1 Corinthians 6:19-20: Bought with a Price

INTRODUCTON

When I was in Japan, I visited the ancient cities of Nara and Kyoto. These two cities are the places to go to see beautiful architecture and gardens. Neither Kyoto or Nara had any strategic importance, so they were never bombed during the war, and their cultural beauties were left intact.

The most amazing sights in those cities were the Buddhist temples. One of them, the “Golden Pavilion” is entirely covered with gold. Some of the other temples are just as handsome. Some of these temples are over a thousand years old, and even though they are made of wood, they are still perfect.

The shape of the buildings from the curving tiled roofs to the stately pillars and the tasteful plantings of trees and shrubs evoke a feeling of tranquility. Some are surrounded by water. They are all in settings of great natural beauty.

I heard great gongs rung—deep resonant sounds that made me shiver. I saw a priest kneeling and clapping his hands together—I suppose to get the god’s attention. Worshipers visited the temples—wearing their most beautiful kimonos.

Inside the temples were row after row of graceful golden idols. When we think of idols, we may think of something ugly, but these were beautiful. I could understand that Buddhism must meet some deep human need. One Japanese man told me, “We Japanese have Buddhism in every drop of our blood.”

Many peoples throughout history have built temples for their gods to live in. We saw the ruins of pagan temples in Rome. A few have been kept in repair for use as Christian churches.

The Temple in Jerusalem in Jesus’s time was glorious. Travelers marveled at the whiteness of its limestone walls, the gold embellishments, and the beauty of its rituals. The Jews loved their Temple.

We can read in the psalms of the longings of Israelites in foreign lands for the experience of meeting God face-to-face in their Temple. Listen to this from Psalm 84:

How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!

My soul longs, yea, faints for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.

Even the sparrow finds a home,

and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young,

at thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.

Blessed are those who dwell in thy house, ever singing thy praise!

Ancient writers tell us that the Jerusalem Temple was the most beautiful building in the world. Situated atop Mt. Zion, its gleaming white stone looked from a distance like a snowcap, and the gold shone so brightly in the sunlight that it dazzled one’s eyes.

The Jerusalem Temple was more than a building. A vast courtyard, paved with marble, surrounded the Temple building itself. And the courtyard was itself surrounded by porches with colonnades. Hundreds of people would gather day after day to pray and worship, to watch the priests offer their sacrifices, and to hear the chants of the Levites. They heard music of harps and lyres and trumpets and cymbals. Under the colonnades the rabbis offered instruction. Jesus himself taught there.

We who are Christians don’t have temples. We have churches and cathedrals of breathtaking beauty—holy places where one feels oneself to be in God’s presence in a special way. But churches are not temples. Churches are not dwelling places for God.

When St. Stephen was accused of speaking against the Jews’ beloved Temple in Jerusalem, he reminded his accusers that according to the prophet Isaiah, the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands. God said to his people, “Heaven is my throne, and earth my footstool. What house will you build for me?”

So why don’t we Christians have temples? Jesus loved the Temple in Jerusalem. The apostles began their Pentecost preaching in the Temple. It was important to them. But they knew it was temporary.

Something new would finally take the place of the Temple.

God’s people would become the Temple in which God would dwell in his world.

Let me read you something St. Paul wrote in his first letter to the Christians in the Greek city of Corinth: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

Our purpose this afternoon is to talk about how we are Temples of the Holy Spirit.

I. Corinth was one of the most important cities in Greece. St. Paul visited Corinth and established a church there.

A. But the church had problems, and St. Paul’s purpose in writing his letter was to correct some of their problems.

The idea had taken hold among some of the Christians that because Christ had saved their souls, they could do what they wanted with their bodies.

Their thinking was like this: if my soul is the part of me that is eternal, and my body will soon be discarded, then I can do with my body what I wish.

So some of the believers were actually visiting idols, getting drunk, and having sex with prostitutes!

B. But St. Paul insisted that God is not only interested in our “souls.”

When we take Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we belong to God, body and soul. So that is why he wrote them: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

II. Let’s consider this truth: our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Even though we don’t make the mistakes some of the Corinthian Christians made, the idea that our bodies are God’s temple should influence all we do.

A. Earlier in the letter, Paul told the believers that the church, as the family of God, is itself is God’s Temple because God dwells in her (1 Corinthians 3:16). Now he tells them that each of them individually is a Temple of God’s Spirit.

