I Cor. 3:16-17 ... "Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are."
In the ancient world people built temples of stone, brick, or wood and ornamented them with gold, silver and precious stones. They usually sacrificed a significant part of their own wealth and even their means of life to make these structures as elaborate, beautiful and costly as they could. They understood that the temple was the house of the god they worshiped, and they felt they owed the deity the best they could provide. This was true of Israel's temple in Jerusalem. It was called the "house of God" or "temple of God," and God's presence was considered to be perpetually found there. Many times in the Old Testament, when someone is said to "come before the Lord," it meant the person came before the temple, or (previous to the temple), before the tabernacle. As Solomon dedicated the temple, he prayed to God, "I have surely built You a lofty house, a place for Your dwelling forever," (I Kgs. 8:13). God later replied, "I have consecrated this house which you have built by putting My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually." Since God inhabited the temple, it had to be treated with great reverence. No one could enter it unless he had been ritually purified, and things could not be brought into it unless they were authorized and had been sanctified. Conduct within the temple had to be according to the standard prescribed by the Mosaic law.
When the law of Christ replaced the Law of Moses, the physical temple in Jerusalem ceased to be God's dwelling place on earth. God still has a temple in which He dwells here, but it is not one made of stones, brick and timber. Paul declared in Acts 17:24 that God "who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands." In I Cor. 3:16-17 the apostle states that God's temple now is the church, the community of God's people in Christ. Christians are collectively the "temple of God," and the Spirit of God dwells in them and among them. As members of the church, therefore, people are privileged to live in the presence of God and in close fellowship with God. Since only priests are allowed to enter a temple, and since their duty there is to offer sacrifices, it becomes the lot of every Christian to be a priest and to offer sacrifices. Thus we read in I Pet. 2:5, "You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." Christians do not need a huge, costly temple as the residence of their God and the fit place to serve Him in worship. We ourselves are that temple, and God dwells within us.
It is still essential as it was in the time of the physical temple that no one defile the temple of God. Since the present temple is the church as the community of God's people, the things that would defile it are whatever would disrupt the fellowship among its members or its fellowship with God. In the Corinthian letters Paul deals with a wide variety of things that were weakening the fellowship of the members: sects identified by human names, fornication, lawsuits, marriage problems, idolatrous influences, and varieties of false doctrine. As their fellowship with one another was broken down, their fellowship with God was also greatly disrupted. The realization that the church, (not the literal building but the community of Christians), is God's current temple should cause us to hold the church in highest esteem and treat it with the greatest respect we are able. We should be most careful lest we defile its sanctity and offend God.
