Articles
A Living Sanctuary
Our youngest grandson, Jonathan, is ten this year. When he was about two his mother called
on the telephone and told us, “Jonathan has a song he wants to sing for you.” I can still “hear” his
pure, sweet baby voice singing a song I had not at that time heard before, “Oh, Lord, prepare me
to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. With thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary for
You.”
The song’s scriptural basis is, “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you,
whom you have from God” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
“Sanctuary” and “temple” are words for “The place where the Lord your God chooses to
make His Name abide” (Deut. 12:11). From the time of Solomon, the place where Israel met
God was in the Jerusalem temple at the Holy of Holies. Now in Christ, God meets us in
ourselves. He sends His Spirit to live in us when we obey the gospel.
Our church buildings are often erroneously spoken of as “God’s house.” So, it is thought to
be an especially horrible sin to vandalize, write vicious, hateful, or obscene things on our
buildings. But the apostle tells us here that using our bodies for an immoral lifestyle is the way
we defile God’s temple. “Oh, Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and
true.”
“Pure and holy” is the key point. Our bodies must be pure and holy for God’s spirit to dwell
there. The apostle says, “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body,
but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your
body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God” (1 Cor. 6:18-19)?
It is one thing to be able to say just how the Holy Spirit dwells in the Christian’s life, but the
most important thing is to recognize that He does. Strive to keep His sanctuary pure.
~ Cecil May Jr.; Faulkner University (edited for space)
