Temples and bodies

So, we talked about Temples in church today during Priesthood. I've also been doing some reading in a Hugh Nibley book ("Temple and Cosmos"). These things got me started thinking.

We can learn something about what the Temple is by its etymology. Our English word "Temple" comes from the Latin "Templum" and is related to another English word, "template." In many ways, the Temple acts as a template for Latter-day Saints. It's something that tells us where we come from and where we're going, something that lays down the moral laws that we are expected to follow. It's a template for our lives and our worldview.

The Latin word "Templum" itself derives from the Greek word, "Temno," which means "to cut off." Ancient Greek temples were places that were cut off from the regular world (or as we might say, "set apart") and devoted to deity. Similarly, modern temples are edifices, physical buildings that lie on land that has been consecrated out of the world and reserved for the worship of the Lord.

Although the word temple in its primary meaning denotes a physical building, the Scriptures sometimes use the word in symbolic and metaphorical ways. For example, Paul uses the temple as a metaphor for the church. In his 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, he writes, "Ye are God's building" (3:9). Later, he writes "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you" (3:16)? The grammar of this section suggests that Paul is talking about the church as a whole being a Temple, rather than the individual members. Although Paul uses the plural "ye" to address his audience, he does not say, "ye are temples," but rather "ye are the temple." Similarly, the footnote in the LDS version of the scriptures notes that the word translated "in" in the KJV can also be translated "within" or "among."

Thus, the church is a great symbolic temple, and we are parts of it. When we act righteously and have strong bonds of love and devotion binding us to our fellow church members, the Spirit of God can dwell among us. But if we are uncharitable and contentious, then the Spirit of the Lord won't be able to dwell among us. In this way, if we mistreat each other, if we fail to truly love each other, we are "defiling the temple of God," and Paul foretells grave consequences for this: "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (1 Cor 3:17)

Incidentally, I believe it is in this way that we are to understand the metaphor of being built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone (Eph 2:20). When God uses architectural metaphors to describe the church, it seems likely to me that the building he's describing is a temple.

Paul makes the temple a metaphor for something else besides the church, though. According to Paul, the human body is a temple. After his injunction to "flee fornication," Paul gives his reasons why: "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you" (1 Cor 6:19). As members of the Church, we have been commanded (in a physical ordinance) to "receive the Holy Ghost." We are further told in the sacramental prayers that the Holy Ghost can "always be with us." In this way, our bodies are to be a house for the Holy Ghost, just as the Temple is the House of the Lord.

Interestingly, Paul points out that our bodies are not our own. We have them "of God, and ye are not your own" (1 Cor 6:19). In the creation, Christ formed our bodies. In the atonement, He paid for them and redeemed them from death. In baptism, we pledge ourselves to Him. In just as real a way as consecrated Temples are the Lord's, so also our bodies are His: set apart, "cut off" from the world, intended for something higher, holier and more beautiful.