, but this is only temporary, and it is to be honorably and properly treated for the Lord's sake. How grossly wrong to take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot! It is a practical denial of what is actually true. In practice the joining of two bodies together makes them one, as God declared when He created the woman for the man. "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." It is a higher, more precious, and eternal unity, and though spiritual, yet the believer's body is to share in this blessing for eternity.

"Flee fornication." In this one is not told to fight, but to keep far from it, as Joseph fled from the wife of Potiphar. Other sins may not involve the body in this way, but this is sin against one's own body. And as well as our bodies being the members of Christ, now we are told, "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost." The Spirit of God dwells within our body in order to display in us the precious reality of His character in our practical lives. Notice that it is not said that our spirits or souls are His temple, but our bodies. So that when we are told, "Ye are not your own," we cannot regard this as being merely in regard to our spiritual interests, but fully applicable to our bodies. Being bought with a price - a price so infinitely great - certainly we are totally the property of the Living God; and it is only right and becoming that we should glorify God in our body.

The idea of a temple is a sacred edifice, a space “cut off” from others, where God may be worshipped, and from whence things secular, such as commerce, trade, etc., are excluded. With all this we are of course familiar by the ordinary usage of the day. The question is, does such custom comport with the Christian idea of a temple of God? Sincerity as to it cannot make the practice of it right, if indeed the word of God supply no sanction.

What then, today, is God’s temple? Let us begin at the lowest point. In 1 Corinthians 6:19 we read: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price?” Here the body of the individual Christian is that temple; his body—it does not say soul—but the body, which is the instrument of his activities, volition, passions, and the like. This is (most wonderful fact, and to be duly pondered) the temple of the Holy Ghost. Do we know it? Are we influenced by such a marvellous fact? Let me lay hold of it in power, then I will shrink from sin of every kind, and cherish the holiness that the presence of such a Guest involves. I shall seek not to grieve Him, but the rather to encourage Him. I am not my own. I am bought with a price that I should glorify God in my body. Oh! for grace! Spend time in reading the context.

The next, and very solemn use that is made of this gift of the Spirit, is as regards the believer's body. It is not now that together Christians constitute the temple of God, but that each one's body is His temple. This is a capital truth of Christianity; for the Corinthians fell into that error which has been perpetuated in our own day, that, if we be only right in heart, it matters not about the body — that we must not be too particular as to outward things, among which comes, of course, the body as the outward instrument of the man. To such it seemed an unspiritual thought to be occupied with the body: why not insist on the inner man? Let the soul be right, and the rest may be safely left. Not at all, says the apostle Paul; the Holy Ghost is pleased to dwell in the man, and makes, not the soul, but the body, His temple. If the body is consecrated to the Lord, if it is separated by the power of the Holy Ghost, the soul must surely be all right. But there might be excuses made, so as to leave the body free for self-indulgence and downright wickedness, while highflown sentiments filled the spirit of a man. This, it is evident, is hateful to God. "Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body." (1 Cor. 6)

I can understand now, the apostle Paul, when he says, "What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you?" (1 Cor. 6:19). This is individual, whereas, you observe, that Paul speaks of the corporate aspect of His presence in a previous verse (1 Cor. 3:16). Have you learned, beloved fellow-Christian, that "your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" Paul thus addresses the fleshly-minded Corinthian, and no more important, or practical truth could a Christian receive than this. For instance, he may say, I will go to such and such a place. Well, you will have to take the Holy Ghost with you. What! I shall have to take the Holy Ghost with me? Yes, you cannot leave Him outside. Why? Because the Lord here says, He shall "abide with you for ever."

219 And here he appeals to them as to not sinning. How can you go and sin with a body that is the temple of the Holy Ghost? It is not merely breaking such a command, or the like; but the motive here is, "What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" And you are going to commit sin with it? All exhortations are founded upon the blessed place into which He has brought us. "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God?" God Himself has given it, to put you in connection with Himself, and are you going into connection with sin and vileness? It is applied to purity of life. The body is the vessel of the presence and action of God by the Holy Ghost. We do fail; but that is the power; and we are renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. What a place we are set in! It makes us feel our wretchedly low ways and shortcomings - and so much the better. If we are humble, we do not need to be humbled. If a man is not humble, he needs to be humbled: if he is humble, he is the recipient of grace; "for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace unto the humble." And wherever a person is really humble, he may have a great deal to learn, but at any rate he is in his right place with God. Instead of His having to contend with us, we are the objects of His blessing. If it is not so, humbling must come in. "What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God?"

