What does it mean that we are the temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16)?

Answer: The assembly in Corinth is looked at in these verses in its responsible character. Paul had laid a firm, sure foundation which had secured this company as the local representatives of God in that city. Now, they were to take great heed as to how they attempted to further this work. Two thoughts are connected with the House of God, approach and display. The first is seen in the Tabernacle and the second in the Temple of Solomon. So far as we know, the term "House of God" is never used of any local company of saints, but the temple is, as we have it here. It regards the saints in Corinth as the shrine from which God was being displayed. Two words are used for "temple" in the New Testament, Hieron and Naos. The first takes in all the temple buildings; the second only the sanctuary or inner shrine. It is Naos here for the temple, and views the saints as those who were in the light and favour of God, and in living touch with Him by the Spirit. Only as being such could they rightly display the character of God in Corinth. But this raised a great responsibility that they should rightly represent God.

To understand this verse you have called attention to, we must take the whole passage from v. 9 to v. 17. The building is in view right through. Three kinds of builders may be operating there. A good builder, building good material, v. 14. A good builder, building bad material, v. 15. A bad builder who can only build bad material, v. 17. "Defile" and "destroy" in this verse are the same word and give the warning that just retribution would be meted out to any who defiled this temple. It would be one who had not the knowledge of God (ch. 15:34), and whose presence in that company was spoiling the pure display of the nature and character of God either by bad doctrine or bad practice. A person in that company who could only corrupt by his teaching and his practice would eventually be corrupted by God. Such an one would be like a tare amongst the wheat.

Thus God has His temple on earth now as surely as of old in Israel. But this is often not seen by those who confess that the old Levitical order is judged and gone, and that the effort to imitate it since redemption is to fall away from the grace and truth of God now come in Christ, and proclaimed in the gospel, and to be displayed in the Christian and the church. It was the presence of God always which constituted God's temple. Not the costliness of stones, nor the splendour of gold or silver, but the cloud wherein Jehovah was pleased to come down was its true glory, when Israel could boast of a habitation in their midst for the mighty One of Jacob. So now it is not merely that there are Christians, but God has His house or temple. It is the assembly, not the individuals considered as such, but those builded together for the purpose in virtue of the Spirit. See Ephesians 2:22. The Spirit dwells in each believer doubtless; but this is another truth and equally certain from God's word. "Know ye not that ye are God's temple, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you!" How solemn the fact that a divine person, the Holy Ghost, dwells where Christians are; and this, it may be added, because of redemption! For it was never so till the work of Christ was wrought, and He going on high sent the Holy Spirit down to be in the saints and abide with them for ever. It is God's testimony to the efficacy of His sacrifice. Whatever the mercies and blessings and privileges before, this could not be till the blood that makes atonement for ever was shed. Now the Spirit of God comes where that blood-shedding is confessed; and there He dwells, making those who confess Christ and His work God's temple.

But it is much to be weighed that the apostle is here showing the danger not only of unreality but of defilement. There are those who build wisely and well; there are those who, confessing His name, build on the one and only foundation unfit materials. But there is worse still. There is the enemy at work using men that bear the Lord's name to corrupt or destroy (the same word, and one may say, the same thing). For God speaks of evil doctrine according to its own nature if it work unimpeded; and this is the only result of heterodoxy so left. He who teaches it corrupts and destroys; and him who destroys (or corrupts) the temple of God shall God destroy. Awful end! but is there not a cause? is it not sufficient? Could the holy God feel or do otherwise? It is in vain to plead love; for in truth the blow of love in caring for the objects beloved is beyond all to be feared. And how does not God resent that evil which defiles the holy temple where His Spirit dwells in virtue and honour of the work of Christ on the cross? He will surely destroy those whom Satan thus employs, under whatever disguise, to pollute the very streams of life and blessing for souls, yea, to dishonour the temple wherein He Himself dwells.

