Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s Spirit lives in you?
Parallel translations
- KJV Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
- BSB Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
- NKJV Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
- NASB Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
- NLT Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The Corinthian church is God's temple, indwelt by His Spirit. Together they are the holy dwelling place of God.
Overview
Paul declares that the church corporately is 'a temple of God,' where the Spirit dwells. This astonishing truth elevates the local congregation to the place of God's special presence, once located in Jerusalem's temple. It grounds the warning that follows: to harm the church is to assault God's own dwelling.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 20
- 1 Cor 6:19Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
- Ezek 36:27I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my ordinances, and do them.
- 2 Cor 6:16What agreement has a temple of God with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
- Rom 8:11But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
- Eph 2:21–22in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord;
- Rom 8:9But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.
- John 14:17the Spirit of truth, whom the world can’t receive; for it doesn’t see him, neither knows him. You know him, for he lives with you, and will be in you.
- 1 Pet 2:5You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
- 2 Tim 1:14That good thing which was committed to you, guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.
- 1 Jn 4:15–16Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God.
- Heb 3:6but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house; whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.
- 1 Jn 4:12No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.
- Rom 6:3Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
- 1 Cor 9:24Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win.
- 1 Cor 9:13Don’t you know that those who serve around sacred things eat from the things of the temple, and those who wait on the altar have their portion with the altar?
- 1 Cor 6:2–3Don’t you know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
- 1 Cor 6:16Or don’t you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For, “The two”, he says, “will become one flesh.”
- 1 Cor 6:9Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals,
- 1 Cor 5:6Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump?
- Jas 4:4You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Christ crucified is the wisdom and power of God; he is our Passover sacrificed for us, the firstfruits of resurrection, the foundation on which everything is built.
How 1 Corinthians 3:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.