1Corinthians 3 (Part II)

I CORINTHIANS 3 (PART II)

April 11, 2012

1 Corinthians 10

10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. 16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person (destroy here means corrupt, to damage/injure the temple of God); for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

The love of human wisdom is a major problem in today’s church. But we are called to impact our culture and not be impacted by it. We are to build into each other’s lives.

Now Paul goes from the building to the individual, Know ye not that ye are the temple of God (2Cor 6:16),

2Corinthians 6:16 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

Two Greek words for temple, the word hieron referred to the entire temple complex. It included the buildings, the courts, the porches, even the temple mount. Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, the hieron.
The other Greek word for temple is naos, which is the inner sanctuary, the holy place. It is the word that Jesus used when the Pharisees asked for a sign and He said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will build it again." He used the word naos, this inner sanctuary, this holy place.
"You," Paul said, "are the naos of God." The inner sanctuary was the place of divine activity. That's where God revealed Himself to man. That's where man came into a relationship with God, for the Shekinah dwelt in the naos, in that inner sanctuary. "You," Paul said, "are the naos of God." Therefore, your life becomes the center of divine activity. Your life is the instrument through which God reveals Himself to man today. Your life is the dwelling place of God, your body.

Matthew Henry
Every Christian is a living temple of the living God. God dwelt in the Jewish temple, took possession of it, and resided in it, by that glorious cloud that was the token of his presence with that people. So Christ by his Spirit dwells in all true believers. The temple was devoted and consecrated to God, and set apart from every common to a holy use, to the immediate service of God. So all Christians are separated from common uses, and set apart for God and his service. They are sacred to him—a very good argument this against all fleshly lusts, and all doctrines that give countenance to them. If we are the temples of God, we must do nothing that shall alienate ourselves from him, or corrupt and pollute ourselves, and thereby unfit ourselves for his use; and we must hearken to no doctrine nor doctor that would seduce us to any such practices. Note, Christians are holy by profession, and should be pure and clean both in heart and conversation. We should heartily abhor, and carefully avoid, what will defile God’s temple, and prostitute what ought to be sacred to him.

A. R. FAUSSET
No literal "temple" is recognized by the New Testament in the Christian Church. The only one is the spiritual temple, the whole body of believing worshippers in which the Holy Spirit dwells ( 1Cr 6:19 Jhn 4:23, 24 ). The synagogue, not the temple, was the model of the Christian house of worship. The temple was the house of sacrifice, rather than of prayer. The temple, as the name means (from a Greek root "to dwell"), was the earthly dwelling-place of God, where alone He put His name. The synagogue (as the name means an assembly) was the place for assembling men. God now too has His earthly temple, not one of wood and stone, but the congregation of believers, the "living stones" on the "spiritual house." Believers are all spiritual priests in it. Jesus Christ, our High Priest, has the only literal priesthood
18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”[a]; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”[b]

Let no one glory in men: How prone we are to glory in men! We are more excited about being with the influential and famous of this world than about being with God. We value the gifts and honors of men more than the gifts and honors God gives. How we need to hear, let no one glory in men!

Job 5:13 13 He catches the wise in their craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are swept away.

Psalm 94:11 11 The LORD knows all human plans; he knows that they are futile.

21 So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours,
Romans 8:32 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas[c] or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.

Matthew Henry

"All is yours—ministers of all ranks, ordinary and extraordinary. Nay the world itself is yours.’’ Not that saints are proprietors of the world, but it stands for their sake, they have as much of it as Infinite Wisdom sees to be fit for them, and they have all they have with the divine blessing. "Life is yours, that you may have season and opportunity to prepare for the life of heaven; and death is yours, that you may go to the possession of it. It is the kind messenger that will fetch you to your Father’s house. Things present are yours, for your support on the road; things to come are yours, to enrich and regale you for ever at your journey’s end.’’

FAUSSET

Why, even death is “ours”; it is our servant, not our master! Death may be to us as the angel who touched Peter in Acts 12, causing his chains to fall off, and leading him through a gate that opens by itself, into real freedom.

OUR BODIES, A LIVING TEMPLE
1. Originally crafted by God
2. We let it fall into disrepair – sin
3. Christ bought back the mortgage
a. Do you still live as the Owner, Landlord? Is the Holy Spirit a guest, a tenant?
b. Does the Holy Spirit find sanctuary in your home?
c. Are you building into another’s life? A young man’s life?
d. What’s your impact?