1 Corinthians 6:19-20 What? know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? 1. To be "our own" is our very greatest ambition. To be our own masters, that is nature. To feel bought with a price, to forego all independence, to own ourselves God's property, and to seek His glory — that is grace. 2. When Satan first attacked our first parents, nothing could have done so well as this, "Ye shall be as gods"; and, in that reach to be their own, they perished. 3. God has been pleased so to order it, that no man can truly say, "I am my own"; "Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are," &c. Oh, we all know how we are trammelled by circumstances, there is not a single action in our life that is perfectly free. In what a higher sense this word is true of those to whom it was said, "Ye are not your own." 4. Of all the happy conditions upon earth, the happiest is to give up the whole heart to an authority which the whole heart can quite love and respect — an authority also which only needs proprietorship to make the relationship exquisite and the engagement perfect. Note — I. GOD'S PROPERTY IN YOU. 1. Had one whole world been given for your salvation the price would have been a large one; but the whole universe would not have given so great a sum as the death of Christ. One single life offered for you would have been vast, but Essential Life Himself was the ransom of your soul. Ought you to be a poor, wretched slave, to fear sin, death, and hell, when the Son of God took fear, sin, death, and hell into His own heart to make you free? 2. The art of man may contrive a thing, and he has a right to anything that he has made. But he contrives out of what he finds already made, not what he brings into creation. But God made your body, soul, and spirit. A father has a right to his child, but God has done more than made you His child, for He has given you the spirit of a child, to cry "Abba Father." A husband has a property in his wife — but marriage is only a type of the union between Christ and His Church. Every man has a right to his own body — Christ has more than a right to His body, being the Head, and we all members in particular; so that each condition of life teaches us with one common voice, "Ye are not your own." II. THE CONSEQUENCES ARISING FROM THAT FACT. 1. The great privilege which attaches to being the property of God. What-ever property one has, it entails certain duties upon the proprietors, and certainly God will not fail in fulfilling the great relationship in which He stands to His creatures. Are you "not your own," but God's? Then observe " all things are yours," &c. God holds Christ — Christ holds you — you hold everything. Then if "you are not your own," nothing which you have is your own, not your cares, griefs, or sins. God has undertaken for you in everything. The member may pass everything up to its Head — the thing possessed may refer everything to its possessor. 2. The duties which spring out of this great privilege. (1) God has made you a part of His Church, the body of Christ. In that Church we all belong one to another. Each has his particular gift to contribute to the mutual good, one has love, another intelligence, another experience — all belong to the Church. (2) This claim of God's proprietorship is not perfectly recognised. We may assign Him a part of our lives — a part of our money — a part of our time — a part of our energies — a part of our affections, but God will have no partnerships. He is too great to be a partner, He requires all of us. God is worthy of everything — yield all yourself to Him. (J. Vaughan, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? |
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