“What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever? And what union can there be between God’s temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said: “I will live in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
2 Corinthians 6:15-16 NLT
The Temple in Jerusalem was sacred to the Jews. The first one, built by Solomon, David’s son, and using materials David had accumulated in the last years of his reign and life, was magnificent. It was built around 959 BC and lasted for 400 years until it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and his forces in 586 BC. The second Temple was built under the guidance of Zerubbabel about 70 years later and lasted until 70 AD, when the Romans destroyed it. And that is the situation that still stands today. There will be a future Temple in the New Jerusalem, but this one will be very different. Revelation 21:22, “I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple”. Jews today have mixed views about the Temple, with some of the orthodox persuasions expecting such a building to appear through Divine providence, perhaps with the coming of the Messiah.
Early in His ministry, Jesus visited the Temple in Jerusalem and cleared the merchants from the courtyard. John 2:16, “Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”” The Jewish leaders weren’t too happy about this and in the following verses in John we read, “But the Jewish leaders demanded, “What are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.” “All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” “What!” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?” But when Jesus said “this temple,” he meant his own body”. And that introduces us to Paul’s New Covenant pronouncement that “we are the temple of the living God”. Paul said to the Corinthians in his first letter, “Don’t you realise that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
In our verses today, Paul asked the question, “How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever? And what union can there be between God’s temple and idols?” The picture emerges of the Temple, pure and holy, the place where God lives, and then someone brings in an idol and starts worshipping it. Those who knew the law of Moses would immediately declare such a person as being worthy of death under the laws of the nation of Israel. Worshipping idols in the Temple would have been unthinkable to a Jew, but Paul associated this picture with the partnership between a believer and an unbeliever. Those of us who are believers, pilgrims like us who are in Christ, are now God’s temple on earth. His Spirit occupies every believer in Jesus. With that understanding, Paul’s meaning is clear. Any believer who participates in the worship of an idol is guilty of betraying God in the same way as someone worshiping an idol in the Jewish temple.
There are two implications of being God’s Temple, where the Holy Spirit lives. Personally, each believer has a responsibility to maintain a Temple free of idolatry, immorality, and all manner of sin. We call that being sanctified. The Temple within us is a place where God is glorified. Each believer is also part of a Temple that consists of all believers. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, “Don’t you realise that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. ” Peter also wrote about this in 1 Peter 2:5, “And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God”.
Paul continued to quote Leviticus 26:12, “I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people”. It is an awesome and holy situation to be the place where God dwells. No more of a physical building, an entity outside of us. Instead, through our own holiness, we become “living stones”, a corporate building full of God and His Spirit. However, if that was the case, what is stopping the church from being a force far beyond anything ever seen on this planet? God walking around this world inside a huge human Temple? But of course, this is a spiritual Temple, unrecognisable by the secular society in which we live. We “living stones” do God’s work in the lives and communities of people around us. We are the “salt and light”, ensuring that God’s Temple continues to live and hold back the forces of evil that would otherwise overwhelm and destroy this world in which we live.
So, fellow pilgrims and “living stones”, what strategy do we have in place to ensure that the Holy Spirit will continue to dwell within us? It is sin that destroys that union, but we know that, and we do our utmost to live lives worthy of the One who died for us.
Dear Heavenly Father. We thank You for all that You have done for us. Help us, we pray, to live in a way that is worthy of You and Your Spirit. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 