This was addressed to the saints at Corinth collectively. Together, they formed God's temple, and as such they were the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. If this was true of the saints at Corinth it is true of the local assembly in any city. The Holy Spirit is not only in each one who composes the assembly, but He dwells in the assembly as a company. It is this that makes it such a serious matter for any one to defile the temple of God. The natural man, in his religious zeal, carefully safeguards his religious buildings, though they are only stone and lime, with some adornment of material things; how much more does God care for that which is His temple, wherein dwells His holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16).

Verse 16. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" etc. Leaving his words of warning and encouragement to fall, under God's direction, into their fitting place, and do their proper work, the apostle turns now to apply his general doctrine of "God's building" more directly to the saints at Corinth. They had already learnt this truth in part, but had felt little of its power and meaning, as was proved by their disorderly condition. Hence the reproachful tone of his question. The first thing to be noticed in considering this verse is, that the apostle is here declaring, not a promise only, but a present truth. God's people are His temple. And it is interesting to observe, that this doctrine, which is tacitly involved wherever the subject of the Church and its relations is treated in the epistles, is for the first time declared expressly in this passage, and owes its distinctness of enunciation to the failure of those who should have recognized and walked in it as the peculiar glory of their calling. God had dwelt for a while among His earthly people, but not in them. The tabernacle in the wilderness, and afterwards the temple, were alike symbolic of a better thing to come.

In verse 16, we have "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" Here it is a collective thing - "ye are." The temple is the habitation in which God dwells. In Ephesians 2 the apostle says, "groweth unto a holy temple." In Ephesians it is a thing of God's work and therefore perfect, whereas here it is a present thing - what is actually on earth. When discriminating so, there are certain things you must take into account. Language in scripture is used about people fitly, and you cannot take them otherwise. If you did, it would be misapplied truth. There is meat in due season as well as good meat. If I gave meat to a babe six months old, I should choke it.

With respect to the doctrine of the indwelling Spirit, it may be scripturally stated in a threefold gradation: Christ personally and supremely; The Church as His body; and, The individual saint, both separately as a child of God, and relatively as a member of Christ's mystic body. It is to the second of these that the teaching of this verse refers; and the point of chief interest is, that the apostle applies in unqualified terms to these saints at Corinth a title which, in its full sense, comprises the entire Church of God. They are the temple of God. They are so, because they are God's gathered people in that place; for what God inhabits is His temple. While, therefore, the Church in its entirety can never be assembled in one place on earth, the Church in its unity is represented wherever real believers are assembled in the name of Jesus, and in common subjection to the word of God. God's temple was at Corinth. It was also at Ephesus, or Rome, or wheresoever else His saints were congregated. Nor would a member of one of these assemblies, if suddenly transferred to another, be conscious of any spiritual change or displacement as a stone in God's building. For God's people are His house, without any reference to place or circumstance. That this solemn and ever-blessed truth may be enjoyed by those whom it concerns, there are required on their parts, first, a believing recognition of this doctrine as a fundamental principle of truth; and, secondly, a temper of soul suited to the moral relation in which God's worshippers stand towards the Object of their worship. "The fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Ghost" are bound together in a strict and necessary association.9

Verse 17. "If any one defile [or destroy] the temple of God, him shall God destroy," etc. God's holiness attaches also to His temple; and as from of old His declaration has been that He will be sanctified in them that draw nigh to Him,1 so have we here also a solemn warning of the consequences of defiling or corrupting the living temple of God. But what in particular is the apostle's meaning, and by whom is this guilt to be incurred? To answer this question, we must first ask another: What constitutes the temple in its holiness? Paul says, "Ye are the temple of God." But how came they so? The answer is, "Through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth."2 God's temple is founded on His truth. Its defilement, consequently, is effected chiefly by the introduction of false doctrine, and secondly, by its never-failing accompaniment of moral debasement and corruption;3 for holiness can only live with truth. The allowed presence of an unconverted person in the Church is a defilement. The Canaanite has no place in the congregation of the Lord.

