God’s temple is God tangibly being with his people. Apostle Paul, in the previous paragraph, uses an illustration of a building, such as a temple, to describe God using him to establish God’s tangible presence with a group of people in Corinth. They were God’s temple, a people with whom God interacted continually.
God’s Spirit lives in God’s people. Collectively, we are a temple. Paul does not mean here that each of his readers is a temple of the Holy Spirit. He says, “You yourselves (plural) are God’s temple (singular).” In 6:19, he speaks of each Christian as a temple of the Holy Spirit. But here he is speaking of the congregation as a collective whole because some were dividing the congregation with creative false teachings.
The teachers were sincere, but sincerity does not guarantee that the facts presented are true. The false doctrine, though persuasive, was dividing the congregation, destroying God’s temple. Paul warns that God will destroy the members of the church who are dividing God’s temple, for God’s temple is sacred (17).
My takeaways are many, but one thought lingers- beware of every teacher. Apostle John wrote, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1)
