Your Body Is God’s Property
1 Corinthians 6:19-20:
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?
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
In the clearest terms, Paul said that your body is God’s, not your own. Both your spirit and your body were bought with the same price – the precious blood of Jesus.
Once you realize this, you will see how foolish it is to think that God would want your body to be sick. Why would God mutilate His own personal possession? Do you think that God wants “the temple of the Holy Ghost” to be broken down and out of commission? What glory would He get from that?
Under the Law of Moses, God spent chapters and chapters discussing every minor detail of His earthly tabernacle. He was so concerned about His Old Testament temple that we might wonder sometimes why He committed such a large amount of space to it. Moses had to make made everything according to the pattern God showed him on the mountain. There were to be no substitutions and no compromises.
If God was that concerned about His tabernacle in the desert, how much more should He be concerned about His New Testament tabernacle – believers! Does God no longer care if His “house” is in rough shape? Or was He more concerned about how many pillars and hooks and sockets were in place fulfilling their functions than about whether your organs are in place fulfilling their functions?
Under the Old Covenant, God did not allow sickness in His holy sanctuary! Leviticus 21:16-23 contains laws stating that various classes of sick or deformed people were not to approach God with offerings because they would profane His sanctuaries. Because God did not want His Old Testament sanctuary to be profaned with sickness, He certainly does not want His New Testament sanctuary (you) to have sickness! (You DO have the right to approach God if you’re sick or deformed in the New Testament.)
1 Corinthians 6:15:
Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
Here your body is called a member of Christ. How do you suppose Christ feels about His own members? We can see below in the next passage:
Ephesians 5:28-32:
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
We read here that Jesus nourishes and cherishes His Church. We are members of His body. The Church is referred to as the Body of Christ on the earth. Why would Jesus make a member of His body sick when He cherishes His body? Our flesh is His flesh on the earth! He is concerned about it. We are one with Christ and our bodies belong to Him.
1 Corinthians 6:13:
Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
God would not sicken you for some unknown reason because He is for your body, not against your body! God is in favor of your health (3 John 2), not against it! Moreover, your body is “for the Lord.” You are to use your body to serve and glorify Jesus. You can serve and glorify Jesus far more effectively outside a hospital than inside a hospital.
Your body is “for the Lord.” God has not made healing available so that you can carouse and get drunk and otherwise sin with more vitality and strength. Your body is His, and you should present it to Him as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1). If you are holding out on God in one area of your life, you may not be able to be open to Him in another area of your life. If He’s dealing with you to stop taking your body to a strip club and you resist His pleadings, it will be hard to receive healing from cancer from Him in that same body, which you have trained NOT to cooperate with God’s agenda. It would be like trying to welcome God into your house while simultaneously slamming the door in His face. My general assumption throughout this book is that I am addressing God-fearing, Jesus-loving, consecrated Christians. Things will go better in your body when you treat it as God’s property and present it to Him as a living sacrifice.