Further,* the Holy Ghost being individually in our bodies, as temples, is not all. He forms the body, or rather formed it on the day of Pentecost - not by spiritual progress, but by coming personally down, and baptising into one body. Nor is that all. The Holy Ghost is not in an assembly as God's house or dwelling, but in the assembly. In 1 Corinthians 3 they are collectively God's temple, Christendom (see 1 Cor. 1:2), only realised especially at Corinth. (Some will say it [ver. 12] is doctrine: it is so, but realised in men; as "the seed is the word of God," Luke 8:11, "the good seed are the children of the kingdom," Matt. 13:38.) So, in Ephesians 2, "Ye are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit." That is not individual; and if the Holy Ghost dwells in the habitation, is He to do nothing there, or direct everything? The assembly is as much the house, or temple of God, as it is the body; only all the members of this last are personally dwelt in by the Spirit and members of Christ. As to two Spirits, it has no ground at all. It would be much more applicable to dwelling in individuals, but this is carefully guarded against (1 Cor. 12), in contrast with demoniacal inspiration. Whatever is not of the Spirit is of the flesh.

There are two main branches of the Spirit's work amongst Christians; (1) in the individual believer, and (2) in the assembly of God. The latter is not so commonly apprehended as the former. Very many believers understand His blessed operation in the individual, but few comparatively enter into the meaning and blessedness of His action in the church of God. We find the two things clearly marked in 1 Corinthians 6:19, we read, "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?" The connection shows that believers are here addressed individually, for the Apostle is exhorting to personal holiness. Then in 1 Corinthians 3:16, we read, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" Here he addresses "the church of God which is at Corinth" (1 Corinthians 1:2) hence the instruction is of a very different character.

It is a vital truth of Christianity, that the church is "an habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. 1:22). Of old, God dwelt in the tabernacle in the midst of His redeemed people, and later in the temple which Solomon built for His name. But there was always distance between God and the people. The veil shut God in, and the people out. There was no drawing near to God within the sanctuary (Heb. 9:8). But mighty changes have been wrought through the accomplished work of Christ. Not only is sin put away, so that a purged conscience is the birthright portion of every believer, but the Spirit of God has come down from heaven to form the church and to dwell in it. As we read "Ye are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them" (2 Cor. 6:16). God the Holy Ghost dwells in the church, to guard the lordship of Christ, and to lead out the saints in all their exercises towards God. This is very little understood. It was thoroughly believed in the first days of the church of God. The shaken building (Acts 4:31) and the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11) were striking proofs that a divine Person was really among them. And though we have no such outward signs now, His presence is as real and true; faith has but to act upon it.

349 But, further, this is fully brought out in Scripture as a distinct thing from being in individual members. Both are spoken of; but they are spoken of to different purposes in Scripture. "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?" etc. (1 Cor. 6:19). Here accordingly it is applied to personal sanctification. "Know 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," 1 Cor. 3:16-17. Here it is clearly the Church of God, the building of God which some might corrupt by false doctrine. They were God's building. The Spirit of God does then clearly distinguish the dwelling in the individual and the dwelling in the body. And this is so much the same thought and connected with the idea of the presence of God in Israel, that in 2 Corinthians 6:16 it is distinctly introduced. "For ye are the temple of the living God: as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." And now I would ask, What is there debasing in the blessed doctrine that God dwells in His holy temple? We might perhaps say (were it not for that precious blood of Christ which has cleansed us) that it was a debasing idea that the Holy Ghost should dwell in our poor wretched bodies as His temple. But His testimony is to the value of that precious blood as cleansing us, so that His presence in the believer is a glorious testimony to the infinite preciousness of Christ's work, and His presence at the right hand of God the Father. But His presence in the Church as His temple, though no doubt founded on the same great truth, is at least more easily apprehended. Because, when I think of the Church, I do not think of the flesh, but only of the redeemed people of God on earth. Here, my soul says easily, the Holy Ghost can dwell. It belongs to Christ, whom the Spirit glorifies. Both, we have seen, are true, and distinctly true; but when I think of a man, I think readily of what he is in his infirmity; and (though it would be wrong) might be easily led to say, Can the Holy Ghost dwell in such poor vile creatures? But when I think of the Church, I do not think of the first Adam state. I think of the fruit of Christ's redemption. Here, my heart says, the Holy Ghost ought to be.

