1 Corinthians 3:16-17

“Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 17. If any man destroy the temple of God, him will God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”

The asyndeton between 1 Corinthians 3:15-16 is to be remarked; it is as if, on occasion of what the apostle has just said about bad workers, a sudden view took possession of his heart, that of the gravity of the act of those workmen who not only build badly, but who destroy what is already constructed. Everything in this abrupt transition betrays emotion; the interrogative form: Know ye not...? which appeals to the conscience of the Church and to the livelier feeling which it should have of its own dignity; the phrase, temple of God, forming a step higher than the simple building (1 Corinthians 3:9); finally, the two analogous gradations, that of the first φθείρειν, destroy, rising above the act of bad building thereon, and that of the second φθείρειν, denoting the punishment, rising above the simple fact of ζημιοῦσθαι, suffering loss (of reward).

We must avoid translating, “ the temple of God.” The Church of Corinth is not the universal Church. The absence of the article before ναός, temple, makes this word the indication of a simple quality: “Ye are a temple of God; ye partake of the sacred character of such a building!” This applies to every believer at Corinth, and at the same time to the Church as a whole. And how do they all possess such a dignity? The following proposition explains: God dwells in Christ, and Christ by the Holy Spirit dwells in the believer. The Father and the Son, according to the promise of Jesus, thus make, by the Spirit, “their abode in him” (John 14:23). The same figure: Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Peter 2:4-5.

The adjunct ἐν ὑμῖν, in you, may signify within you or in the midst of you. The context speaks rather in favour of the second meaning, since Paul is addressing the Church as such. But as God dwells among believers only on condition of dwelling in them, the second meaning implies the first. Is the apostle thinking of the temple of Jerusalem, for which henceforth the Church, the true spiritual temple, is to be substituted? Possibly. Now if it was a sacrilege to profane the shadow, what will it be to do violence to the body (Col 2:17)!