The Believer and His Body 659
That our body constitutes a temple of the Holy Spirit is a sure fact;
and it can be livingly experienced as well. Yet many are like the
Corinthian believers who forgot this glorious possibility. Though
God’s Spirit does dwell in them, He seems non-existent to them. We
need to exercise faith to believe, to acknowledge and to accept this
fact of God. If we draw on this fact by faith we shall discover that
the Spirit will bring not only the holiness, joy, righteousness and love
of Christ to our souls, but also life, power, health and strength to our
weak, weary and sick bodies. He will give to our earthen vessels the
life of Christ together with the vital elements of His glorious body.
When our body has truly died with Christ, that is, when it is subject
completely to Him, all self-will and independent action denied and
nothing sought but to be a temple of the Lord, then the Holy Spirit
shall assuredly manifest the life of the risen Christ in our mortal
frame. How good it is for us to genuinely experience the Lord in
healing and in strengthening, in His being our health and life! If we
see our tent as a temple of the Holy Spirit we shall follow Him in
wonderment and in love!
“You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify
God in your body” (vv.19-20). You are members of Christ, you are a
temple of the Holy Spirit, you are not your own. You were purchased
by God with a price. Everything of yours belongs to Him, especially
your body. The union of Christ with you and the seal of the Holy
Spirit within you proves that your body particularly is God’s. “So
glorify God in your body.” Brethren, God wishes us to honor Him
there. He wants us to glorify Him both through the consecration of
this “body for the Lord” of ours and also through the grace exhibited
by the “Lord for the body” of His. Let us be sober and watchful lest
we use our bodies for ourselves or permit them to fall into a
condition as though the Lord were not for the body. Thus we shall
glorify God and allow Him to demonstrate His power freely in
delivering us from weakness, sickness and suffering as well as from
self-interest, self-love and sin.