350 But having seen that the scripture does speak of both distinctly (that is, that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, and that the Church is so too), I would quote some passages which speak of both one and the other, that we may see that both are fully taught in the word. We read (John 4), "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John 7, "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water; and this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive." These are evidently personal and individual. And this presence of the Holy Ghost is connected with life, joy, the sealing of our persons, and the certainty of salvation (and that, known in our own hearts), and strength to resist temptation, and fruits against which there is no law. "He that stablisheth us together with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God, who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." So that we know that "all the promises of God are in him yea, and in him amen, to the glory of God by us." We are "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith." Here He is acting in, and on, and in testimony with, the individual as himself livingly united to Christ. But there is another truth besides. God is to be in His temple. What is a temple without God? There was Israel where God dwelt; and a temple built with hands, where God vouchsafed in a certain manner to dwell. Then Christ was the true temple, as we know, when He was here; as He took the place of Israel as the true vine. Is there none now? Or is it only the individual poor weak saint that is so? No. God has broken down the middle wall of partition, and through the glorious though seemingly debasing work of Christ has made both one, making peace, and reconciling both Jew and Gentile in one body to God by the cross, and has built them up together to be His habitation through the Spirit (Eph. 2). In a word, the Church of God (not looked at as individuals, but, on the contrary, as brought together into one by this glorious work of Christ), is God's habitation through the Spirit. So, as the apostle draws the consequence, there is one body and one Spirit. And it is against this blessed truth that all the effort of the enemy is now directed — a body formed into one, by the cross of Christ breaking down the middle wall of partition, and the presence of the Holy Ghost upon earth consequent upon the exaltation of the Head, so that there should be one body and one Spirit, and a habitation of God on the earth: God having exalted Christ above all principality and power, and given Him to be Head over all things to the Church. The same doctrine is taught in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 as in Ephesians. Now, that the Holy Ghost acts in the members of the body is fully admitted. Moreover this acting of the Holy Ghost in the members is proper gift, as anyone reading 1 Corinthians 12 may easily see: but, though He acts in the members, His dwelling is in the Church or whole assembly. We might as well say, as to my soul, because it acts livingly and sets my members in motion, that it was only as dwelling in the members that it did so, as hold that the Holy Ghost's dwelling in the Church was only individually in the members: for "so is Christ." For surely the Holy Ghost is much more, as the other Comforter, an independent living Person and agent distributing severally to every one as He will, than my feeble soul is in my body; and in which of the members was He acting when the place shook where they were assembled? And hence, I am persuaded, it is that one can be made partaker of the Holy Ghost, as in Hebrews 6, and yet lost. Looked at as the individual seal and earnest, by which, after believing, we are sealed to the day of redemption, that cannot be: but as dwelling in power, according to the principle of this dispensation in the Church, it is supposed we may partake of it, not as the power and seal of living union (in that case it would bring forth fruit meet for Him by whom it was dressed), but acting in divine ministry and energy in the midst of the Church as a Person dwelling there: God making it His habitation by the Spirit, so that one could lie to Him; for in lying to the Holy Ghost they had lied to God. So the stranger fell down and confessed that God was in them of a truth: not merely in the individual who spoke, but in the assembly, as He was lied to not in any working in a member: HE WAS THERE. There might be persons, we know there were, who were false brethren, in whom He did not dwell as a seal or earnest at all; but He was in the Church. It is the presence of the Holy Ghost, as sent, which constitutes and is the power of the unity of the body.

Equally clear is the teaching as to the Holy Spirit dwelling in the house of God: "And 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 unto a holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. 2:20-22). "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Cor. 3:16.) The thought of unity is essential to the meaning of these passages. The foundation is one — Jesus Christ; and there is but One who dwells in the temple — the Holy Spirit. Every believer forms a part of this holy temple — a "living stone," as the apostle Peter says (1 Peter 2:5). We are not only builded upon the foundation by faith in Christ, but are builded together, formed into a habitation of God. Each believer's body is a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 6:19) , but the passages we are considering go further, and show that all believers form a unity, indwelt by one Spirit.