1 Corinthians 3:16-17

However poor his work, the workman of 1 Corinthians 3:15 built upon Christ. There are cases worse than his, and to the εἴ τινος τὸ ἔργον alternatives of 1 Corinthians 3:14 f. the Ap. has a third to add in the εἴ τις … φθείρει of 1 Corinthians 3:17. Beside the good and ill builders, who will gain or lose reward, there are destroyers of the house, whom God will destroy; the climax of the βλεπέτω πῶς, 1 Corinthians 3:10. Gd [601] well explains the absence of connecting particles between 1 Corinthians 3:15-16, a “brusque transition” due to the emotion which seizes the Apostle's heart at the sight of “workmen who even destroy what has been already built”; hence the lively apostrophe and the heightened tone of the passage. The challenge οὐκ οἴδατε; is characteristic of this Ep. (see parls.), addressed to a Church of superior knowledge (1 Corinthians 1:5; 1 Corinthians 8:1). For the form οἴδατε, of the κοινή, see Wr [602], pp. 102 f. The expression ναὸς Θεοῦ (see parls.) accentuates the Θεοῦ οἰκοδομή, expounded since 1 Corinthians 3:9 : “Do you not know that you are (a building no less sacred than) God's temple? ” Not “a temple of God,” as one of several; to P. the Church was the spiritual counterpart of the Jewish Temple, and every Church embodied this ideal. For the anarthrous (predicative) phrase, cf. Θεοῦ βασιλείαν, 1 Corinthians 6:9, and see note on 1 Corinthians 2:4. Ναός (see parls.) denotes the shrine, where the Deity resides; ἱερόν (1 Corinthians 9:13, etc.), the sanctuary, the temple at large, with its precincts. ὅτι is not repeated with the second half of the question, καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν οἰκεῖ, the two propositions being virtually one; God's temple in Christian men is constituted by the indwelling of His Spirit: “and (that) the Spirit of God dwells in you?” cf. Ephesians 2:21, also 1 Peter 2:5. The same relationship is expressed by other figures in 1 Corinthians 12:5; Ephesians 4:4, etc. So the O.T. congregation of the Lord had for its centre the Shekinah in the Holy Place: Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 37:27; cf. 2 Corinthians 6:16 ff. This truth is applied to the Christian person in 1 Corinthians 6:19.

[601] F. Godet's Commentaire sur la prem. Ép. aux Corinthiens (Eng. Trans.).

[602] Winer-Moulton's Grammar of N.T. Greek (8th ed., 1877).

“If any one destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him” talione justissima (Bg [603]). On the form of hypothesis, see 1 Corinthians 3:14. φθείρω signifies to corrupt morally, deprave (injure in character), 1 Corinthians 15:33; 2 Corinthians 11:3, as well as to waste, damage (injure in being : see parls.) mutually implied in a spiritual building. This Church was menaced with destruction from the immoralities exposed in chh. 5, 6, and from its party schisms (1 Corinthians 3:1-3), both evils fostered by corrupt teaching. The figure is not that of Levitical defilement (φθείρω nowhere means to pollute a holy place); this φθορὰ is a structural injury, to be requited in kind. ὁ Θεὸς closes the warning, with awful emphasis (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:6; Romans 12:19); God is bound to protect His temple (cf. Psalms 46, 48, 74, Isaiah 27:3; Isaiah 64:10 ff.). The injury is a desecration: “for the temple of God is holy, which (is what) you are ”. The added clause οἵτινές ἐστε ὑμεῖς reminds the Cor [604] at once of the obligations their sanctity imposes (see notes on ἡγιασμένοις, κλητοῖς, ἁγίοις, 1 Corinthians 1:2; cf. 1 Peter 2:5), and of the protection it guarantees (2 Corinthians 6:14 ff., 2 Thessalonians 2:13; John 10:29; Isaiah 43:1-4, etc., Zechariah 2:8). οἵτινες, the qualitative relative, refers to ἅγιος more than to ναός, and is predicate (see Wr [605], pp. 206 f.) with ὑμεῖς for subject.

[603] Bengel's Gnomon Novi Testamenti.

[604] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[605] Winer-Moulton's Grammar of N.T. Greek (8th ed., 1877).