“Your Body Is a Temple”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Second Sunday after the Epiphany—January 17, 2021

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Our text is a question asked by St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?”  You are invited to follow the sermon outline on the last pages of the bulletin, as we consider this text under the theme “Your Body Is a Temple.”

If you’re a science fiction fan you may recognize the date January 12, 1997.  That was the date in the book “2001: A Space Odyssey” that the intelligent computer HAL came on line.  Back in 1968 when that book was written, they really believed that by 1997 we would definitely have intelligent, thinking computers.  Well, even though computers have advanced fantastically, they are certainly not intelligent or thinking.  Even the greatest super-computer is still like a mere abacus when compared to the original “computer”: the human brain.

We spend billions every year searching for the wonders of the universe in outer space.  But, the real wonders of the universe are not in outer space but inner space, right in our own bodies.  For, the human brain and the human body are the greatest, most fantastic miracles of all God’s creation.  We take our “selves” granted, but we are really unbelievably complex creatures.  Scientists are still in the early stages of understanding how human DNA works, the blueprint for your body that determines much of who and what you are.  It is estimated that to print out the DNA code just for you would take more books than are in the Library of Congress.  It takes all that information to make you you.

In our text, St. Paul is talking about another wondrous aspect of humanity: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?”  God created our marvelous human bodies for a marvelous purpose: to be spiritual temples of his Holy Spirit.

Genesis says, “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”  In Hebrew the words for “breath” and “spirit” are the same.  That is what sets man apart from the other animals.  The other animals have many of the same physical features we have.  In certain areas, strength, eyesight, hearing, animals often surpass us physically.  But, we humans have something the other living creatures don’t have: a spirit, a soul, “the breath of life” breathed into us by the Lord himself, making us sentient beings.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?”  Because of the Fall of humanity into sin, we are not born with the Holy Spirit.  We are born with what St. Paul calls “the spirit of this world.”  As Genesis says: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” 

One way of describing what happens in conversion is the receiving of a new spirit—the Holy Spirit.  Psalm 51 declares, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”  St. Paul says, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.”  God the Holy Spirit came and still comes to you through the Word of God and the Sacraments.  Through these means he creates in you what St. Paul calls “the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were BOUGHT AT A PRICE.”  In Ephesians, St. Paul tells us the staggering price that our Lord paid to make us his very own: “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as an offering and sacrifice pleasing to God.”  The price Jesus paid for you, to make you his own, to earn you forgiveness and a place in heaven, was nothing less his own life, his blood shed on the cross.  “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.”  “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.”

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”  Psalm 116 asks, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?”  Part of your response to the Lord’s love for you in Christ is that in your life you will seek to “honor God with your body.”

St. Paul gives one example in today’s Epistle Reading of how you will strive to “honor God with your body”: “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord . . .  Flee from sexual immorality.  All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” 

Human sexuality itself is not at all an evil thing, for “God saw all that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”  That includes human sexuality, which is a GOOD gift from God—but to be used only according to God’s plan, only between a husband and wife, a man and a woman, within their marriage relationship.  As St. Paul says in 1st Thessalonians: “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God.”

Another way you will strive to “honor God with your body” is avoiding alcohol and drug abuse.  St. Paul says, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to wickedness. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.”  When I was a pastor in Lawrence  I spent a morning with a member who was coming up on a minor traffic charge in a Douglas County courtroom.  As case after case came before us, it really hit home to me for the first time how so many tragic problems of people and society are rooted in alcohol and drug abuse.  Just avoiding that pain and suffering in your life is reason enough to avoid abusing these substances, but you also have an additional incentive: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? . . .  Therefore honor God with your body.”  As St. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians, “Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit.” 

Of course, there are other ways to abuse your body besides alcohol and drugs.  Good health practices, taking proper care of the body God has given you, is an important part of Christian stewardship.  We talk about stewardship of time, talent and treasure.  To those three “T’s” we should add a fourth “T”: stewardship of your temple, the body the Lord has blessed you with.

“Do you not know that your body is a TEMPLE of the Holy Spirit?”  If you take the back roads to Topeka you’ve may have seen the broken-down, decrepit old church in the cemetery at Stull.  If our bodies are temples, then sometimes, as you struggle with health problems, it may seem that your body is like that old church: a broken-down, decrepit temple.

St. Paul himself apparently had severe, recurring health problems of his own.  He described it this way:  “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.  Meanwhile we GROAN, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.”  Elsewhere he describes his sickness as “a thorn in my flesh . . . to torment me.”  Jesus put it this way: “The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”

But, the ultimate cure is coming, for everything that ails you!  “For our citizenship is in heaven.  And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who . . . will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” 

On the last day at the second coming of Christ, the SAME body you have now will be raised up, and restored to life, and reunited with your soul.  But, in heaven “There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain.”  There’s a commercial for an arthritis cream with the tantalizing appeal, “Turn back the clock to before you had arthritis.”  Don’t you wish you could turn back the clock to before you had your sickness or infirmity?  Well, God promises it will be even much better than that.

I sometimes joke that I can’t get back INTO shape because I’ve never really been IN shape—but  someday I will be!  For, in heaven your body will be like you’ve never known it before, perfect in every way, completely healed of any sickness, any infirmity, any health problems.  As St. Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.”

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”