170 II. CORINTHIANS 6, 16.

the introduction of idols into God's temple. For ye are the temple of the Iwing God. There would be no propriety in the preceding illustration if believers were not God's temple. This, therefore, the apostle first asserts and then proves. The text is here uncertain. The majority of MSS. read with the common text, v/xci?, ye ; Lachraann, Meyer and some other editors, on the authority of a few MSS. and of the context, read T7/x€ts, we. The sense is substantially the same. The common text is to be preferred both on external and internal grounds. The apostle is addressing the Corinthians, and prop- erly therefore says. Ye are the temple of God. A temple is not a building simply consecrated to God, but one in which he dwells, as he dwelt by the visible manifestation of his glory in the temple of old. Hence heaven, as God's dwelling place, is called his temple. Ps. 11, 2. Habak. 2, 20. Christ's body is called a temjole, because in him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead. John 2, 19. Believers collectively, or the church, is God's temple, because inhabited by his Spirit, Eph. 2, 21, and for the same reason every individual believer, and every believer's body is a temple of God. 1 Cor. 3, 16. 6, 19. To prove that they were the temple of God, individually and col- lectively, he therefore cites the declaration of the Scriptures that God dwells in his people. " I will dwell in them and walk in them." God is said to dwell wherever he specially and permanently manifests his presence. And since he thus specially and permanently manifests his presence in his people collectively and individually, he is said to dwell in all and in each. To walk in them is sim23ly a j3arallelism with the pre- ceding clause, expressing the idea of the divine presence in another form. The nearest approach to the words here cited is Lev. 26, 11. 12, where the same thought is expressed, though in somewhat different words. Instead of, "I will set my tabernacle among you," the apostle expresses the same idea by saying, "I will dwell in them." In them., is not simply among tliem, because the presence of God by his Spirit is al- ways represented as internal, in the heart. " If Christ be in you," says the apostle, "the body is dead, &c." "If the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwell in you, &c." Rom. 8, 10. 11. So of every believer our Lord says, " If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him ; and we ^vill come unto him, and make our abode with him," John 14, 23. Every thing is full of God. An insect, a flower, is a constant manilcstation of his presence