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‘What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?’
1Co_6:19
I. What a sacred thing it would be if we always carried with us the thought and the feeling: ‘I am a consecrated being. I am a being set apart for the sake of religion. This beauty of mine is the temple.’ How horrible some sins would look! How inconsistent and how out of place some of our amusements! A temple! the shrine of God here! the shrine of God doing this! What a strength and comfort, what an armour, if we can realise anything of these holy exercises in the conflict with evil! In prayer—‘I am a temple. Poor, weak, miserable sinner as I am, I am consecrated by my baptism—by my own surrender of myself—by the holiness within me. I am dedicate! I am Thine, O Lord; I have appropriated Thee. The structure may be ever so unworthy, but I am a temple.’ Oh! how holy would that man’s life become! how the tongue would speak! how the mind would think! how the heart would beat! ‘It is all a temple! Thine, Lord! And all I say, and all I do, and all I feel, it comes to Thine earthly temple, and goes up to Thine heavenly temple.’
II. And when you are dealing with some fellow-creature, what a difference it would be—what a new character the whole transaction would assume—if you would remember and recognise the fact that that person is ‘a temple.’ However poor and wretched—however weak, I may say however wicked—he is ‘a temple of God.’ Notwithstanding all I say or think, the Holy Ghost may be, nay the Holy Ghost is in that man—working, striving, elevating, ennobling. I am close to the Holy One! I am close to ‘the temple’! What a changed aspect would your intercourse with that man take! what a reverence to the lowest, the most offensive man in the world—to the worst man!
Illustration
‘There is a great danger in religion—as there is in everything else—of a want of proportion. And this disproportion of truth is often the worst of errors. To avoid an extreme on one side, we run into the extreme on the other side, and the reaction is violent. Take, for instance, the relation of the body and the soul. To a man in his natural state the body is much more than the soul. He can see his body; his soul is a matter of faith. The body can give him immediate pleasure; the pleasures of the soul lie chiefly in the future. To the care of the body there is little or nothing to oppose itself; to the care of the soul, the opposition, both from within and without, is very strong. Hence, to keep or restore the health of the body—that is, to provide for that body, to feed it and indulge it, to dress it and to adorn it, to think of it and talk about it—takes by far the greatest part of a man’s life. The soul, at the very best, has just its few minutes, or perhaps a few half-hours, in the course of a week. The body is everywhere every moment. When a man becomes religious these two things change places. The body goes into the shade; it is almost out of sight. The soul is everything. Is it not the one thing worthy of thought? What is the body? A thing to mortify; a thing to keep down; a thing almost to be forgotten, if not to be despised; a mere clog. In all this there is an extravagance.’
‘Ye are not your own.’
1Co_6:19
I. Ownership demands submission.—If ownership confers any privilege upon a man, it is surely the right to command with the certainty of being obeyed. And if we as Christians are the absolute possession and property of Jesus Christ, bought with His own life’s blood, it is His lawful prerogative to command and control every act and thought of our entire lives. It is His to speak and ours to obey. It is His to rule and ours to submit.
II. Ownership is a pledge of protection.—We are ever ready to guard our own possessions. No man would refuse to draw the sword in defence of hearth and home. Our treasures are made as secure as lock and key can make them. The more we value them the more carefully we devise the means to ensure their perfect safety. And shall not Christ protect the Church which He has purchased with His own life’s blood? Think you that our safety is of no importance to Him? St. Paul at any rate thought otherwise: ‘I know Whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.’ Oh, if we could only leave everything in the hands of Jesus!
III. Ownership confers enjoyment.—The cottage may be small and the garden that surrounds it may be nothing more than a narrow strip of soil in which the homeliest of homely flowers grow. A few pounds would buy the freehold in the open market. But let it be the cottar’s own and he will love it as no stranger could ever love. We are the King’s own. Our hearts are the King’s dwelling-place. Our lives are the King’s garden. Does He find enjoyment there? Sweetly did the Bride in the Song of Solomon invite the Bridegroom to visit His garden: ‘Let my Beloved come into His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits.’ Oh that the Church of Christ could address such an invitation to her Lord! Oh that we could individually welcome Him in such terms as these! Can we do so?
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Rev. G. A. Sowter.