"If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple." [1 Corinthians 3:17]
Consider this one more friendly reminder from the Scriptures that God so fiercely loves humanity and regards us as precious that God will not stand for the ways we dehumanize each other and treat one another as disposable. That isn't of God.
If that's the conclusion to be drawn from this statement of Paul's, let me go back and show my work to make it clear how we arrive there. At first, we might think this verse is just God getting territorial about turf--as if Paul is merely saying on God's behalf, "You don't mess with God's stuff, or God's property, or God's house!" possibly followed up with, "And you kids better get off God's lawn, too!" with some angry fist-shaking. We might be tempted to read this just as a matter of protecting God's ego, like God is so insecure as to feel threatened over puny human actions. But of course, this isn't really about brick-and-mortar buildings needing to be protected--it's about people. And when it comes to the well-being of people (all of whom are made in the image of God, mind you), the living God does have a way of going all Mama Bear and protecting those who are endangered.
This is an important point: God turns out to be a lot less worried about religious buildings (even if it's called "The Temple") than about the way human beings (who are made in God's image and meant to be living temples for God) are treated with dignity and respect. The actual Jerusalem Temple was destroyed--twice--and both times, the Scriptures record God warning the people it would happen and then letting foreign empires raze it to the ground to shake the people awake from their complacency. In the sixth century before Christ, God had been warning the people that the Babylonians would come knocking, and the prophets insisted that God had in fact allowed their armies to destroy the temple. Ezekiel even saw a vision of God's glory getting up and moving out of the Temple in advance, as if to say God was shaking the dust off the divine sandals and getting out of there before it happened, so that it was clear God wasn't going to be hurt, affected, or injured by the demolition of a building. Jesus, too, warned the people of his day that their current trajectory was going to lead to the Second Temple being destroyed, and he lamented that he longed to gather them from their wayward path to his care like a mother hen. And again, what do you know, but a few years after Paul wrote this letter, the Romans besieged Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple once again. Jesus himself was the one enacting a symbolic "destruction" of the Temple when he drove out the moneychangers and overturned the tables in the Temple, bringing business to an end for at least a short while. All of this is to say that the Bible's actual witness is that God is not nearly so territorial about the physical building of the Temple than we might have thought at first blush.
But on the other hand, when it comes to human beings, the Scriptures show that God takes a much harder line. Human beings, after all, are the original "temple" of God--the meeting place between God and creation, the bearers of the divine image like a temple was supposed to be in the ancient world. So Paul takes the idea of a Temple as most people thought of it and says that really it's us--the people of God--where God has chosen to dwell. And yeah, God is protective about people. God will not let harm of other people go unaddressed. God does not shrug with indifference when image-bearers are treated like they are disposable--especially when other image-bearers are the ones causing the harm. Now, it doesn't mean that the moment someone hurts someone else, a divinely-sent lightning bolt zaps the offender for causing damage to a person who is a "living temple." God's kind of restoration and justice will come in God's way, in God's time, and by God's choice of agency--so that rules out you or me appointing ourselves God's instruments of vengeance. But like Dr. King was fond of reminding us, "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." In other words, God does care about putting things right, defending those who are harmed or dehumanize, and God will not let that abuse be the last word.
What that means for us is two-fold. For one, when we are the ones suffering harm, hurt, or dehumanizing treatment from others, God sees, God knows, and God will not let those wrongs go uncorrected before all is said and done. We are not authorized to deputize ourselves into pursuing vendettas and revenge or returning evil for evil (much less pre-emptively seeking to "get them before they get us"), but we can be confident that God does not want us to continue to suffer abuse. But it is also vital to say the same about the other side of the coin--when someone else is being hurt, or being treated like they are disposable, or belittled, threatened, or endangered, God takes a side there, too--and God summons us to care for the vulnerable in those situations. We are called to be advocates, allies, and accompanying presences when other human beings--who are bearers of God's image simply in the fact of their humanity--are harmed or regarded as less-than. We can walk with those having stones thrown at them. Our presence can shield them and suffer with them. We can offer our bodies in solidarity and our voices to amplify their own cries for justice. And we will respond that way when others are endangered because we have learned here from the Scriptures just how fiercely God cares about those who would harm the human temples and image-bearers of God.
Instead of taking pot-shots about how "easily offended other people are," maybe the question we should be asking is why instead it is so easy for us to dismiss other people's hurt, or the ways they are treated as less-than. Maybe then God's own fierce love for other image-bearers will become our own... and stir us to walk with the vulnerable.
Lord God, train our vision to see your people around us as your own living temples, and to recognize in all human beings your own image--and to treat all people with the reverence due to your dwelling place.
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