Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. [1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NLT)]
Since we both attended liturgical churches as girls, my friend and I were trying to recall the terms for the various parts of a traditional church building. We knew the foyer is called the narthex and the congregation sits the church’s nave. We also knew the altar rail usually separated the nave from the chancel in the front. It’s from the chancel that the service is conducted and where the altar, pulpit, and lectern are located. We even recalled that the sacristy was the room holding Communion supplies and linens. Since we were worshipping in a park that morning, my friend asked the location of our sanctuary. In historic usage, sanctuary and chancel were synonymous but, in modern usage, a sanctuary consists of the entire worship space of a church. With no building, we had no narthex, nave, or chancel but we did have a worship space; our sanctuary was a gazebo in a county park.
As God would have it, my next morning’s reading took me to today’s verse from 1 Corinthians. The Greek word usually translated as “temple” was naós, meaning a sanctuary, a divine dwelling-place, a temple, or place of divine manifestation. In Paul’s day, naós referred to the Temple proper, from the inner courts to the Holy Place with the seven-branched candlestick, golden incense altar, and showbread table all the way to the innermost area called the Holy of Holies—a place so sacred that it could be entered only by the High Priest once a year, on the Day of Atonement.
Having recently written about the lack of respect and reverence now common in a church sanctuary, Paul’s words gave me pause. The Temple and all its utensils—from the Ark, altars, and lamps to the snuffers, basins, oil, incense, and priest’s garments—were considered holy. Dedicated solely to serving God, they were not to be used for common or profane uses. If we are God’s sanctuary, a place of worship and the divine dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, do we treat ourselves with the reverence and respect due God’s temple? Are we solely dedicated to serving God? Are we ever used for vulgar, disrespectful, or profane purposes?
Do we ever desecrate our sanctuary by not treating our bodies properly? Do we treat them with the same care and regard we would Communion wafers, altar linens, or a Baptismal font? God’s sanctuary, however, is more than our physical bodies; it’s our entire being, our hearts and minds. Do we speak, read, look at, find humor in, think about, or do things we wouldn’t if we were in church? Do we always serve as a worship space of our amazing Triune God or just during prayers or worship service? Do we reflect the dignity, sanctity, and holiness that comes with being the house of God?
A great deal of responsibility comes with being God’s dwelling place. Just as the Temple was defiled in 168 BC when Antiochus Epiphanes sacrificed a pig on the altar of incense, our sins defile us. They are like obscene graffiti on a church walls, vandalism of the altar, defacement of the Bible, or leaving excrement on the pews. Preacher Harry Ironside reminds us, “How careful you and I ought to be that we grieve not that blessed One who dwells within, that we do not bring dishonor upon the name of the Savior who has sent His Spirit to live in our body.”
The Jews were so zealous about maintaining the purity of God’s sanctuary that a low fence separated the court of the Gentiles from the rest of the Temple mount complex. Gentiles and ritually unclean Israelites were forbidden, on pain of death, from passing through its gates to the interior areas—the sanctuary of the Temple. Are we that zealous about keeping His dwelling place within us—His sanctuary—pure and undefiled?
For that matter, our brothers and sisters in Christ also serve as a dwelling place of God. Do we treat them with the same reverence and respect due God’s sanctuary? We should!
Devotions of the Heart 