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?… The motive to the duty set before us in this passage is the most solemn in the whole sum of human thought. "Ye are bought with a price," says the apostle; "therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." But how are we to fulfil this duty? 1. To glorify God is to think of God. It is evident that all human actions commence in the mind of men. The mind, under some impulse or motive, moves and then the man moves. For every act is, at first, a thought. From thence come the various actions of men pertaining to their fellows, and the other actions also which refer to God. We often say that some men do not think, but it is evident that if they did not think they would not act. But everybody does think. Men think about life and society, about dress and manners, about literature and science, about history and politics. But the great fault of man is that the range of his thought is temporal and carnal. He has but the fewest flights toward the heavens. And this is a great sin. Nothing can be more evident than the guilt of shutting out from the mind the grandest Being and the noblest idea which can reach the intellect — thought of the Infinite and Eternal One. Its sinfulness shows itself by a lower but similar transgression. What would you think of a child who lived day by day under the blessedness and the loving care of a devoted parent, and yet from design and purpose passed by that parent, day by day, year by year, and determinedly shut him out from all thought and consideration? First observe that a large portion of our fellow-creatures drop God from their thought, passively, through neglect, without intention, with no set and formal purpose to dishonour Him, but carelessly and indifferently. But another class of men set God aside purposely and deliberately. They will not have the idea of God present in their minds. They will not let the things of God circle their brains, stimulate their lives, or influence their conduct. But to think carelessly of God is neglect; to think reluctantly of Him is vicious; to think angrily and repulsively of Him is monstrous, and amounts to abomination and ruin. To glorify God, then, implies as the very first thing that we think of Him. We are to begin by opening the mind, and craving the entrance therein of the thoughts of the Eternal. To think of God aright is to take Him, formally and solemnly, and put Him before the mind, and then to contemplate Him before and behind, in the depths and in the heights, in His attributes, in His decrees, in His covenants, in the great salvation of His Son, with reverence, with awe, with humility. This it is to think of God. This is the root idea of glorifying God. But this is not enough — it is only the beginning. 2. To glorify God is to take the convictions which come from right thinking and to turn them into aspirations. This is the next step toward honouring the Maker. We must not suffer thought to become bedridden in the soul. Few things are more injurious to the mind than that passive contemplation which fails to run out into active desires or stimulated hope. It will do no good for us to think about God if such thought is not used as a means to an end, but it will do us harm. It will make us insensible. It will make us irreverent. The insensibility will be the direct result of handling an awful and majestic idea without a spiritual purpose. The irreverence will come from taking liberties with the Divine name, perchance, for mere speculation. Thought concerning God, then, is legitimate when it tends to the elevation of the soul to a higher plane of being. To think, merely to think, would be somewhat as for a river to flow from its source, and then to flow back again to its original spring. It may be assumed as a principle of our being that all our acts, internal or external, are only then healthy and genuine when they reach forward to something beyond and nobler than themselves. We see this in nature. The illumination of the sun is not self-exhausted. It comes down to earth with vivifying fructification, diffusing life, and health, and joyous animation in all things and in all creatures. And that is its beneficence and its glory. The analogy is most exact with regard to the soul. Thinking about God is not the end of God-thinking. Thinking of God is the most glorious of all means to a nobler end, that is, the glory of God. When it is mere thinking — albeit God is the object of thought — it is, nevertheless, mere speculation on God. And mere speculation, as such, concerning God has no more value than speculation concerning a mountain or a mine. Never, perhaps, in the history of God's Church was there a man who thought so much, so deeply, so continually of God as David did. It was the occupation of his life. What was the result of this habit? What fruit sprung from this constant meditation concerning God? One single paragraph from the writings of David will show you. "Like as the hart desireth the water brooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God." And here I return directly to the point from which I have slightly departed. Take the convictions which come from right thinking, and turn them, as David did, into heavenly aspirations. Meditate constantly on the character of God. Bring His loving and majestic attributes vividly before you. You see, for instance, that God is good. Take, then, the fact, that is the goodness of God, out of the domain of thought, and make it an aspiration of your soul. Strive after goodness — God's goodness, as a personal possession, and run along the lines of excellence and moral beauty for the fashioning of your inner and your outer life. Take the purity of God as an object of admiration. Bring it down from the sphere of speculation, and then send it up to the throne of God — a living flame of desire for your own personal purity in body, mind, and spirit. Think of the righteousness of God! Hear it in the stern accents of Mount Sinai, in the thunders of the Law! Hear it in the expiatory plaints of sacrificed animals; see it in their flowing blood! Take the love of God. You can if you choose look at it as a distant object of thought and contemplation. But I exhort you to covet the spirit of love as your own personal possession. Indeed there is not a phase of the Divine existence, not an attribute of God, not a decree, not a commandment, however abstract it may be, but that, with the aid of the Spirit, may be fused with heat and fire from above, and become changed in our pure souls into burning desires and heavenly aspirations. 3. To glorify God is to realise the aspirations of the soul into the activities of life. This is practical religion; it answers the requirements of our blessed Lord that we do His commandments. And there can be no true religion without this habit of outward obedience. Mere conviction of the brain, or mere spiritual aspiration, separate from conduct, are each, or both together, insufficient. We must do God's holy will. Just this test is laid down by our blessed Saviour — "If ye love Me keep My commandments." To talk of how we feel, or what we think concerning Christ, is an idle tale. No, what our Lord desires is something which has passed out and beyond mere human conceit into actual living reality. Did you ever think of that word reality? of its full meaning, of its mighty import, of its wide scope and bearing? Reality! that is religion made personal in the Christian life, act, word, conduct, and bearing of living disciples. I beg to commend the apostle's injunction to your earnest consideration. The master end of existence, whether in angel or in man, is the glory of God. Anything below this end is a ruinous and insulting prostitution of powers. (A. Crummell.) 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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