Don’t you know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Cor. 3:16)

Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you? And that you are not your own? For you were bought at a price: therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Cor 6: 19-20)

Isn’t this one of the most remarkable verses in Scripture? It is both reassuring and challenging. If we allow that word ‘temple’ to conjure up images of the temple of older times in Jerusalem, let alone the over ornate temples to foreign gods around the world, it would be easy to be put off. Quite the opposite is what Paul is telling us about this naos: the sanctuary of God and the holy of holies. It may not look very imposing and impressive but it has the life of God Himself within it!

The Lord is saying not that we are to go to a temple, but that we are one – and that He has come to dwell with us in our inmost being. “Anyone who loves Me will obey My teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.(John 14:23)

Right from the start of this amazing reminder, Paul uses the word ouk, which is the strongest of all the Greek negatives. This is not just a verse to pass over too swiftly. It is as though the Lord is saying, ‘Don’t you know? This is something that you really really need to take to heart!’ The particular word Paul uses here for ‘know’ is oida, which speaks of more than just knowing a fact, but rather perceiving the fuller meaning of something.

What an incredible privilege it is that we are the temple of the Lord, in whom the Spirit dwells. It makes all the difference to the decisions that we make, both the long-term ones and the here and now short-term ones. May we always remember to honour the Lord in our bodies and our hearts, for them to be a pleasing offering to Him.

May we know that we know that we know what it is to follow the Lord – and then continue in the good of that decision. Over the course of many decades I have seen only too many who were genuinely walking with the Lord making decisive choices in favour of giving their life to someone who is not a Christian. Charlie, (not her real name) was one such who I thought was ‘safely’ discipled who attended the meetings we led in Oxford. She proceeded to live out that tragic decision by marrying a well-off non-Christian, and turning her back decisively on following the Lord. And I had thought that she was safely discipled!

We can multiply that example almost endlessly. Such decisions cannot but have huge repercussions for the way both the church operates and the way we do as individuals. We know that sin in the church defiles God’s temple, for it conflicts with the indwelling presence of God, and as it comes it comes in to contact with the holiness of God there is turbulence. Ongoing sins that are not repented of can ultimately destroy churches and drive the Spirit of God far from his sanctuary.

I came across something in a very different spirit in John Henry Maunder’s Easter-tide cantata Olivet to Calvary. It is all about Jesus cleansing the temple, and is a great incentive for us to pray afresh for Him to cleanse us as His living temples. The recurring refrain reminds us that ‘Another temple waits Thee Lord divine – the temple of my heart. Oh, make it thine!

The great news is that He has done so. The challenge is to live up to it, and to live it out!

Easy though it is to ‘look down’ on our bodies as they get older, and to join in the world’s way of praising those who are supremely fit and healthy, it is all the more important, therefore, to remember that ‘we are His workmanship.’ We can be sure that in his sight, as an artisan, that He is quite prepared to take a great deal of time and trouble to embellish and beautify us.

This is a great truth that we can hold up as a banner against a poor self-image and grasp hold of. It means that you and I are both beautiful in the Lord’s sight . . . Here is a beautiful poem that Suzie Hunt wrote that makes the point beautifully. How amazing to think He lives in us, and that He is delighted to have chosen us. He does not make mistakes. Our life is in Him!