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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - 1 Corinthians 6:19 - 6:19
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Here we have the apostle's fifth argument against fornication and uncleanness, and it runs thus: "Temples which are peculiarly consecrated unto God and his service, ought not to be profaned or polluted; but the bodies of Christians are the temples of God, the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, and therefore they ought to be kept pure and undefiled. Know you not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, as well as your souls?"
Our bodies are called temples of the Holy Ghost, because he hath sanctified them for himself, for his habitation, and for his service: from whence the divinity of the Holy Ghost may be strongly inferred, a temple always supposing some deity to dwell in it; the tabernacle and temple are God's habitation. Now if the Holy Ghost dwells in good men as a temple, he is truly and really God.
In fine, since all Christians are become the temple of God, by virtue of his Holy Spirit sent into their hearts, consecrating their bodies to his sacred service, let us not desecrate or pollute this temple by defiling it with filthy lusts, but make chastity the keeper of this sacred house, and suffer nothing that defileth to enter into it, lest that God who dwelleth in it, being offended, should desert his house thus defiled.
Here we have the sixth and last argument which the apostle makes use of to flee fornication: Our bodies are not our own, but God's; they are his by creation, his by preservation, his by purchase and redemption. We are bought out of our own hands, as well as out of the hand of divine justice; therefore we sacrilegiously rob and wrong God, when we alienate any part of his own from him, and glorify him not, whose we wholly are, by the faithful service both of our souls and bodies, which are his.
Learn, 1. That Christians are not their own, but God's; not their own, and therefore not in their own power, not at their own disposal, not to live after their own will or by their own lusts, but according to the will and to the ends and uses of their principal Lord, whose they are.
Learn, 2. That as Christians are not their own, so must not act and live, and dispose of themselves, of their souls and bodies, as if they had an original propriety, a plenary possession, and a full dominion over themselves: a Christian must not make his own reason a supreme rule, nor his own will his chief law, nor his own interest his ultimate end, for he was made neither by himself, nor made for himself.
Learn, 3. That all of us are God's, and therefore we cannot without great sacrilege invade his right, and give that body to an harlot which is consecrated unto him.
Learn, 4. That though we are all God's, yet we have alienated ourselves from God, and withdrawn ourselves from his disposal.
Learn, 5. That being thus alienated form God, he has once more bought us, bought us with a price, a great and full price, the blood of his Son; and we are now God's own again by redemption and purchase.
Learn, 6. That our bodies and spirits being thus the Lord's, we should glorify him both in our souls and bodies which are his; glorify him in our bodies by external purity and exemplary sanctity, glorify him in our spirits by internal purity of heart.
Thus if we glorify him in our body, and in our spirits, in a way of obedience, he will at last fashion our vile bodies like unto his glorious body, and make our spirits as the spirits of just men made perfect, in that great day, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe.