WWUTT 1471 You Are God's Temple (1 Corinthians 3:16-18)

The Church as God’s Temple and the Warning Against Destroying It

The church is the temple of God. The Old Testament temple was a type and a shadow of what the church is today. God dwelling with his people, and we are holy because God is with us when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it. Visit our website at www .wutt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We come back to 1 Corinthians 3 and looking to finish up our chapter here. I'm gonna begin reading in verse 16. We'll go through verse 23. The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you?

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy and you are that temple. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.

For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile. So let no one boast in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is God's.

The Church Is God’s Temple, Not an Individual Body

So when we look at verse 16 here where it says, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? The you here in the Greek is plural. That means it is the church who is being addressed, the whole church, not an individual person.

So we often have this idea of our bodies being a temple of the Holy Spirit. Where do we get that from? Well, it actually comes from 1 Corinthians 6. Different context there and we'll talk about that when we get to that chapter.

But here where the reference is made that you are God's temple, this is not talking about how our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. So I need to treat my body a certain way because the Holy Spirit dwells within me.

Paul is addressing the church and you as the church are the temple of God. God's spirit dwells in you. The church is made up of believers who have been called out of this world to be set apart, to be consecrated unto the Lord that Christ might purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works, as it says in Titus 2 .14.

So we who are the church, we are that people called out from the world, called out from slavery to our sin, set free in Christ and we are now his people. We are God's people. So being purified by Christ, having received the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, we are a temple.

We are holy. God's spirit dwells within us. Just as Solomon and the people of Israel had consecrated the temple and God's presence came down in the temple in fire, so great that the priest couldn't even go anywhere near it or it would kill them.

The greatness of the presence of God that was in that temple. So we have God's presence within us. Well, if God's presence is within us, if anybody comes near, does that mean that they'll get killed? No, not in that sense.

Not in the way that we saw it with the Lord answering Solomon's prayer with the fire of heaven coming down and God's presence dwelling within the temple. Not in that sense, but go on in 1 Corinthians 3, 16 and 17 and the sense becomes clear.

Do you not know that you are God's temple and God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. So we who are the church, if anyone tries to destroy God's church, God will destroy him.

Now that doesn't necessarily mean that if they do it, if they try to come against the church that God will immediately respond and immediately strike them down. Maybe something will happen like that, but this could certainly be applied in a more ultimate sense that at the final judgment, God will destroy the person who came after the church of Jesus Christ for God's temple is holy, it says here, and you are that temple.

So I really fear for anybody that comes after the church of God, those people who are in Christ Jesus. And it doesn't matter whether those attacks come from without or from within. This is a person who is playing with fire.

We're seeing right now pastors in Canada who are being arrested and thrown in jail just because they decided to have church. Folks, there are sporting events going on in Canada with hundreds and thousands of people gathering to cheer on their favorite team.

That's going on in Canada right now despite all the COVID -19 lockdowns. But if a person decides to have church, if they open their church up, if everybody comes and gathers together to worship God, to sing hymns, to hear the word of Christ proclaimed, well, the pastor and maybe even members of the congregation could get thrown in jail for that.

And my heart trembles with fear for those who do such a thing against the church of Jesus Christ. I tremble for those pastors who are cheering on the government for shutting down these churches. And I've seen many Christians who have been doing that.

When they see these pastors get jailed because they violated the, or they went against the COVID -19 mandates. There are even Christians who are applauding that they're getting arrested and put in jail because they consider those pastors to be a menace.

Oh my goodness, I just tremble in my heart for those Christians that would cheer for such a thing because of something that is said here even in 1 Corinthians 3, that if anyone destroys God's temple, if anyone comes against the church, if anyone tries to thwart the work of God that he is doing in his people in this world, God will destroy him.

Be very, very careful about how you talk about and how you deal with Christ's church. For God's temple is holy and you, again, collectively speaking in the plural, you, the church, you who are Christians, you who are followers of Jesus, you are that temple.

Just as God came and dwelled in the tabernacle, he tabernacled with his people and then later in the temple. So we have the spirit of God dwelling within us even now. Remember when Jesus Christ died on the cross, at the moment of his death, there was a great earthquake and the curtain in the temple that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple, that curtain was torn in two.

And it was God saying that I now dwell with my people, not in buildings that are made by hands, but in everyone who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. It would no longer be a specific place that was there in the middle, the center of the temple, the innermost parts where only the high priest could go in and only once a year.

