“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

Sexual sin is unique in that it attacks the very image of God in us, in our bodies, as we have seen in the previous verses. It is not to be normalized and treated merely as just “another” sin, for the body is sacred. So while there is no sin that can now condemn the believer to the judgment reserved for non-believers, strong reasons exist for avoiding sin nonetheless. Paul elucidates the uniqueness of sexual sin in that it is a sin against the temple of God!

In the world, culture dictates moral standards, and humans are lowered to the level of animals. If that is all we are, then sex is simply something to be enjoyed at our own discretion, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone or society. But God sent Jesus to raise humanity back to the level of sacredness. Now as followers of Christ, we are not only His image and likeness, we have become His temple. The implications are enormous.

God does not choose us because we are magnificent showpieces of God’s glory, as though somehow we are “better” than non-believers. Rather, His presence in our lives transforms us into His dwelling of glory. Speaking of God in the third person of the Trinity, He is in us. The immense God of the universe localizes His presence in each believer (while the Greek pronoun “you” is plural, we understand this to apply to all believers individually). To be sure, God is not limited spatially in us, for He is an infinite spirit, but He is present with us in a way that is not true of non-believers.

Further, we have received the Spirit “from God.” What a present the Lord has given us! It is all of Him and not because we have worked hard to make our lives presentable to God as worthy of His dwelling in us. At the moment of faith, God established this relationship with each of us, before anything else. Our motivation to live right before Him is not in order to prompt Him to move into our lives. He is already there!

We have been “bought with a price,” and therefore belong to Him. We don’t work hard to make ourselves worthy of being bought, for it was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). Therefore—and this is one of the big “therefores” of Scripture—we should glorify God in our bodies. Our motivation for right living, therefore, is that we are His temple. We should live like temples that bring glory to God. What a glorious way to live!

Lord, I confess to living as though my life is my own, that I try to continuously fix up. But, I want to simply glorify You in my body, and avoid sin of all kind.