12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
16Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? 17If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
Dig Deeper
As a high school basketball coach, I learned rather quickly that the foundation to each season was laid during the months leading up to the season itself. The hard work, conditioning, and training that a team put in during those off-season months usually determined the type of season they would have. A team without a good foundation would not have a good season. The only thing worse than that was to see a team that did all of the hard work and laid a solid foundation, to turn around during the season and squander it all with laziness and dissension. It’s foolish to try to build on a poor foundation; it is irresponsible to build an improper structure on a strong foundation.
In the preceding verses, Paul makes it clear to the Corinthian community that there is no other foundation than that of Jesus Christ. His concern now is that they are building a suspect structure on that rock solid foundation. Paul has already reminded them that they are part of the larger movement of the people of God, but they are also, in a sense, responsible for the building of their own local structure. He lays out for them that there are two sets of materials that could be metaphorically used in the building of their community in Christ. The two sets of materials are directly opposed to one another in type, in cost, and in durability. The first set of building materials, gold, silver, costly stones, are the type of materials that would be used in the building of a Temple. Although Paul doesn’t state that directly in verse 12, he will demonstrate in verse 16 that this is what he had in mind all along. The other set of materials are of the cheap sort that one would use to build a temporary structure, but not something eternal like a Temple for the holy God.
Paul’s concern here, though, is not as much with what is being built or the materials used, but rather with the builders themselves. God will achieve His desired results with someone else, if they are not willing, but Paul loves this group of people and wants them to build wisely. This is because a day is coming which will demonstrate the quality of their work. Paul alludes here to the Day of the Lord (1 Cor. 1:8) as the day when this work will be revealed by the fire of testing. In using this image, Paul uses a technique common to the Old Testament prophets. He speaks of a near future event, all the while he has the final consummating event in mind. In this case, the Day of the Lord will happen in one sense at the soon-coming (for Paul) day of judgment poured out on apostate Israel in AD 70. Yet, at the same time, Paul has an eye on, and uses imagery from the final judgment day that will occur at the glorious second coming of Christ. In a very real physical sense, the Church will be greatly persecuted during the time leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, and a community built shabbily will clearly demonstrate that they have been built with shoddy materials. This will be a pointer, a picture of sorts, of the type of revealing process that will happen on the final day of this present age. It is at that time, that the righteous will be judged and rewarded (Matt. 5:12) for the good that they have done.
So does Paul mean to say that the world will be literally burned up with fire? Not likely. It is far more likely that Paul, in a manner similar to Peter in 2 Peter 3:7, is referring to the presence of God, the consuming fire (Ex. 24:17; Deut. 4:24; 2 Sam. 22:9; Ps. 18:8; Isa. 30:27, 30; Heb. 12:29) that will fill the physical dimension of the universe. It is this consuming fire of the Holy God that will burn up in judgment those opposed to him while refining and purifying His own (Mal. 3:2-5).
It is important to note that Paul assures the Church that even if they do make the foolish choice of building with shoddy materials, this will not disqualify them from the ‘age to come’. Paul affirms this in Romans 8:38-39 when he says: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul never argues, however, that we cannot separate ourselves from God based on our own free will decision. Paul doesn’t describe what he means by suffering loss but does offer some assurance that they will still make it through the flames of judgment.
In verse 16, Paul returns to the concept of the Temple, as the reason why the building materials are so important. In the Old Testament, every item used for the Tabernacle and Temple was specifically prescribed by God. The valuable materials used and the care with which they were used, pointed ahead in Paul’s thinking, to the care and precision that should be used by each body of Christ in the building of their community. He uses the word naos, for Temple, which is the word that described the inner sanctuary where the Shekinah glory of God dwelt, rather than heiron which was the word used for the structure of the Temple itself. Just as the presence of the living God dwelt in the Temple built by human hands, He now was dwelling in the inner Temple of the body of Christ.
Paul gives a warning here against anyone who would destroy God’s Temple. This is a stark warning indeed, yet the imagery should not be pressed too far. Since we know that the Kingdom of God cannot be destroyed (Matt. 16:18; Heb. 12:28), this language must be understood as Paul stressing the importance of the Temple, the people of God, not as an actual threat as though someone could completely destroy that Temple. It is more likely that Paul uses the word phtheiro, translated as destroy in the TNIV, in the sense of “defile” as is translated in the KJV. Thus, his point is that those who attempt to defile God’s new Temple or treat it as defiled will find themselves judged as defiled by God.
Devotional Thought
In this section, Paul is admonishing the community of Christ to build their section of God’s kingdom wisely and with timeless materials. In the Old Testament, Nehemiah and the men of Jerusalem completed the rebuilding of the wall around the city in less than two months by having each man focus on the section in front of his own house (Neh. 3). With what sort of materials are you building your small section of God’s kingdom? Are you and those in your Christian community building with gold, silver, and costly stones? What exactly does it mean for you to build with those materials? What are some ways in which you might build with wood, hay, or straw?
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