That wasn't the place where God dwelled, where God dwelled now was with his people who believe upon his son, who by the grace of God have been called into his presence through the hearing of the gospel and by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

You have become God's temple, that God dwells within you. Your fellowship with God is now in Jesus Christ. It's not in a mediator priest that goes into the holy of holies once a year on your behalf. Your mediator is standing in the presence of God Almighty, seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

And it is there that he is interceding for you on your behalf, advocating for us before the father, as it says in 1 John. We have an advocate before the father and that is Jesus Christ, the righteous one.

So God dwells with us. Our fellowship with God is through Jesus Christ. God's temple is holy because God dwells within us. We are holy because God is here. We're not holy because of anything that we have done.

We are holy because God has made us so through faith in Jesus, because of what Jesus did for us. So God's temple is holy and you are that temple. Therefore, we need to be careful with how we deal with one another.

Remember that Paul is addressing a church and this is a church that has not been dealing with one another well. So just as a church is gonna face attacks from the outside, there are people who are gonna try to come against the church as we're seeing happening in Canada, as we'll no doubt see even here in the United States in the near future.

Well, we have been seeing that in recent months with COVID -19 and everything else, particularly if you live in California, then you've certainly felt the tightness of the government's hand upon what we can and cannot do.

So anyway, though there are gonna be those attacks that come from without, there are definitely attacks that come from within as well. Wolves that rise up among us. The apostle Paul warning the elders in the church in Ephesus in Acts chapter 20, that fierce wolves will arise from among you to devour the sheep.

And then Peter gives a similar warning in second Peter chapter two. The wolves, the false prophets that come in denying the very master who bought them. So we've got these attacks that will come even from within and may the fear of God strike a person's heart that they would not attack the bride of Christ and bring judgment upon themselves.

There have been many times over just the little more than a decade that I have been a pastor, that I have stood before someone and pled with them to stop what they were doing and the attacking that they were making against their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ for this attack that they were doing was an attack against the church.

The judgment of God would come upon a person that desires to destroy the house of God. So I'm pleading with this person to cease and desist, but they think that the battle that they are waging is something holy, that they're doing something right in the eyes of God.

And in reality, they are tearing down the bride of Christ. Any husbands out there listening to me, how would you react if your wife was attacked? Wouldn't you go into full defense mode? You're gonna attack the person who's attacking your bride, are you not?

Well, Christ is gonna do the same to anybody who attacks his bride. We are the bride of Christ. And as it says in Ephesians 5 .25, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

Now, the instruction here is for husbands to love their wives, following after the example that we've been given in Christ Jesus. But in the language that Paul uses here, you see what Christ has done to sanctify the church, what he is doing to purify the church, that we would be that holy place, consecrated, set apart for Christ, who is cleansing us by the washing of water with the word.

What is it that we do every Sunday that we gather in church? There's sermons, right? There's the preaching of the word of God, so that by hearing the word, we would be sanctified in what we hear. We're being made holy.

God's temple is holy. Again, coming back here to 1 Corinthians 3 .17, and you are that temple. So Christ is going to defend his bride and woe to anybody that would come against it and attempt to destroy what God has built, what has been built on the foundation that is Christ.

That's going back to verses 10 and 11. Paul says, according to the grace of God, given to me like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it, so let each one take care how he builds upon it, that we would care for this temple unto the Lord, the church, the bride of Christ, we would care for her, not attack her, not tear her down.

We desire to see the church purified. We desire to see the church built up. Now, sometimes in that process or that desire of purification, there's going to be those who do wickedness in the church and they must be confronted and they must be removed.

And that work is done out of love for the bride of Christ, not because we're attacking Christ's church, but because this imposter was in our midst, one who actually turned out to be a wolf or a goat rather than one of the sheep of the flock of God.

So this person must be removed. And this again is being done for the desire that Christ would be glorified through his church. But let us be careful with how we deal with one another. And again, as Paul is confronting the Corinthians here, they were not dealing with one another well.

There were all kinds of factions among them that could have developed into something much, much worse if they were not willing to listen to the rebuke that Paul was issuing. And so turn from their sin and care for one another, encouraging and admonishing one another, which means to correct in a righteous way, doing so without the factions and divisions that had formed among them.

They were seeking and striving for unity. May they seek for unity rather than these divisions that were splintering the church. In Proverbs chapter six, it says that there are six things the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him.

And that seven thing that is an abomination is one who sows discord among brothers. This is an enemy of the church that would seek to break it up, that would try to divide the body of Christ, that would attack the very temple of God.

Whoever tries to destroy God's temple, God will destroy him for God's temple is holy. And you, the church, believers who are part of this body in Christ Jesus, you are that temple. So we go on into verse 18, let no one deceive himself.

