The apostle said: “We are God’s fellow workers”; however, God is the initiator of all the good things in you. You accept his grace, and this is communion. The Lord doesn’t oblige us to do anything. You accept the gift and make it fruitful. This is why Paul clarified after that saying: You are God’s field (and this is an agricultural figure) and God’s building (giving the image of a building). The author of the Epistle believes that a constructor is wise when he builds on God’s basis.
Then, he addresses every believer to draw his attention to God’s role in this construction. He reminds him that the only basis is Jesus Christ. Therefore, we do not build according to another religion and we don’t mix our doctrine with another.
Therefore, if we lived in straight doctrine, our work will appear in the last day. All our behaviors will appear to the Lord in the final judgment, and this examining that God does to us has been called “fire” by Paul because fire separates metal from gold. For if your work survived through the examining you shall be awarded, however you may lose in the examination.
And for the Corinthians to understand that they have to examine themselves, Paul said: “You are God’s temple”, because God doesn’t live anymore in Jerusalem’s Temple. Christ’s body is the temple and you are Christ’s body. The Church is you. And you will become God’s temple through the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in you, and this, you shall take through “Myron”, which is the anointment of the Spirit, if you preserved this anointment and didn’t erase it.
This anointment will continue and you will be called Messiahs (which means the anointed). You are sealed like a sealed letter than no one can read except the one it was sent to. Being sealed means that you are only for Christ and not for any leader or bishop. You are from the household of those who love Christ.
Beware not to ruin God’s temple by selling it to someone other than Christ or by destroying parts of it because it will become ruined and the Holy Spirit will leave it. There are people that live without the Holy Spirit. I fear that the Spirit would leave you as a dead body. You ruin the temple if you accepted a thought that Christ doesn’t accept and if you became subject to worldly thinking. You also ruin the temple if you purposely sinned and let the devil spread his thoughts in your heart.
When the Apostle said “You are God’s temple”, he didn’t use the word temple in plural because we are all one in Jesus Christ. Love makes us one temple for him. If you surrendered once to hatred, you shall go out from your belonging to this temple.
The Church is one because it emerges from Christ, but its unity can’t be preserved except through the unity of its children. It is a unity with Christ and with the brothers. And if you didn’t preserve this, you would be living in maliciousness, arrogance and pride. While if you preserved the unity in all situations, you should know that this is coming from Christ and that he is preserving you in his love so that you won’t die every day in sin.
Christ has risen from the dead so that none of you would stay spiritually dead, today or tomorrow.
Translated by Mark Najjar
Original Text: “هيكل الله” –Raiati 33- 14.08.2011
