To both Jew and Gentile, the notion of a temple implied these two things, 1. That the divinity was in a more especial manner present in it: and, 2. That it was a place peculiarly set apart for his service. Whence the effect of this representation would be, That the body, having the Holy Spirit lodged within it, was to be kept pure and clean for this cælestial inhabitant: and, as being dedicated to his own use, it was not to be prophaned by any indecencies, much less by a gross sin, which is, emphatically, a sin against the body, and by heathens themselves accounted a pollution[177] of it.
Further; the Apostle does not leave the Corinthians to collect all this from the image presented to them, but asserts it expressly; What! know ye not, that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, WHICH IS IN YOU: Implying, that what they would naturally infer from their idea of a temple, was true, in fact, that the Holy Ghost was in them; that his actual occupancy and possession of their bodies appropriated the use of them to himself, and excluded all sordid practices in them, as prophane and SACRILEGIOUS. Nay, he further adds; AND WHICH [Holy Ghost] YE HAVE OF GOD: ye have received this adorable spirit, which is in you, from God himself; and so are obliged to entertain this heavenly guest with all sanctity and reverence; not only for his own sake, and for the honour he does you in dwelling in you, but for his sake who sent him, and from whose hands ye have received him.
This first argument, then, against the sin of uncleanness, divested of its figure, stands thus. In consequence of your Christian profession, ye must acknowledge, that the Holy Spirit is given to inform and consecrate your mortal bodies; that he is actually within you; and that he dwells and operates there, by the gracious appointment and commission of God. Ye are therefore to consider your body as the place of his more especial habitation; and as such, are bound to preserve it in such purity, as the nature of so sacred a presence demands.
This is the clear, obvious, and conclusive argument; liable to no objection, or even cavil, from a professor of Christianity. The figure of a temple is only employed to raise our apprehensions, and to convey the conclusion with more force and energy to our minds. But now,
II. The Apostle proceeds to another and distinct consideration, and shews that the Holy Ghost is not only the actual occupier and possessor of the body of Christians, whom the Almighty had, as it were, forced upon them, and by his sovereign authority enjoined them to receive, but that he was the true and rightful PROPRIETOR of it. Ye are not your own, continues the Apostle; not merely, as “God hath, by his spirit, taken possession of you, and sealed you up, as his own proper goods[178];” but as he hath redeemed and purchased you, as he hath done that, by which the property ye might before seem to have in your bodies, is actually made over and consigned to him. For ye are bought with a price.
The expression is, again, figurative; and refers to the notions and usages that obtained among the heathens, the Greeks especially, in regard to personal slavery. As passionate admirers, as they were, of liberty, every government, even the most republican, abounded in slaves; every family had its share of them. The purchase of them, as of brute beasts, was a considerable part of their traffick. Men and women were bought and sold publicly in their markets: the wealth of states and of individuals, in great measure, consisted in them. Thus was human nature degraded by the Heathen, and I wish it might be said, by heathens only. But my present concern is with them. It is too sad a truth that human creatures sold themselves, or were sold by their masters, to be employed in the basest services, even those of luxury and of lust. This infamous practice was common through all Greece, but was more especially a chief branch of the Corinthian commerce. Their city was the head-quarters of prostitution, and the great market for the supply of it.
Now to this practice the Apostle alludes, but in such a manner as implies the severest reproof of it. His remonstrance is to this effect. “Ye Corinthians, in your former pagan state, made no scruple to consider your slaves as your own absolute property. Your pretence was, that ye had bought them with a price; that is, with a piece of money, which could be no equivalent for the natural inestimable liberty and dignity of a fellow-creature; yet ye claimed to yourselves their entire, unreserved service; and often condemned them to the vilest and most ignominious.
“To turn now, says the Apostle, from these horrors to a fairer scene; for I take advantage only of your ideas in this matter, to lead you to just notions of your present Christian condition. God, the sole rightful proprietor of the persons of men, left you in the state of nature, to the enjoyment of your own liberty, with no other restraint upon it than what was necessary to preserve so great a blessing, the restraint of reason. Now, indeed, but still for your own infinite benefit, he claims a stricter property in you, and demands your more peculiar service. He first made you men, but now Christians. Still he condescends to proceed with you in your own way, and according to your own ideas of right and justice. He has bought you with a price: but, merciful heaven, with what price? With that, which exceeds all value and estimation, with the BLOOD of his only begotten Son; the least drop of which is of more virtue than all your hecatombs, and more precious than the treasures of the East. And for what was this price paid? Not to enslave, much less to insult and corrupt you (as ye wickedly served one another), but to redeem you into the glorious liberty of the sons of God: It was, to restore you from death to life, from servitude to freedom, from corruption to holiness, to make to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Say, then, Is this ransom an equivalent for the purchase of you? And is the end for which ye are purchased, such as ye dare complain of, or have reason to refuse? Henceforth, then, ye are not your own: the property of your souls and bodies is freely, justly, equitably, with immense benefit to yourselves, and unspeakable mercy on the part of the purchaser, transferred to God. Your whole and best service is due to him, of strict right: what he demands of you is to serve him in all virtue and godliness of living, and particularly to respect and reverence yourselves; in a word, not to pollute yourselves with forbidden lusts. In this way ye are required to serve your new lord and master, who has the goodness to regard such service, as an honour and glory to himself. Therefore, do your part inviolably and conscientiously, Glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
This is the the Apostle’s idea, when drawn out and explained at large. The reasoning is decisive, as in the former case: and the expression admirably adapted to the circumstances of the persons addressed. In plain words, the argument is this. God has provided, by the sacrifice of the death of Christ, for your redemption from all iniquity, both the service, and the wages of it. By your profession of Christianity, and free acceptance of this inestimable benefit, freely offered to you, ye are become in a more especial manner, his servants: ye are bound, therefore, by every motive of duty and self-interest to preserve yourselves in all that purity of mind and body, which his laws require of you; and for the sake of which ye were taken into this nearer relation to himself. The figure of being bought with a price, was at once the most natural cover of this reasoning, as addressed to the Corinthian Christians; and the most poignant reproof of their country’s inhuman practice of trafficking in the bodies and souls of men.
The force both of the figure and the reasoning is apparently much weakened by this minute comment upon the Apostle’s words, which yet seemed necessary to make them understood.