220 Then comes the second motive. "And ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body." It is a motive - not simply power in the presence of God, but a positive motive from the perfect work of Christ; we are not our own. If we were, we were lost. If we are to have blessing, to be a blessing, it is in this - that we are not our own at all. Wherever I act in my own will in anything, I am wronging God of His own title through the blood of Christ. We are not our own. Christ is ours: but there is a second thing - not only that Christ is mine, but that I am His; and the heart delights to be His, and not its own, because it has learnt His love to us, who has loved us, and given Himself for us.

218 "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own." It is redeemed. "Ye are bought with a price." Being redeemed by God, the body, which is our servant and vessel of working, is the temple of the Holy Ghost. There I get power, and power by One dwelling in me, whose presence is that which must measure everything I do. Therefore He says, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." Such is the measure He furnishes us. He gives us intelligence, and affections, and objects, which the law could not do, but Christ does. He gives us a blessed hope too; but He dwells in us now. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost: and we are called upon so to walk, that in nothing, in word or thought or act, we should grieve the Spirit of God. It is a wonderful measure in this case. The Spirit has these thoughts and feelings, and He produces them in us.

We will look at but two phases of the indwelling of the Spirit, individual and corporate: "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price?" (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Here the body of the individual believer is called the temple, the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit. What a fact! God the Spirit dwelling in us. That holy presence, that divine Being! What place can sin have in connection with such a presence? Not only are the grosser forms of evil, spoken of in the immediate context, excluded by such a fact, but the unclean or selfish thought, the idle word — what place have they in the temple of God? What grace too this is, when we think that these bodies were once the abodes and the servants of sin. Dear brethren, how feeble is our conception of the presence of this blessed, heavenly Guest! May we realize it more fully.

Other passages furnish another wondrous thought of the indwelling of the Spirit. "In whom ye are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. 2:22). The subject here is not the individual saint, but all who are upon the foundation of which Christ is the corner-stone. These all form the temple or house of God, which is growing (without sound of hammer, under the silent working of the Spirit) into a holy temple in the Lord. The topmost stone will soon be laid, and amid universal joy the Church, the heavenly temple or dwelling place of God, will be manifested in glory. But meanwhile the whole body of believers is looked upon as a temple, a habitation for the Spirit of God.

But its incongruity with our relation to Christ is not all that the apostle urges. Fornication he would have avoided earnestly, because of its peculiar character, differing as it does from every other sin in this that it is against the body itself, while others are external to it. How dreadful then to think not merely of the body so misused, but the Christian's body, temple of the Holy Spirit as it is! not from any mere consecration to Him but from His being in us, and this from God, on the ground of purchase by Christ's blood. Therefore the apostle's appeal to glorify God in their body.

Accordingly the believers there were betrayed into their former uncleanness of life when the heavenly light got dim. And how does the apostle deal with this? He recalls to them the Holy Spirit's dwelling in them. What a truth, and of what force to the believer! He does not say simply that they were redeemed, though he brings it in also; still less does he merely reason on the moral heinousness of the sin; neither does he cite the law of God that condemned it. He presses upon them that which was proper to them as Christians. It was no question of man, let him be Gentile or Jew, but of a Christian. Thus he sets before them the distinctive Christian blessing — the Holy Ghost dwelling in the believer, and making his body (not his spirit but his body) a temple of the Holy Ghost; for here was precisely where the enemy seems to have misled these Corinthians. They affected to think they might be pure in spirit, but do what they liked with their bodies. But, answers the apostle, it is the body which is the temple of the Holy Ghost. The body belongs to the Lord and Saviour; the body, therefore, and not the spirit only, He claims now. No doubt that the spirit be occupied with Christ is a grand matter; but the licentious flesh of man would talk, at any rate, about the Lord, and at the same time indulge in evil. This is set aside by the blessed fact that the Holy Ghost even now dwells in the Christian, and this on the ground of his being bought with a price. Thus the very call to holiness ever keeps the saint of God in the sense of his immense privileges as well as of his perfect deliverance.

A further precious setting forth of grace is found in 1 Cor. 6:19 "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price." The words "Know ye not?" repeated six times in this chapter, were intended as reminders of the great things the Corinthians had been taught, but which they were letting slip. Terrible danger for us also!