How often have you heard something like this? Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, so you shouldn’t:
- Get a tattoo
- Smoke tobacco
- Eat that diet
- Drink alcohol
On the surface, this makes a sort of weird, backward sense (like the plots of most Christopher Nolan movies).
If my body is a temple, then I guess I should take care of it. And speaking personally, I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m a hardcore bodybuilder who spends hours developing his tritoid and bipec muscles (that’s what they’re called, right?).
But here’s the thing: when Scripture talks about our bodies being temples, it has almost nothing to do with health or tattoos or anything else that gets lumped in.
It’s so much more glorious and profound than that.
The Temple As God’s Dwelling Place
Throughout the Old Testament, God manifested his presence primarily in the temple and the tabernacle. While it was certainly true that God was omnipresent, in all places at all times, his presence was uniquely and specifically located in the temple.
This is why the High Priest feared to enter the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement. There was the distinct chance that he would come face-to-face with the real, immediate presence of God.
And that was a death sentence.
Why?
Because a sinful High Priest could not encounter the unmediated presence of God without being destroyed. The holiness of God is no joke. It is consuming, glorious, brilliant, undoing, crushing, overwhelming, and terrifying. Truly understanding the holiness of God produces a deep fear of the Lord within us.
When Isaiah saw the just the train of God’s robe in Isaiah 6, he immediately began calling divine curses upon himself. In essence, he called for God’s wrath to be poured out on him because he was a sinful man. He knew that the moment God encountered sin, he was morally obligated to obliterate it.
When Moses asked God to show him his glory, God put Moses in a mountain cleft and then only gave him a glimpse of his backside. Why? Because if God allowed Moses any closer, Moses would die.
And let’s not forget Uzzah and Ahio. When the people of Israel moved from place to place, they transported the Ark of the Covenant. When the ark rested in the tabernacle and temple, God’s presence manifested between the cherubim atop the ark.
In Exodus 25:22, God says this about the ark:
There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.
In 2 Samuel 6, when the ark was being transported, the oxen pulling the cart stumbled. In what, on the surface, seems like a noble gesture, Uzzah reached out and kept the ark from falling to the ground.
Big mistake.
God immediately struck Uzzah dead for defiling the presence of God.