Hope and HolinessSample

Do You Not Know?— Temple of the Holy Spirit: The Fruit of the Gospel

Key Question: How does knowing your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit enable and empower sexual purity?

“Paul is driving home a powerful point: through the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit, the Corinthians are God’s temple in the city, where each member also constitutes the holy dwelling place of God. Since the believer’s body is now and forevermore the temple of the Holy Spirit (a dwelling place for God), they must not defile it by engaging in sexual immorality (cf. Rev. 21:22–27). The old pagan sexual ethic of Corinth must give way to the new sexual ethic of God’s kingdom. There is a new temple in town.

Having sexual relations with a prostitute was not counted as a consecration but rather a desecration of God’s true temple. Sexual immorality is appalling idolatry, which leads to defilement and disgrace (“put to shame . . . put to shame . . . put to shame,” cf. Isa. 44:9, 11). Just as it was unthinkable to desecrate and disgrace the tabernacle or temple, so it is unthinkable that the believer would desecrate and disgrace their own body, which is now the temple of the Holy Spirit. . .

Paul asks the Corinthians, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” They did not know. They had forgotten the work of Christ for us (the gospel) and the work of the Spirit in us (the fruit of the gospel). They had missed a cardinal implication (fruit) of the gospel: the believer’s body belongs to the Lord because it is a sacred temple of the Holy Spirit. The believer’s body is a holy habitation of the Lord and is therefore not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord and the Lord for the body.

Do you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, a sacred dwelling place purchased by Christ on the cross and thus belonging to Him? This knowledge is exceedingly purifying!

Prayer: Lord of all power and might, you are the author and giver of all good things. By the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit, you have made us temples—the dwelling place of God. Enable and empower us, by this knowledge, to glorify you with our body and soul through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.