A building of stone or wood can represent the dwelling of God. It may be, and was, a place where people could feel close to God—as if they were in his house.

But the Temple of stone is only a symbol of the truest dwelling of God. It can only represent God’s house.

According to the New Testament, God most truly lives in his people—in you and me and all who belong to him, trust in him, and live lives that honor him.

In a building of wood or stone, we can imagine only a bit of what God is. But in humans, God can reveal himself more perfectly—not perhaps his beauty and grandeur, but his love and wisdom and power and goodness.

Jesus knew that a few years after his time the magnificent Jerusalem Temple would be demolished by the Romans, but that God would forever manifest himself in his faithful people.

B. So when St. Paul writes, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” he is telling us that there is no part of us that doesn’t belong to God. Everything about our everyday life should reveal God’s presence in the world.

In another part of the same letter, Paul writes, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (10:31).

God is manifested in our lives, not only in what we don’t do, but also in what we do. Some people are proud to say, “I’ve never hurt anyone.” That’s important, but that’s negative.

It’s not enough to quiet our consciences by avoiding obvious sins. If we love Jesus we must fulfill our calling. And our calling is to glorify God.

The beauty of Jesus must be seen in positive ways—generosity, forgiveness, kindness, helpfulness.

If we are to appear to our world as Dwelling Places of God, we need to be people in which God can be seen and known.

A little girl visited a great cathedral with her father. She looked up at the pictures in the stained glass windows, brilliant as the sun shone through them.

She said to her father, “Who are those people in the windows?”

He answered, “Those are the saints.”

She said, “Oh, I see. Saints are the people the light shines through.”

That’s the idea. God’s people are the people through whom the God’s light shines in a dark world.

C. And now the next part of our reading: “You are not your own; you were bought with a price…”

In those days you could go to the market place and find for sale, not only food and tools and clothes and pots and utensils, but also people—for sale.

If you had the money, you could buy yourself a slave.

It was tough to be a slave. You belonged to the one who bought you—body and soul.

The only way you could escape slavery was to be bought by someone and set free. They called it “redeemed.”

So when St. Paul writes, “You are not your own; you were bought with a price,” he is referring to our redemption.

We are bought with the price of the blood of God’s Son. Jesus gave his life to buy us back from sin and darkness and death and a hopeless future.

Many years ago an assassin rushed into the White House to kill President Truman. One of the White House guards was killed in protecting the president. I remember the report in the newspaper.

A fund was set up to help the slain guard’s children. President Truman, speaking in behalf of the fund said, “You can’t understand just how a man feels when someone else dies for him.”

Well, someone died for you and me—and it wasn’t an accident. God saw us lost and on our way to destruction and he gave his own Son to buy us from death and judgment and give us his own life.

This is what we remember whenever we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, or Communion, or Mass—or whatever you call it in your church—because what happened on the cross is the most important event in the history of the world.

So what is your response?

CONCLUSION

The scripture I just read is especially important to me, because it was through those two verses in 1 Corinthians that I really understood for the first time what it meant to be a Christian.

I had been told all my life: “Believe in the Lord Jesus.” “Trust in the Savior.” “Receive Jesus into your heart,” and “Jesus died for your sins.” But it seemed that what I was required to believe was just a message—a plan of salvation—some truths of theology.

But in 1948, during Christmas vacation in my freshman year at the University of Kansas, I went with some Christian students to a missions conference at the University of Illinois, in Urbana.

As I visited with students from all over the country and listened to our speakers it suddenly dawned on me that being a Christian wasn’t believing things, but being a Christian meant giving myself to God—and living for God every day, in every way.

I realized as I never had before that Jesus wasn’t just a character in a book. Jesus was alive! Jesus was my Friend, my Savior, my Lord!

During that week, I determined to belong to the One who had bought and paid for me with his own life. I would be God’s man. I would live to honor God.

I felt like a new person. My heart was bursting. I had never been so excited. People noticed the difference. Since that time, my greatest desire has been to live out my faith.

I’m not a superstar Christian. I still have lots of faults. I’m the servant who got only the one talent. But I’ve tried to use it for God.

I’ve learned this: no matter how many times you have given yourself to God and dedicated yourself to his service, you have to do it again every day.

Faithfulness is taking one step at a time and never giving up—keeping on to the end of the road.

Don’t you give up either. Keep on keeping on. Live for Jesus until he takes you home to Glory.