Defiling the Temple of God

“If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy;

for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” (1 Corinthians 3:17)

The most common interpretation of defiling the temple of God is that the temple represents the individual bodies of believers and therefore you better be careful what you put in them. It is true that our bodies are the LORD’s and we should care for them (health and sanity) being ever mindful that we are not our own but we are bought with a Price, 1 Corinthians 6:20. Nevertheless, in this context, the temple is not the individual body of believers but the Church of the Redeemed. When Paul writes, “which temple ye are” ‘temple’ is singular and ‘ye’ is plural. It is referring to that body of believers that the LORD Jesus Christ redeemed at Calvary and whose righteous obedience was imputed once for all to them upon completion of His death at the cross. He is ALL their holiness.

So how is it that anyone might be guilty of defiling the temple and in so doing God will destroy? The previous context is with reference to preachers who rather than exalt the person and work of the LORD Jesus and uphold His honor and glory, bring into the church strange doctrines [Leviticus 10:1] and thereby introduce a way of worship that is contrary to what God has ordained and revealed in His Word. Here are three different ways that men have historically defiled the temple of God and God has destroyed the works of their hands:

1.) By the wisdom of the world, through philosophy and vain deceit, Col. 2:8. A little leaven leavens the whole lump and there are those who introduce it quietly and subtly into their preaching that eventually leads hearers’ minds away from the Inspired Word into traditions, customs and natural thinking regarding God, salvation and eternal matters. Slowly but surely, men and their commentaries or denominational traditions become the standard, not the Word of God.

2.) By bringing in false doctrines, errors and heresies, corrupting minds from the simplicity that is in Christ. Beware of those who would diminish in any way the sanctity, honor, glory and perfection of Christ’s person as the Sinless One, Heb. 7:26. Beware of those who would make righteousness, holiness, or acceptance with God on any other foundation than that imputed in His effectual death alone [1 Cor. 1:30] and revealed in the heart by the Spirit of God, Romans 1:17. Beware of those who insist on conditions of righteousness and what men must do, or have in them, in order to make their acceptance with God a reality. NO! The temple IS holy because of its Great High Priest and His effectual sacrifice alone, by Whom we have been made accepted in the Beloved, Ephesians. 1:6-7.

3.) By causing factions and divisions among the brethren, preferring their own honor, or the honor of men above the Truth [John 5:44-47] and putting their own authority above the LORD’s in their dealings with His sheep, forgetting Whose sheep they are, 1 Peter 5:2-3.

Thankfully, all that are the LORD’s that He has chosen in Grace, redeemed and justified by His blood and righteousness imputed and called by His blessed Holy Spirit, can never be removed from that Foundation. All others will find themselves in opposition to God Himself and must most certainly be destroyed.