Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
The startling declaration of verse 16, “You are God’s temple,” is anything but an isolated remark, but flows from the context which precedes it. This idea of the church as a temple flows right out of the garden/building metaphors described before it in verses 5-15. The evidence for this is in verse 9 where there is a sudden shift of metaphors from garden to building. What does a garden have to do with a building? The answer is: a lot, if Paul does not have some generic building in mind, but specifically God’s temple.
This concept of God’s community as a temple is a Scriptural theme, as the presence of God’s Spirit is often described as being among His people (see Ex 25:8, 29:45, Lev 26:11-12, Ps 114:2, Ez 11:16, 27:26- 28). The idea of people as a building was nourished in Jewish tradition and the writings of Josephus and Philo. So this idea is by no means novel. We can safely say that Solomon’s temple points to a fulfillment found in the church, as the focal point for the presence and worship of God moves from a physical building to a spiritual one.
Meditate on what the temple meant to the Jewish people – the pilgrimages, meeting with God, the ultimate seat of the government of the earth – as you think about its centrality to Israel and the world, then think about this … 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 sees a small squabbling band of mainly Gentile Corinthians as the fulfillment to which that temple points. Then think about this … our church is included in this fulfillment – we are God’s temple, the Spirit of God dwells with us … we, together are that temple!