Worldly Wisdom Versus the Wisdom of God

Now we're actually changing gears a little bit. What we were reading in verses 16 and 17 were in the context of what Paul was illustrating about a building that was being built up unto the Lord. Remember, we went from talking about God's field in verse nine to God's building.

And then the illustration of God's building goes from verses 10 through 17. So when we finish up verses 16 and 17, we finished that illustration of being God's building. And then Paul comes back to the instructions that he was giving before, really in what we were reading in verses one through four.

So let me come back to that. First Corinthians three, one through four. Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you are not yet ready for it.

And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. While there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human?

Verse 18, let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. So can you hear the return to the context there? If we were to jump straight from verse four to verse 18, you hear how Paul picks up with what he was addressing the Corinthians in before he had given them these illustrations of the field and of the building.

So I just mentioned that so it brings back into your mind the context in which Paul is addressing them. Don't be deceived. Let no one deceive himself, thinking that he is wise, thinking that he is something that he is not, that I am mature, I am great, I'm doing good in my growth in Christ, I'm ready for these big things, Paul, come on, give me the big stuff that you said that you wanted to address us with.

Well, I can't, Paul says, because you're actually behaving like spoiled brats. You're behaving like spoiled children. You are not behaving as mature men and women of God. So let no one deceive himself, thinking that he is great when he is actually needing to be fed on the milk of the word of God that he may grow up into the meat and potatoes that we should be feasting upon.

If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, Paul says, let him become a fool that he may become wise. Now, this is not in that Proverbs sense of that you must think of yourself foolish in order to gain wisdom, but rather this goes back to a statement that Paul has been making well really since 1 Corinthians 1 .18, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.

We read in 1 Corinthians 2, that it is the wise things of the world that are actually foolishness of God. And it's the foolishness of God, that which the world would call foolishness that is actually wise in God's eyes.

In verse 14, the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one, for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ.

And so if anyone among you thinks that he's wise in this age, wise according to worldly wisdom, let him become a fool. Let him dwell upon the foolishness of the cross. Let him dwell upon those things of God that the world would call foolish.

Let him become a fool in the eyes of the world that he may become wise. So it's only when we have come to understand those things that God has given us in his word, according to the gospel in his son, by the knowledge of his will, it is only when a person becomes knowledgeable of those things that they really become wise.

The world will call you foolish, but we're not out to gain the world. We're out to gain Christ. We'll finish up this chapter tomorrow, finishing up 1 Corinthians 3. You know, on Twitter the other day, I happened to catch that Neil deGrasse Tyson, do you know who that is?

Neil deGrasse Tyson is a world-renowned astrophysicist. He's kind of a pop scientist too, because he's got that popular pull in culture. People just kind of know Neil deGrasse Tyson like they know Bill Nye, the science guy.

So Tyson is not just an astrophysicist. He's one of those guys that has attracted the attention of fans. Well, anyway, on Twitter the other day, he said this, actually, this was just last night. He said, I occasionally wonder whether the entire universe is nothing more than a snow globe on the living room mantle of an alien.

That's what he thinks about the universe. Now, this man is an atheist. He denies that there is a God, and certainly that there is a creator who has, by the power of his own word, brought the cosmos into existence.

Neil deGrasse Tyson rejects that truth. He mocks it and finds it to be foolish. But he thinks it's rational to conceptualize that we exist in a snow globe on an alien's living room mantle. That's a rational belief, but believing in a creator God is foolishness.

My friends, that's the foolishness of this age. This is what the world calls wise. A guy as smart as Neil deGrasse Tyson could think of something like that, and they would think it's, oh, deep. Oh, boy, that is so, that's mind-blowing.

I've never even considered such a thing before, and we might just be existing in some alien simulation. But the truth that the world calls foolish is that our creator God has established all things. As it says in Romans 1 .22, claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images, resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Very sad to see somebody reject the truth, for it is only in the truth that we can know salvation. They would rather hold fast to these absolute myths and nonsensical concepts instead of humbling themselves before God and worshiping him alone who is worthy of our worship.

So if anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise in the knowledge of God. Heavenly Father, we thank you for these words, and I pray that we would continue to hold fast to them, no matter what the world may say about us.

They're gonna come against the church, they're going to attack the church, but we know that vengeance belongs to the Lord. We would call out to those persons who would attack God's temple, and we would say, repent, turn back from this, trust in Jesus Christ, ask for his forgiveness, and you would be saved.

But we know ultimately that God has the final say, and he will not allow his church to be persecuted without judgment. And so Lord, we submit ourselves into your hands, knowing that all things belong to you, and we trust in your great name according to your word.

It is in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.

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