What is the context?
Paul has called the Corinthians God’s field and building. He now tells them that they themselves are God’s temple because His Spirit dwells among them. The immediate concern is the community being built up or harmed by its members and teachers.
The word for temple, naos (nah-OSS), ναός, is used for a sanctuary. Thayer’s entry applies it here to the community in which God’s Spirit dwells. Their holiness comes from belonging to Him, rather than from the importance of a place or a human leader.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Christians commonly understand Paul to be describing the believers together as God’s temple. Calvin’s comment on verse 16 explicitly reads the community collectively as one temple, a reading that fits the chapter’s concern with building up the church.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
Ephesians 2:19–22 describes people once separated being built together in Christ as a dwelling for God by the Spirit. 1 Peter 2:4–10 similarly calls believers living stones and a holy people who declare God’s goodness.
The temple picture gives a purpose to life together. God forms a people who belong to Him and make Him known. How they treat one another should reflect the presence of the One who dwells among them.
What is our position?
Our study What Is the True Church? draws on this verse to locate God’s dwelling in His people. It calls for reverence expressed through daily conduct and relationships, rather than treating a building as the source of God’s presence.