Knowing The Word in 2 Corinthians 6:16, The Temple of the Living God

16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Ben Witherington writes, “The Corinthians, or at least some of the more well-to-do Gentile males, had still not understood or accepted the full social implications of being in Christ.” What does being in Christ mean or look like? It means the transformation of the different social and ethnic/cultural value systems into a unified and new social order found in Christ. One’s religious affiliation must be a single-minded commitment. Paganism and Christianity are mutually exclusive. Now Paul will define what the temple of God is. The word Paul uses for “temple” is not the same term he uses for Christ’s body of believers in 1 Cor 6:19, but he uses the term for the temple sanctuary where God would dwell in the Holy of Holies. We are that temple because Christ dwells in us by his Spirit.

Lord, thou art in me and shalt never be lost out of me, but I am not near thee till I have found thee. Nowhere need I run to seek thee, but within me where already thou art. Thou art the treasure hidden within me: draw me therefore to thee that I may find thee and serve and possess thee for ever.

Walter Hilton, 14th century