Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
Paul is writing to believers in Corinth about sexual immorality, and he argues not from rules but from a fact they already had: the Spirit of God lives in their bodies. This raises two questions — who owns the body, and what follows from God living in it.
A Question That Exposes What They Had Forgotten
The verse does not open with new information. It opens with a rebuke shaped like a question, and it is not the only one in the chapter.
W. W. FeredayThis verse is another precious display of grace. The words "Do you not know?" repeated six times in this chapter, were meant as reminders of the great things the Corinthians had been taught, but which they were letting slip. A terrible danger for us also!
Knowing a truth and being governed by it are not the same thing.
F. B. HoleAnd further than this, they were proclaiming their own ignorance. Verse 2 begins with "Do you not know?" We meet that same question five more times before the chapter ends. Like many other worldly believers, the Corinthians did not know as much as they thought they did. If truth governs us, we really know it. Mere intellectual knowledge does not count.
The Temple Is the Body
Paul could have said the soul or the spirit. He named the body — and that choice controls how far the claim reaches.
Leslie M. GrantThe Spirit of God lives in our body so that His character shows in the way we live. Notice that He does not call our spirits or souls His temple, but our bodies. So "You are not your own" is not only about our spiritual life. It covers our bodies too.
Two Ways God Lives Among Us
The Spirit lives in each believer, and He also lives among believers gathered together. These two are not the same thing.
J. N. DarbyThe Spirit of God makes a clear difference between His living in one person and His living among believers together... Without the blood of Christ that has cleansed us, we would call it a shameful idea for the Holy Spirit to live in our poor bodies as His temple. But His testimony is to the value of that blood.
Why God Can Live There at All
The Spirit's presence in a human body is not something God had always done. It waited for a finished work.
G. C. WillisGod did not live with Adam in the Garden of Eden, even before he sinned. God did not dwell with Abraham, though He visited him, and Abraham was called "the friend of God"... Now that redemption is finished, He comes to live in each believer. He also lives among His people, gathered together by the Holy Spirit. His presence in us is more than conversion. Those washed in the blood of Jesus become the dwelling place of God.
"You Are Not Your Own"
Ownership sounds like a loss of freedom. Read the other way, it is the only freedom there is.
J. N. DarbyMoreover, we are not our own, but were bought with a price — the blood of Christ offered for us... Our true liberty is to belong to God. Everything we do for ourselves is stolen from the One who bought us for Himself. Everything a slave was, or earned, belonged to his master; he did not own himself. So it is with the Christian. Outside of that, he is the wretched slave of sin and of Satan.
What This Rules Out
Paul is confronting a sin that strikes the body itself — the very thing God has claimed.
William KellyHe would have them avoid sexual sin above all, because it is unlike every other sin. It is a sin against the body itself, while other sins are outside the body. How dreadful, then, to think of any body used that way — and worse, the Christian's body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit! It is His temple not because we dedicated it to Him, but because He Himself lives in us. God gave Him to us, because Christ bought us with His blood.
Taking the fact seriously changes behaviour without anyone needing to police it.
J. Wilson SmithLet me take hold of this truth with power, and I will shrink from sin of every kind. I will hold on to the holiness that fits a Guest like this. I will seek not to grieve Him, but to encourage Him. I am not my own.
Summary
- Reminded — "Do you not know?" runs six times through this chapter. Paul is not teaching new truth. He is recovering forgotten truth, and truth only counts when it rules your life.
- Purchased — the price paid was the blood of Christ, and it bought the body, not just the soul. Living for yourself is theft from the One who owns you.
- Indwelt — God never lived in Adam or Abraham. He lives in believers now only because redemption is finished and the blood has washed them clean.
- Bodily — the temple is the body. So the claim covers every physical act, not just the spiritual side of life.
- Guarded — sexual sin gets special mention because it strikes the body itself, the very place God has claimed. Grasp who lives there, and you shrink from sin of every kind.